Freddy twisted the knife deeper, feeling a rush of satisfaction as he felt the blade scrape along the rib. The mutie freak just gritted his teeth, a whine of pain escaping him. Not good enough. He wanted to hear him beg. He wanted to hear him scream.
The mutie seemed to fade, his head drooping. A few more moments and he roused again. He raised his head, his eyes fixing on something behind Freddy. “Sorry, kid,” he rasped.
Freddy smiled. “Aw, that’s sweet,” he taunted. Maybe he’d cut on the girl next. He glanced behind him, and found the girl glaring at him. Good, still some spark left in her. He’d enjoy breaking her. Motherfucking mutie bitch whore...the things I’m gonna do to you when this is done, he thought with pleasure. The bastards who had hired him had been all strict about not damaging the merchandise after they found out what he’d done to the last girl, but he’d already been paid this time. They didn’t need to know about any of this.
Yeah, he could cut her a little first, make her scream. Nothing got him hotter than hearing a girl scream in pain, begging him for mercy. Too bad he only had the one collar, he was getting horny as hell just thinking about it. Oh well, he could still fuck her, he’d just have to be careful. He let his thoughts luxuriate on it a little. Maybe he’d make this healing motherfucker watch. That would be fun. He thought of her begging, screaming, while the other one raged, pulling helplessly at the cuffs.
Christ, it was going to be good...
_______________________
“Marie. Marie!”
She opened her eyes to a strange room. She felt a sickening spinning in her head, her mind seeming to twist and turn wildly until finally it settled. Marie.
The last of Freddy’s twisted arousal still lingered in her system, making bile rise up in her throat. She closed her eyes again, squeezing them tight. Don’t throw up, she told herself. Don’t throw up. She battled the nausea, taking shallow breaths in through her nose. It was all still so acute, so vivid -- the feel of the knife in her hand, juddering slightly as it scraped the bone, the rush of sick pleasure at every pained gasp and whine she had elicited from Logan.
“Marie. Darlin’, look at me.” His voice was gentle. How could he be kind to her, after what she had done?
“Oh God.” She heard her quavering voice as if from a distance. “What did I do? What did I do to you?”
“Hey.” She managed to open her eyes. Logan sat on the bed next to her, his face lined with concern. “It’s okay...it was just a nightmare.”
She shook her head. She couldn’t even think clearly, her thoughts still swamped with the horror of it. “It wasn’t...it really happened. I had a knife...” She looked down at her shaking hand, half-expecting to see the knife still there, her hand coated with blood. “I cut you, over and over, I enjoyed it. And what I wanted to do to her...” She stopped in confusion. “To me. To her.” She buried her face in her trembling hands. “Oh my god. I’m so fucked up.”
She wasn’t making any sense at all, but somehow he seemed to understand. “That wasn’t you, darlin’. That was him. That other guy, Freddy. You didn’t hurt me at all. You helped me, remember? I healed.”
Healed. She was suddenly frantic to see, to make sure. Before she knew what she was doing she had shoved his shirt up, tugging the white undershirt out and running her hands underneath. His hands twitched as if to stop her, and then dropped to his sides, clenched in fists. Afternoon light slanted through the curtains, illuminating his golden skin. She ran her gloved hands over it -- so warm, lightly furred. Flawless. For some reason that seemed worse.
“It’s like it never happened,” she said brokenly. Her hand on his cheek now, she ran her thumb over his eyebrow, looking at his eye. His warm golden gaze looked back at her, his eye not even cloudy anymore as it had been when he first healed. “But it did -- I remember. I remember everything.”
He pulled her close. She could feel him sigh, his chest heaving against her cheek. “I know. I remember too, darlin’. But it fades. It always fades.”
She shook her head against him numbly, unable to imagine that it would ever seem like a distant memory. He made it sound like he got hurt like that all the time. Maybe he did. That thought made the bile rise up again. She buried her face in his shirt, breathing in his soothing scent and warmth, listening to the steady thump of his heart.
He seemed content to just lie next to her, holding her. Six years since anyone had touched her with affection -- without pain or fear -- and he seemed to do it like it was natural. Like she couldn’t kill him with a touch. And she craved it -- God, how she craved the way he touched her. The simple closeness and warmth of another human being. Someone who knew who she was and yet still didn’t fear her.
Lying up against his body, the echo of the dream still haunting her mind, she felt raw and exposed. She tried to summon that anger that had carried her through earlier and found it out of reach. You can trust me, he had said. She desperately wanted to, but she was scared. Scared to trust him and scared not to -- to be on her own again. Like always.
“You trust these guys?” she finally mumbled into his shirt.
His answer was slow and thoughtful. “Yeah. I do. I don’t trust easy, but these guys -- they’ve earned it.” His voice turned rueful. “I know maybe you didn’t see the best side of them today -- ‘specially Jeannie -- but they’ve really come through for me in the past. They have their weaknesses and blind spots, like everybody does, but they’re good people. They helped me a lot.”
He brushed the white streak of her hair, so close to her face that she held her breath before realizing that he wore gloves. The thought that he had put gloves on for her made tears spring to her eyes again, and she hid her face, embarrassed at her weakness. He wouldn’t let her get away with that, though, his thumb firmly tilting her chin up until she met his warm amber gaze. “They would help you too. If you’d let them.”
She ducked her head back against his strong chest. “And Xavier? You trust him too?”
“Especially him.” Another sigh from him, and she closed her eyes again, drinking in the feeling of his warm chest moving against her cheek, the soft flannel of his shirt like a caress on her sensitive skin. “I’m feral -- did you know that? In addition to the healing -- I see better, hear better, smell...everything. But the metal -- it’s not just the claws, it’s all through my skeleton too. Unbreakable. Someone did that to me. Turned me into a weapon, and took away from me anything I was before then.”
“What do you mean, took it away?”
He exhaled softly. “I just woke up one day, not knowin’ who I was, with the metal in my body. Killed a few people gettin’ out from -- wherever it was, some sort of facility somewhere -- and then was out in the woods alone. Confused. Livin’ like an animal, off of what I could kill.”
One gloved finger tapped against her chest, unerringly finding the tags she wore around her neck, making them clink softly under her shirt. “These were all I had to go on, just the name Wolverine and nothin’ else to call my own.” She felt a fiery blush rise up her neck, making her cheeks burn. She hadn’t realized he had known that she was wearing the tags. She should have given them back as soon as he got better.
“I’m sorry,” she started. “I didn’t mean to...” She moved her hand to the back of her neck to pull the chain off, but his hand came firmly over hers, stilling it.
“Nah,” he said. “You keep ‘em for a little while longer.” His hand brushed her cheek, a swift caress so quick and light that she almost thought she imagined it.
“Anyway,” he continued. “Even after I got myself together a little more -- clothes, and a truck, and all that -- I was still living like an animal. Fightin’ in bars for money, not caring who I hurt. Stayin’ away from people for the most part, in case they saw what I really was. When Xavier first found me, I thought he was crazy. Tellin’ me that I was worth more than that, that I could do somethin’ better. Join his team. I told him to fuck off, and he didn’t even try to argue. He just left me his card. The address of this place.”
She heard the bemusement in his voice. “I still don’t know why it stuck in my head like it did. It took me weeks, but I found myself findin’ fights closer and closer to the border, and then across the border on the New York side. And then one day I found myself standin’ outside these gates. He didn’t even act surprised to see me, just let me in and told me there was a room waitin’ for me. I asked him what the hell he expected from me. What he was askin’ me to do.”
He stopped, apparently lost in the memory. Marie waited as long as she could stand before asking. “What did he say?”
A soft laugh from him. “He put it in fancy words, but basically what he said was that he was askin’ me to be the person that he knew I could be, instead of the person that I was. And damned if I didn’t realize that’s what I wanted too. Maybe it’s who I was before they took my memory away, or maybe it isn’t. Sometimes I think that maybe that person was even worse. But Xavier said it didn’t matter. That this place could be a fresh start for me, if I wanted it to be. If I would let it be. And it has been.” His voice was a low rumble against her ear. “It could be that for you too, Marie.”
The idea of that sent fear racing through her veins. She shook her head. “Someone like me...with what I can do.” She heard her own voice grow hard and bitter. “It’s better for everyone if I’m on my own.”
She felt the tension in his muscles at her refusal. He would be angry now, and go away. It was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To drive everyone away -- to be on her own. It was safer that way. She tried to pretend that she wasn’t savoring this last moment of contact, the final feel of a warm body -- his warm body -- close to hers. She drew in a deep breath and started to sit up. His arm casually looped around her, pulling her back down to him, her breath huffing from her in shock as she landed back on his chest.
“Easy, now,” he said calmly. “If that’s what you want -- to be on your own -- no one’s going to stop you. Show us the boat ramp, take the cash and the collar, and leave.” His voice grew low and intense. “But I don’t think that’s what you want. And so I’m askin’ you, Marie. Stay. Give these geeks a chance. Trust someone, for once. Trust me.”
“I...” She didn’t even know what she was going to say, but he didn’t give her the chance.
“Start with what happened in the study. Somethin’ spooked you, Marie. You can tell me.”
She felt the secret burning in her chest, choking her. She sat up, looking into his eyes, seeing nothing but warmth and concern. She drew her knees into her chest, hugging them, feeling her heart thumping in her chest. He slowly raised his hand, brushing her cheek again, and she had to fight not to nuzzle into his touch. She squeezed her eyes shut, teetering on the precipice of the decision. Finally she let her breath out in a sigh, and started to talk.
“I told you about the other ones I saw, the ones that Freddy sold before me?”
He nodded.
“The teenage boy -- maybe a little younger than me. The one they had to keep away from open flames. The guy who bought him was older, with an accent. European, maybe.”
Logan’s brow was still furrowed in puzzlement. It wasn’t too late. She could still change her mind.
Please, she thought. Please don’t let this be a mistake. “There’s a picture of him in Xavier’s study. He’s much younger in the picture, but I’d recognize him anywhere. Him and Xavier, with their arms around each other, like they’re old buddies or something.”
She watched as his body tightened with tension, his eyes narrowing as he searched his memory. “On the second bookshelf -- with a cathedral tower behind them? The guy in the grey wool cap?”
She nodded.
He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Erik Lehnsherr. Magneto.”
“What does that mean?”
He lay back down, pulling her against him, squeezing her tight as his voice rumbled low in her ear. “It means, darlin’, that the Brotherhood is involved, and everything just got a helluva lot more complicated.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
As usual, I can't hold out on y'all. Hope this long and Rogan-y chapter helps y'all forgive me for the mysterious preceding chapter and what seemed like Marie's random bitchiness. ;-) This is all I've written so far so updates will likely be slower after this, but I wanted to get this one out there.
Chapter End Notes:
Please review! :-D