Chapter 1: The Cell Door Opens
The fluorescent light buzzed, a dying insect trapped in the ceiling, casting a sickly glare over the white tiles. Every surface was cold, hard, and clean in a way that felt violent. Ella sat in the corner, her knees drawn to her chest, invisible. It was her default state now, a reflex as natural as breathing. The silence was a physical weight, broken only by the hum of the light and the distant, muffled echo of boots on metal grating.
She focused on the smell: antiseptic, ozone, and beneath it, the coppery tang of fear. Her fear. It had its own scent.
The heavy steel door at the front of the cell hissed, then groaned open on hydraulic pistons. Ella froze, her breath catching in her throat. She pressed herself tighter against the wall, as if she could melt into it. Two sets of boots. Standard-issue, black, scuffed at the toes. She didn’t look up. Looking up made you real.
But these steps were different. One pair moved with the stiff, regimented cadence she’d come to dread. The other… it was a loose, almost jauntiful saunter. A shuffle, a tap, a soft scuff against the tile. Unprofessional.
“Cell’s empty, sir,” a guard’s voice stated, bored.
“Uh-huh.” The new voice was a low rasp, textured like gravel wrapped in velvet. It held a laugh that wasn’t being shared. “You guys really need to budget for some Windex. The fuck is that, a thumbprint? It’s been driving me nuts since I got off the elevator.”
Ella risked a glance.
The guard in the doorway looked irritated, his hand resting on his stun baton. The man beside him was a blasphemy against the sterile whiteness. He was tall, lean, and dressed in a suit of red and black that looked like it had been sewn together by a vengeful cartoonist. He tilted his head, scanning the empty cell.
His eyes, visible through the mask, didn’t glide over her. They stopped. Right where she was.
He sniffed the air.Loudly. Twice.
“Anyway, my invoice is time-sensitive, so if you could just point me toward the guy who signs the checks—preferably before his 3 PM colonic—that’d be swell.” He took a casual step into the cell, then another, waving a hand at the guard. “I’ll just wait here. Soak in the… minimalist decor.”
The guard muttered something about procedure, but the door slid shut with a definitive thunk, leaving the man in the suit alone in the cell.With her.
He didn’t look at the door. He turned slowly on the spot, his hands on his hips, and let out a long, low whistle. He took one final, purposeful step forward, stopping so close she could see the intricate weave of his mask, the scars around his eyes. He leaned down, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that skittered down her spine.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I can smell your fear. And your perfume. Nice choice, by the way. Gardenias with a hint of ‘oh God, please don’t kill me.’ It’s a complex bouquet.”
Ella’s invisibility wavered. A shimmer passed over her skin, a brief failure of concentration. She became a faint outline, a heat haze in the shape of a woman curled on the floor.
The man snapped his fingers, a soft, dry sound. “Knew it. Cool party trick. The complete absence of you is actually very visually loud. Also, you’re breathing. Little fast, if we’re being critical.” He straightened up, looking toward the door. “We should probably blow this joint before the guys in the cheap boots get bored and decide to play ‘experimental taser golf.’ The name’s Wade. Or Deadpool. Or ‘Oh, For Fuck’s Sake, It’s Him.’ Depends on the greeting card.”
She didn’t move. Couldn’t. This was a new kind of test. It had to be.
Wade sighed, a dramatic, put-upon sound. He crouched down, bringing himself to her eye level. “Look, Ella—yeah, I read the file on the way in, creepy, I know—I’m not with Stryker’ Sunshine Band. I’m what you’d call an independent contractor. My job was to extract some data drives. Morally grey, financially lucrative. Then I saw your picture. Well, your lack of a picture. It was a sketch. A very flattering sketch, I might add, the artist really captured the essence of your… hair.”
He paused, as if waiting for a laugh. The silence stretched.
“Right. Anyway, the file said ‘passive, non-combatant, high-value asset.’ Boring. But then it listed your gifts. Invisibility.Force fields. Instant healing.” He clapped his hands together once, softly. “Bingo. A girl after my own chemically-altered heart. So I made a new contract. With myself. Clause one: find the invisible girl. Clause two: annoy the shit out of the people who put her in a white box. Clause three: profit? Eh, profit is optional. So. You wanna get out of here?”
His words were too fast, too many. They bounced around the cell. But beneath the chaos, the sharp, metallic edge of his anger at this place was real. She could feel it, a heat coming off him.
“Why?” The word left her lips before she could stop it, a fragile sound, barely there.
Wade went very still. “Why?” he repeated, as if the question was bizarre. “Because this place smells like regret and ammonia. Because people who keep other people in boxes are dicks. Because…” He gestured vaguely at her, then at himself. “We’re the weird ones, sweetheart. The freaks. And the freaks have gotta stick together. It’s in the bylaws. Now, can you walk, or do I get to carry you? Because I will, but I have to warn you, my chivalry has a sixty-second time limit before I start complaining about my back.”
A siren began to wail outside, distant but climbing in pitch. Red light flashed in the hallway, bleeding under the door.
Wade’s head snapped toward it. “And that’s our cue. Option B it is.” He moved, not with the rough efficiency of the guards, but with a startling, lethal grace. He didn’t grab her. He simply slid an arm behind her back and under her knees, lifting her as if she weighed nothing. She solidified fully in his arms, her invisibility shattering from sheer surprise. Her brown curls tumbled over his forearm.
“Hi,” he said, looking down at her face now that she was visible. His eyes crinkled. “The freckles are a nice touch. Very ‘constellation chic.’ Hold on to something mildly inappropriate.”
He turned, not toward the door, but toward the back wall of the cell. He kicked the bottom of the tile wall once, hard. A hollow thunk echoed. “Service conduit. Saw it on the blueprints. Always check the blueprints. Or, you know, just start kicking stuff.” He kicked again, higher. The tile cracked.
From the hallway, the sound of pounding boots, shouting. The door lock began to cycle.
Wade set her on her feet, pushed her gently behind him, and pulled two massive pistols from holsters on his back. “Okay, plan is simple. I make a new door. We go through it. Try not to get shot. Especially you. I hate paperwork.”
He aimed at the wall and fired. The sound was catastrophic in the small space. White tile and plaster exploded inward, revealing a dark, narrow duct beyond. He fired again, widening the hole. Debris rained down.
The cell door hissed open. A guard filled the frame, weapon raised. “Freeze!”
Wade didn’t turn around. He simply reached back, hooked an arm around Ella’s waist, and yanked her toward the smoky hole. “Go!”
She stumbled through, into the cool, dusty darkness. A stun beam sizzled past her ear, impacting the wall inside the duct with a crackle of blue energy.
Wade backed in after her, firing his pistols blindly back into the cell. The roar was deafening. He then turned, his body blocking the light from the cell, and grinned at her in the gloom. His mask was smudged with dust.
“See? Teamwork.” The sirens screamed above them. He offered her a hand. “Next stop, somewhere with marginally fewer scientists who want to dissect us. Sound good?”
Ella looked at his extended hand. Then at the chaos visible through the ragged hole. The sterile, silent terror of the cell was gone, replaced by this: smoke, noise, and a scarred man in a stupid suit asking for her trust.
She placed her hand in his. His grip was warm, and solid, and real.
“Sounds good,” she said, her voice a little stronger now.
“Attagirl,” Wade said, and plunged them both into the dark.
The duct was a tight, vertical shaft of gritty darkness. Ella’s shoulders brushed both sides as Wade guided her downward, his hand a firm pressure on her back. The cacophony from the cell grew muffled above them, replaced by the scuff of their movements and the distant, metallic thrum of the facility’s machinery.
“Service conduit my ass,” Wade grumbled, his voice echoing. “This is a glorified garbage chute. If we find a used hypodermic needle, I’m billing Stryker for tetanus shots and emotional distress.”
A beam of light sliced the darkness above. Shouted orders filtered down. Ella flinched, a shimmer passing over her skin.
“Nope, none of that,” Wade said, his head tilted up. “Lights out for the nosy neighbors.” He raised a pistol and fired once upward. The report was deafening in the confined space. The light vanished, replaced by a yelp and a clattering sound. “Warning shot. Probably. I have terrible depth perception in pitch black vertical shafts. It’s my one weakness.”
“You have more than one,” Ella murmured, her voice barely audible.
A beat of silence. Then a delighted chuckle. “She speaks! And she’s a critic. I like it. Keep the commentary coming, it’s better than the audio tour.”
They reached a junction where the shaft intersected a horizontal ventilation duct. Wade kicked out a grating with a shriek of protesting metal. “After you, m’lady. Try not to touch the unidentified sticky substances.”
He followed her into the wider, horizontal space. They could crawl here, and they did, the aluminum buckling and groaning under their weight. Red emergency lights flashed somewhere far below, casting a hellish, rhythmic glow through the slats beneath them.
Ella moved silently, her breathing steadier now, focused on the rhythm of escape. Wade was a noisy contrast, muttering a continuous stream of observations.
“Left. Go left. Right goes toward the incinerator. I’m flammable, but in a fun, temporary way. You probably just… sizzle. Not the vibe we’re going for.”
She followed his direction. The duct began to slope downward. The air grew warmer, carrying the smell of oil and hot electronics.
A new sound joined the chaos—the blare of a general alarm, different from the containment siren. A voice, robotic and calm, echoed through the building. “Security breach. Level three. All exterior gates.”
“They’re locking us in,” Ella said, the words feeling thick in her throat.
“Locking them in with us,” Wade corrected cheerfully. “Semantics. Also, we’re not going out a gate. I park like an asshole. We’re going out the wall.”
The duct terminated at another grate, overlooking a cavernous maintenance bay. Below stood two armored guards, their backs to the duct, rifles aimed at a steel door.
Wade put a finger to where his lips would be. He pointed to himself, then to the guards. He made a sweeping motion with his hand. He pointed at Ella, then at the far corner of the bay where a rolling tool cabinet sat. He raised an eyebrow in question.
She understood. Distraction and flank. She nodded, a quick, sharp movement.
He winked. “Showtime.”
Wade exploded from the grate with a wild cry, plummeting down and landing in a crouch that sounded like cracking concrete. “Hey fellas! Does this facility have a lost and found? I think I lost my patience about halfway through the tour!”
The guards spun, opening fire. Wade dove behind a pallet of crates, bullets chewing the wood into splinters. “Rude! That’s imported packaging material!”
Ella didn’t wait. She moved. She dropped from the duct behind the guards, her landing silent. A shimmer, and she was invisible. She sprinted, light-footed, to the tool cabinet, heart hammering against her ribs. The noise was overwhelming.
One guard advanced, firing in controlled bursts. The other circled wide.
Wade popped up, firing two shots that sparked off the second guard’s body armor, spinning him around. “Tag, you’re it!”
The first guard was close to Wade’s cover now. Too close.
Ella, unseen behind the cabinet, acted on instinct. She focused, a small, sharp intent in her mind. She flicked her wrist.
A shimmering, quarter-circle plane of faintly rippling energy, like heat haze given form, snapped into existence between the advancing guard and Wade’s pallet. It was small, just large enough to shield a torso.
The guard fired. The energy bolts hit her force field and dissipated with a sound like ringing glass. The guard stared, confused, at his weapon.
Wade’s head peered around the crate. He saw the dissipating energy, saw the guard’s bafflement. His eyes darted to the empty space by the tool cabinet. A slow, impossibly wide grin spread beneath his mask.
He stood up, fully exposed.
“My turn,” he said, and shot the distracted guard twice in the leg. The man went down with a shout. The second guard turned, but Wade was already in motion, a red-and-black blur. He closed the distance, pistol-whipping the man across the temple with a sickening crack. The guard crumpled.
Silence descended, broken only by the moan of the wounded man and the persistent sirens.
Wade walked over to the tool cabinet. He stopped in front of the seemingly empty air. “A force field. A invisible, instant-healing girl who makes force fields.” He shook his head in theatrical awe. “I’m having a real ‘kid in a candy store who also owns the candy store’ moment right now.”
Ella let her invisibility fall. She was breathing hard, her curls damp with sweat. “The wall?” she prompted, ignoring his stare.
“Right. The wall.” He jogged to a massive, wheeled battery unit attached to a floor scrubber. “Help me with this. It’s gonna be our knock-knock.”
They pushed the heavy unit together, its wheels screeching, toward the far wall of the bay—an exterior wall of cinder block and corrugated steel. Wade aimed it like a battering ram.
“On three! One… two…”
He didn’t say three. He just threw his weight forward. Ella added hers. The battery unit rolled, then slammed into the wall with a concussive boom of buckling metal and shattering block. Daylight, harsh and real, stabbed through the dust and gloom, outlining a ragged hole just big enough for a person.
Cool, unfiltered air washed over them. It smelled of asphalt and rain.
Wade gestured grandly. “Ladies first.”
Ella didn’t hesitate. She scrambled through the hole, Wade right behind her. They tumbled out into a grimy service alley, behind a dumpster overflowing with plastic sheeting and discarded lab equipment. The sound of the alarms was instantly muted, a distant scream now.
A sleek, black SUV with illegally tinted windows was parked twenty feet away, straddling the yellow line.
“That’s our ride,” Wade said, brushing dust from his shoulder. He looked back at the hole in the wall, then at Ella, who was squinting in the natural light. He keyed a fob. The SUV chirped.
“Told you,” he said, opening the passenger door for her. “Teamwork.”
They escaped.