“My God,” Jean said.
Scott pressed his hand to his forehead, still trying to process the scene before him. “Uh, Storm, some cover. Give us some cover,” he stammered.
Mist rose and swirled around the perimeter of the restaurant, thickening until it was nearly opaque. “I can see now why Logan took such an interest in the waitress,” the weather witch remarked with her usual stoicism.
“Yes,” Jean replied numbly. “She’s . . . she must have some kind of feral mutation. Just like him.”
“Just like him,” Scott repeated.
The girl crouching over Logan’s body bared her teeth and growled at them once more, flashing her ivory claws in an unmistakable threat.
“I can’t get a read on her; her thoughts are a wild mess. Like Logan when he gets really far gone. Do you think she . . . did that?” Jean asked, gesturing to the eviscerated, all-but-dismembered corpse lying out across the lot. The last time any of them had seen a body in such shape was when Wolverine single-handedly stopped a terrorist attack on the school.
Scott shook his head. “I don’t know. She might be hostile. But . . . it looks like she’s, uh, sort of—“
“Guarding him,” Ororo finished with a curious tilt of her head. “She’s guarding him. Why, look at that.”
The girl had dropped her head to nuzzle Logan and lick his cheek. She smoothed his hair away from his temples, glancing up occasionally to growl at the X-Men and drag his unconscious form away from them a few inches at a time.
“That’s weird,” Scott commented. “What the hell happened here? If she didn’t take out Logan, who did?”
Jean retrieved a black tactical bag from the SUV. “I don’t know, but she can’t or won’t talk to us, and I for one have no intention of getting near those claws. She could be working for the Brotherhood for all we know. But I won’t be able to assess the extent of Logan’s injuries until I get a closer look.”
“We shall have to tranquilize her,” Ororo conceded.
Jean looked between her teammates, holding out two vials in her palm. “But should I use the regular sedative or the one Hank designed for Sabertooth?”
Scott gestured at the girl, eliciting another, slightly more vicious growl. “It’s safe to assume she has a healing factor, don’t you think? With claws like that? I mean, she’d have to, right?”
Jean’s worry seeped into Scott’s mind as she stared down at the vials. “If she has a healing factor, the weaker tranq won’t take her down, and we’ll have one angry feral on our hands. But if she isn’t a healer, the stronger tranq could kill her. I . . . I don’t feel right taking that risk.”
“Me neither,” Scott said. “Listen, in the interest of full disclosure, I—I sort of stumbled on Logan and this girl together in his room this morning. Logan, he went all animal, nearly broke my neck for interrupting them. I guess he’s got some kind of claim on her. And by the looks of it, the feeling is mutual.”
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