Marie’s eyes sparked with anger. “You can ask me what I’m doing here. I do have a name.”
His voice was equally biting. “From what I remember you have a couple. Which one are you using right now?”
She flinched, and remorse gripped him. He sighed, flexing the muscles in his back, getting a grip on his temper.
The rest of the X-Men studiously ignored them, readying the jet for takeoff as Logan moved closer. He pulled Marie to the side, speaking in an undertone, his eyes searching hers for answers.
“Listen, baby, I’m sorry. But what the hell are you doin’ here? This is gonna get rough, and I don’t want you gettin’ hurt.”
He felt some of the anger leave her as well. “I may not have one of these fancy uniforms, Logan, but I’m as involved in this as anyone. I can identify the boat and the men we’re looking for, and then I’ve promised Professor Xavier and Ororo I’ll stay back and let y’all do your Rambo thing.” Just a momentary hesitation, and then she added, “Unless I’m really needed.”
Suspicion tickled at the edge of his mind. “Needed how?”
She avoided his eyes, and the suspicion crystallized into certainty. “Don’t even fuckin’ think about it,” he snarled, his grip tightening unconsciously on her arm.
She pulled free, her voice sharp again. “If the girls you’re looking for aren’t on that boat, you’re going to need information and you’re going to need it fast. You don’t have any say here -- the choice is mine.”
“Dammit, Marie, the last couple of people you absorbed -- me included -- almost wrecked you. Now you’re signing on to have more sickos in your head?”
His keen senses picked up on the slight paling of her skin, the almost imperceptible trembling of her hands that she tried to hide with clenched fists. “Don’t act like I want this. But I’ve seen -- I’ve felt -- what they do to these girls. If that is what I have to do to stop it, I’ll do it. At least this damn curse of mine will have been good for something.”
“Christ, Marie...” He pulled her into his arms again, smoothing her hair, feeling her take in deep shuddering breaths against his chest. He sighed, and his voice was gentle when he spoke again.
“You don’t have to do something like that, darlin’. We’ll get these guys, and we’ll get Kitty and Jubilee back. You just stay clear, and if there’s any information that needs gettin’, I’ll carve it out of them, okay?”
Some of the tension in his gut eased as she nodded against his chest, the relief rolling off her in waves.
“Prepare for landing,” Scott announced.
Logan led Marie to a seat and buckled her in, his gloved hand briefly caressing her face. “This’ll all be over soon, darlin’, and we’ll have some time to settle in and talk, okay?”
She bit her lip and then nodded briefly, and he knew she was thinking about their conversation earlier that night. What a fuckin’ mess he had made of that, but he would find a way to fix it. Right now he just had to focus on the mission.
_________________
“That’s it,” Marie whispered, her lips a careful distance from Logan’s ear. “Definitely the same boat, and that guy in the front, he’s one of the ones Freddy saw.”
He gave her a reassuring squeeze before silently leading her back to the scrubby tree line. With gentle pressure on her hip and shoulder he guided her into a crouch. “Stay here. No matter what.” He wrapped her gloved hand around the satellite phone. “The mansion’s on speed dial. If it all goes to hell for some reason, head back through those trees and call Hank for a pickup. Promise me, darlin’?”
She opened her mouth as if to argue. A low growl from him appeared to give her second thoughts about that, her eyes lowering in reflexive submission before she seemed to catch herself. She clutched the sat phone tightly, and finally nodded her head.
He pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head and then he was moving silently, feeling rather than hearing the rest of the team fall in behind him as he approached the boat.
______________________
Marie crouched at the tree line, her heart in her throat, focusing every heightened sense she had gained from Logan on the darkened boat. The X-Men had swarmed on board silently, knocking out the man in front before he could sound the alarm. Shortly afterward, however, gunfire had erupted from the interior of the boat, along with shouts and the occasional flash of ruby-red light through the windows.
She was so focused on the boat she didn’t sense him until he was almost at her back, turning to face him with a snarl she didn’t even know she was capable of producing.
Lehnsherr raised his hands in mock surrender. “Peace, little girl,” he drawled. “I am just here to enjoy the show.”
She pulled the tags from around her neck, stowing them in her pocket as she backed away from him. “Bullshit. You’re as twisted as any of those guys on the boat. What the hell do you want here?”
His ironic gaze tracked her every movement, as a slight smile twisted his lips. “Do you really think I need that particular bauble, my dear?”
He pulled his hand from his pocket and opened his fist, revealing a metal disk. Before her eyes the disk lifted, hovering in space and then separating into three pieces. Each piece reformed into a small spherical projectile. With a twitch of his fingers, Lehnsherr sent the three metal balls spinning in orbit around his hand.
Marie kept her eyes on the projectiles, frozen in indecision. If she stepped back any further she would be out of the treeline, exposing herself to the battle below. If Lehnsherr planned on killing her, she would already be dead. He could have put one of those metal balls in her head at any time, before she had even noticed him.
He smiled further at her dilemma. The metal balls snapped back into his palm, and he slipped them into his pocket. He casually walked past her, presenting her with his back as he gazed out at the boat. “As I said, I am just a spectator, as are you. I am interested to see how this all unfolds.”
More yelling and gunfire from the boat drew her attention there, her gaze flickering between Lehnsherr and the boat as she stealthily drew off her gloves and shoved them into her back pocket.
A roar split the air, followed immediately by the smashing of a body through the aft door. Marie’s heart thumped wildly as she recognized Logan’s body sprawled out on the deck. She watched him recover quickly, scrabbling to his feet in a fighting stance, his claws glimmering in the moonlight. A giant hulk of a man -- so large that he had to duck to squeeze through the remains of the door -- lumbered forward.
“Ah,” Lehnsherr commented with pleasure. “I had a feeling these two would not stay below.”
Marie felt fear and rage roiling within her, urging her toward impulsive action. “This is not some fucking floor show,” she spat out.
Lehnsherr cocked an eyebrow in her direction. “I expect to find it quite entertaining nonetheless. Two feral superhealers, so evenly matched -- it would take only the slightest turn of luck to tip the outcome in either direction.”
He turned back toward the boat, where Logan was blocking the large man’s blows with his forearm. He found an opening and lunged, and out of the corner of her eye Marie saw Lehnsherr’s fingers twitch as Logan’s swipe fell a fraction short, his balance uncertain for just a moment before he recovered.
Her gut clenched as she finally understood his comment for the threat it had been. “Leave him alone! What do you even want? I thought The Brotherhood wanted to stop this trafficking as much as we did!”
He didn’t even turn to face her. Logan aimed a vicious kick at the man’s jaw, and Lehnsherr’s fingers twitched again. This time Logan lost his footing, falling to the deck, narrowly rolling out from under the stomping foot of the enormous man.
“What is wrong with you?!” Marie heard the underlying plea in her own voice with disgust. “Do you want me to hurt you?”
“Are you still deciding, little girl? Maybe this will tip the scales.”
He lifted his hand and the boat’s anchor rose from the water. Logan’s attention was still focused on the other man. She screamed a warning and saw him freeze, his head whipping around in their direction. Quick as a snake, the anchor chain wrapped around him. Lehnsherr dropped his hand and the anchor plunged back into the murky water, dragging Logan over the rail and into the depths.
For a frozen moment Marie was too horrified to even make a sound. She watched the ripples in the water as they shone in the moonlight, and then the surface of the water stilled.
She did not even recognize the choked snarl that escaped her as she lunged for Lehnsherr. She grabbed his neck, squeezing it between her bare hands. He wound his own hands in her hair in some parody of a lover’s embrace. As she buckled against the onslaught of his memories -- terrifying images of concentration camps and violent Brotherhood offensives -- a small, distant part of her recognized the expression in his eyes as triumph.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Okay, here's the deal -- I just found out that I have a really big deadline six weeks or so from now. So, for the next couple of months I am excusing myself from my once-a-week update deadline. I still absolutely, positively pinky-swear on all that is Rogan that I will return and will finish this story. I just don't know how frequently the updates will come. Maybe weekly if I'm procrastinating, maybe less often if I come to my senses. So, my apologies -- I hope y'all forgive me, and wish me luck...and if you see me on here too much kick me off and tell me to go work!
Chapter End Notes:
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