Snap

Jade's POV

I walk with my hands in my pockets, avoiding the crowd of people we walk through to get to the bank. It's Jason and Shaya's date night, and I'm third wheeling. Jason has made it his personal mission to see to it that I get at least two hours of human contact a day, and while it's exhausting and annoying, I do appreciate his friendship. He's an older, edgier Aaron, and Shaya is a sweetheart who insists on finding me something to wear, other than black shirts and jeans. "It'll only take fifteen minutes, then you can have your steak," Shaya pats me on the head as I hold the door open for the two. He knows how much I love steak.

There's a short line. A young mom and her baby walk in behind us and Jason insists they move ahead of us. "It's no problem, really." He shows her his charming smile and Shaya watches him lovingly.

My ears perk up when the bell over the front door rings again, but I don't care enough to look. It isn't until Jason's smile fades and he grips Shaya's arm that I know something is wrong.

Someone fires a gun right next to my head, causing a ringing in my head that renders me useless as they demand that we all lay on the ground with our hands on our heads. I can't hear anything over the ringing, but I know Jason is trying to get my attention.

'Are you all right?'

I nod my head in slow motion, or at least, that's what it feels like. My spine arches backwards as I lift my head to look around the room, counting five men before one of them shoots the ground next to me as a warning. "I said keep your heads down!"

The woman screams, shielding her stroller with her body as one of the robbers pulls her away from her baby and pushes the stroller into a corner of the room. "No!" She tries to follow it but he slams her head into a wall and I watch as she crumples to the floor.

I feel my eyes starting to burn.

I've been in a situation like this before, where men think they can take control and expect everyone else to shut up and take it. Unfortunately for these guys, I've grown since then.

'Jason.'

I mouth his name repeatedly until he catches me. Worry flashes across his face. 'Jade, don't.'

'Knife.' Jason was a marine. I doubt he doesn't have some sort of weapon on him. I don't have my swords, I don't have my knives. I just have a burning desire to break these guys' necks.

He subtly glances to his back pocket, where I can make out the rectangular shape of a Swiss army knife. Good enough.

I wait for him to tell me to stop, that it's not a good idea, but he doesn't. 'Be careful.'  I nod in understanding and hold my breath as a man in black strolls past me, checking all the hostages. Shaya fakes a sneeze and I take the opportunity to grab Jason's knife and jab it into the man's back.

His buddies yell and start to fire their guns, but I just hold onto his body and carry him around, letting him take all the bullets. As soon as I get within four feet of the next robber, I throw his friend at him and kick his gun out of his hands. He tries his best to land a punch, but I catch his fist and twist it until I hear a crack, or a scream. I sling him across the room and he slams two of his friends into the glass doors, leaving one man standing.

The asshole who knocked out the crying mother.

He stares me down, stepping over hostages as we circle each other. There's a look in his eyes that tells me he thinks he can win. He thinks he's better than me, that I won't kill him. He's the one who enjoyed tormenting the hostages. I'll enjoy killing him the most.

He pulls his gun on me, but I'm already in the air. I land in front of him, plunging the knife into his chest before my feet even touch the ground. He croaks in pain as I stab him again and again, until the sirens sound and Jason pulls me off of the dead body. "Jade!" I falter backwards, staring at the blood on my hands. I drop the knife and look up to Jason with wide eyes. He returns the same shocked expression, but the room is quickly filled with blue and red lights. "You have to get out of here! Now!"

I practically crawl out the back door after slipping and sliding through the blood covering the bank floor tiles. The sirens come from the street, so I turn right and head deeper into the alley.

I wander throughout the streets, ducking in and out of kiosks and dead ended alleys. The sirens are drowned out by the honking of car horns and annoyed shouts coming from the people I bump into as I stumble through the crowds and into the middle of the street. "Get out of the way!"

"Move!"

"What the hell is she doing?"

I keep my hands hidden under my arms, hiding the blood from everyone surrounding me. I must look crazy.

Then, two blocks down, I see a familiar head of blond hair. It ducks in and out of sight, walking with the same hunched shoulders. He always hated traveling large groups; it made him nervous.

"Aaron?" I move to follow him, ignoring the taxi rolling towards me. I don't move quickly enough and it slams into the back of my knees.

The sudden jolt ignites a stirring in my stomach and my eyes begin to burn, again. "Hey! Lady!" I turn around without thinking and slam my bloody fists into the hood of the man's car. The metal indents under my skin and the driver jumps in his seat.

"What!"

He slams his foot on the gas and reverses into the car behind him, causing a chain reaction that results in people screaming at me in both fear and anger.

I run from the commotion, searching for the blond hair. I shouldn't have taken my eyes off of him. I should know better.

"Aaron!" I call for him, but no one response. People see me and gasp before moving out of my way. I guess they're not used to glowing green eyes and bloody hands. "Aaron?" I find myself turning into another alley, when, all of a sudden, two hands grab my shirt and shove me up against the wall.

The brown eyes of a random woman are staring into mine, but her strong hands don't fit her movie star blonde curls or glossy lips. "Listen to me carefully-"

I slam my hands down on her wrists, forcing her to release me, and grab hold of her denim jacket. "Who are you." She sighs and rolls her eyes.

"I was getting to that, but I should've known better. You are known for your impatience after all." She cracks a mischievous grin, and I watch as her skin morphs into a blue texture and her brown eyes turn gold.

"Mystique?"

"Is it starting to make sense?"

My grip on her jacket loosens when I realize what this all means, "It was you." Every time I saw Aaron, I had really been seeing Mystique. "Why? Why look like him?"

"Are you aware of your state of mind, Jade?" Mystique's golden eyes look me up and down, and I don't like it.

"I know that it's not good," I say through gritted teeth. I get it, I'm mentally unstable.

"And you know what happens when you lose control?"

"That's not good either." I'm getting impatient. "But why Aaron?" It's hard to read her facial expressions, but I swear she smiles pitifully.

"Aaron was your trigger. His death was the straw that broke the camel's back."

"What does that mean?"

"Someone wanted to unleash your full potential, and the only way to do that was to kill Aaron."

"But I-"

"You didn't kill him, Jade." I drop her when she says this and tilt my head in confusion. "Do you really think your kidnapping and his death weren't part of some master plan?" My fingernails dig into the skin of my palms.

"Magneto."

Mystique nods her head and looks both ways, like she's afraid someone is watching. "Every time you snap and kill someone, you're playing into his plan."

"Which is?"

"To overthrow the human race. For mutants to be the superior species."

"And I'm part of that plan?" She gives me a curious look.

"We know what you did in Tennessee. At the mutant prison." I have to fight every bone in my body in order to not tense up or punch a wall. The Camp. I hate that place with all my being. "Two-hundred and thirty seven guards. In under an hour, too. Takes a very powerful mutant to manage a feat that size."

"I had to do it."

"Because they took Aaron, right? They were going to kill him?" I'm forced to remember all the mutants I couldn't help, the friends I couldn't save. "How many people did you want to kill when he actually died? You must've been tempt-."

"No."

She smirks, "Quick to answer."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you saved my life, back at Stryker's lab. I don't think you even remember doing it, but you did." She leaps on top of the dumpster and swiftly climbs onto a fire escape ladder. She stops and looks back, staring me down with those shocking eyes. "Don't give in, Jade. Having no control means being under his control, and that's no life."

I fall against the brick wall and slide to the ground, holding my head in my hands. It has been years since I last sat in an alley feeling lost and alone. So much has happened since then.

My brother was killed, I was arrested. I lost friends and made friends. I met Aaron, and he changed my world. I had never cared about a person so much before I met that boy; I felt the need to protect him.

In the end, I couldn't save him, but that wasn't my fault. I know that now. I didn't kill Aaron, Magneto did. He used Aaron's life like a chess piece, a pawn.

And for that, Magneto must die.