“Mister. Mister, wake up.”
Stupid kids. They should know better than to bother him when he was sleeping. He tried to slip back into sleep but the voice was persistent, pulling him inexorably toward consciousness, a note of urgency in the clear tones.
“Wake up, Mister.”
Jesus Christ! A slap to his face and who the fuck would dare? Logan tried to pry his eyes open, a growl rumbling up in his chest, and then all of a sudden he was drowning, choking. He coughed -- a wet, gurgling rattle, the coppery taste of blood flooding his mouth as he straightened up.
A wave of pain washed over him -- too much pain, in too many places, he couldn’t even parse it. He tried to pry his eyes open again, and this time he got one sticky eye open. The other didn’t seem to be working.
He looked into deep brown eyes, and his spinning head suddenly put it together. The girl. Marco.
Marco and the other thug were lying at the girl’s feet. He could smell death on them, sense that their bodies were already cooling. How long had he been out this last time?
“C’mon, Mister.” The girl was tugging at him now, gloves back on her hands. She had his leather jacket on. It looked comically large on her, sleeves sliding down to cover her hands where they pushed and pulled on his arm. He opened his eye again -- when had it closed? -- and saw her pale face, her desperate eyes. “I don’t wanna leave you, Mister, but I will if I hafta. Get. Up.”
He realized his hands were free, and he scrabbled at his neck. The collar was gone.
“I took it off, but it lasts a while after. C’mon, Mister, we gotta go.”
He felt unsteady and confused, the pain just another layer of haze over the lightheadedness and his sapped strength, but she tugged at him again and he braced his feet, managing a wobbly stand.
Crazy girl, she put her shoulder under his arm like she could steady him, when he would snap her like a twig. That small act of idiotic bravery got him moving somehow, stumbling across the front room and out the door, half-falling down the rickety steps to lean shakily against the car.
She shoved him and he tumbled into the passenger seat. He realized she had pulled the car around and left the door open for him. Crazy girl, he thought again. She had been in the car, keys in her hand, why the fuck had she come back for him?
A racking, lung-twisting spasm of coughing overtook him and by the time he was done, curled weakly on the seat, she was driving. The streetlights flickered across her face making her look even paler, casting the deep purple bruise and her thick dark eyelashes into sharp relief.
“Are you a cop?” she asked. “Can’t you, you know, call for back-up or something?”
“Got a phone?” he asked. He almost smiled at the disappointment in her eyes. “Me neither.”
He cleared his throat, feeling again the sucking pain of one lung that wouldn’t work among the myriad of other pains. “Not a cop, anyway. But if you get me to a phone, I can get us help.”
“I can find the hospital...”
“No hospitals!” he snapped. He’d be damned if he’d let a doctor he didn’t trust near him again.
Another spasm of coughs, leaving him weak and wheezing. His head spun with lightheadedness. Goddammit.
“Why aren’t I healing?” he muttered, mostly to himself, but the girl heard.
“I only got the collar off you twenty minutes or so ago. It takes almost two hours for the effects to wear off.”
“Fuck.” How did it feel to die of internal injuries? He couldn’t leave the girl.
The girl’s breath was coming in quick pants now, her voice high and tight as the words rushed out uncontrollably. “That’s why I had to wait, I got my hands free after an hour but I had to wait until I felt it come back. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I had to let them...what they did to you...and I just let them...”
Her voice broke off on a sob. She was on the thin edge of hysteria, and he put a hand on the wheel, correcting the drift before they hit the guardrail. “Don’t fall apart on me now, kid,” he growled. That seemed to pull her out of her head, as she looked at him in shock and then back at the road, blinking furiously.
“You did good, kid. Better’n anyone coulda expected. You got us out of there. Now get us to a safe place and a phone, and everythin’ will be okay.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath, and he could feel her hysteria retreat a little. Maybe he had managed to fake enough sincerity in his words. Or maybe not, when she looked at him again her eyes were much older than her years. “Another hour and a half. I don’t know if you’re gonna make it, Mister.”
Yeah, well, that made two of them. He could feel the dimness coming on again, and it was a struggle to gather the breath to try to reassure her. “I’ll heal. Just...get us there.”
He thought maybe that would satisfy her, but a moment later he heard her voice again, cutting through the haze that was starting to envelop him. “What’s your name Mister? If you...if something happens to you, who should I tell?”
Great. She was collecting his last wishes. Fuck, he had to admire her clear-eyed honesty. He wondered what had put that kind of brutal pragmatism in someone so young. He shoulda been thinking more about what would happen to her.
“You got someplace to go?” he asked. “Someone looking for you?”
A bitter laugh. “Far from here, that’s where I’ll go. No one’s looking for me.”
His arm felt impossibly heavy as he ducked his head, pulling the tags from his neck. They were tacky with his blood, but she took them in her gloved hand without hesitation. “M’name’s Logan. If I...if y’need to, go to the Xavier School.” Another wheezing, rattling breath, an odd whistling sound in his chest, and he couldn’t hold the dimness off much longer. He heard the slur in his own voice, as if from a distance. “Show ‘em these. Westchester, New York. Got it?”
She said...something...but he couldn’t hear it over the roaring in his ears. Suddenly he felt her small gloved hand in his, squeezing tight, the tags pressed hard between their palms. She was sweet, so painfully sweet. He had always wondered if he would die alone, and he was suddenly fiercely glad that it was her here with him. He squeezed back as he felt the wave sucking him under. He tried to hold on, but he couldn’t, and it took him.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Let's see if we can tear Ebony away from her homework, shall we? ;-) Also dedicated to atmd, to apologize for hounding her for updates, and to baybelletrist who provides the most amazing feedback, and shouldn't ever doubt it. Your belle lettres are always appreciated, darlin'!
Chapter End Notes:
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