CHAPTER 27 - The Worst Point of View
Two days. Two days and going on day three of the worst nightmare of his goddamn life. Worse than dreams of being sliced open, worse than not remembering anything about himself, worse than watching Marie’s body slam into the dashboard and even worse than sitting next to her, unable to heal her body, praying to God she’d just open her eyes once more, just enough to let him heal her.
God, he needed to wake up from this torture. He needed to wake up and see her beautiful face buried in the pillow next to him. This agony went far beyond anything he’d ever experienced.
Not even watching Hank shock her body back to life over and over was worse than the horror of not knowing.
They had her and God only knew what they were doing to her. Cutting her open, seeing what made her tick. She didn’t heal like he did. Eventually, her body would give out. Or her mind. It would give out before he could get to her and then what?
He’d keep looking and looking and nothing would come to light and he’d never know what had happened to her. He had already had one lifetime of memories stolen. Now another lifetime of memories -- his life with Marie -- would be stolen away before he could even have the chance to make them.
He’d been so jaw-droppingly impressed when she’d sent that boasting asshole to hell. Surely if she could take that bastard down she’d be able to get herself out of this mess.
He’d watched as Jubes had come back into the room, frantically looking for Marie. He’d heard, with pained amusement, how she had joked about getting her ass kicked and he’d wanted to reach out and tell her how fucking proud of her he was.
She’d never had to go up against someone that much more advanced than she was, and in the end it was her discipline -- her ability to stay calm, and her fucking beautiful stubbornness -- that won the fight. The other guy may have been faster, stronger, and more confident, but he was also less focused and wasted opportunity after opportunity rubbing it in her face. Now he was the one dead and in the end, that’s pretty much the only thing that counted.
He had started to think that they’d gotten out, that they were just hiding, so he was horrified to watch them get surrounded a second time. And this time, there was nowhere to run. He’d just about had a heart attack when Jubes’s body slammed back from another bullet.
He wasn’t the only one, either. Remy‘s heart had literally skipped a beat. Honest to God, he had heard the swamp rat’s heart actually skip an entire beat when he saw that. The only thing bringing the Cajun back from that crisis had been Jubes’s voice screaming out about it having to be a damn joke. How the hell she had actually managed to sound annoyed was beyond him. He was starting to like the girl. As it turned out, she had some brass balls.
But then they took Marie. They took her. And through the mumbles that could barely be heard between the two girls as Marie worked furiously to staunch the bleeding before they dragged her off, he’d only been able to make out one phrase.
Tell him I love him.
Oh, hell no. Hell...no. She was not allowed to fucking say goodbye to him so easily. No way in all this goddamn world was he gonna just let her leave it at that.
No fucking way.
Hot fury had seeped into his bones and forty-eight hours later it still hadn’t faded. They’d raided Worthington Labs’ Washington D.C. main office first, that evening. It had been a hairy situation, getting in and out in the middle of a city where the airspace was locked up so tightly. But they’d gotten through, and Warren had provided some handy passwords that made it easier to get in and out. Kitty had spent all of yesterday pouring over files, many encrypted, trying to find any information that would lead to getting Marie back.
Bobby, who’d come home to utter chaos, had tried to make himself useful helping Kitty. Remy spent a good deal of time downstairs in the medical bay with Hank and Jubilee.
Shit, and wasn’t that a whole ‘nother point of blinding fury right there.
Ororo and Remy had gone just about crazy calling hospitals, trying to locate her. They weren’t getting any answers and it was starting to look like she might have been taken after all.
That first night, Remy had it pretty rough too. Logan was starting to wonder just how serious the thief was about Sparky.
It wasn’t until Logan picked up his ringing cell that second morning and Jubes had just about broken down in tears begging for him to come and get her that their first breath of relief came.
He’d been curious at first why she would call his phone, his private cell phone. The one not connected to the mansion’s system. But when she’d told him that she was in a hospital at Fort Montgomery, he’d just about lost his damn mind. It was a hospital nearly two hours away from Salem and they had one of those dangerous mutant holding prisons there.
Apparently, they’d given her rudimentary medical care and had questioned her most of the night. She’d been terrified to call any of the mansion’s numbers for fear they might get nosey. He’d grabbed Remy by the shirt collar and they’d raced up there to get her.
When they got there, the hostility and crap they’d had to push through to finally get to her was sending Logan into a fit of anger that wouldn’t have been so great to display in the middle of a military base.
She’d been bandaged up and not much else. Her normally tanned skin was ashen and she was half delirious from blood loss. Remy had just about exploded with fury.
It had taken two more hours to get her out of there without a fight. He would have happily given them a good taste of his anger, and he suspected Remy would have been on the same page about that. But Jubilee was weak and she couldn’t afford to be jostled around like that, so he had gritted his teeth and gotten Jubilee out of there with goddamned paperwork and a few elaborate lies spun by Remy. Remy had carried her to the car and held her in the back seat while they drove back to the mansion.
Hank had her in surgery less than half an hour after they made it back. Surgery, he’d said, that should have happened within moments of emergency treatment.
So much for the fucking hippocratic oath.
Since then, Logan’s fury had been mounting by the moment.
So standing here in Storm’s office, listening to her and Warren try and convince him to wait another day before they went to San Francisco, was really the last straw.
“I don’t give a fuck!” And he didn’t. He really didn’t. Kitty could take all the time she needed, he was going to San Francisco. He turned and yanked viciously on the office door, practically spitting with fury.
Ororo actually had the nerve to keep on his case. “Kitty got them off the mainframe. Just give us time to go through them and we’ll have a better idea.”
He turned and pointed at her. “I’m not, waiting around. I’m going to San Francisco and I’m going to tear his intestines out through his mouth until he chokes up what I want to know.”
Warren was quietly moving forward, trying not to make a sound. It only angered Logan more. He opened his mouth to rip him a new one when someone cleared their throat behind him.
Fuck. He’d been so outrageously mad he’d actually missed that. He was losing it if someone at his back had escaped his notice.
He recognized him, though he couldn’t place him. Brown hair, brown eyes, beard. Late thirties maybe. Wearing some black uniform that covered pretty much every inch of him. He smelled like chemicals. It was such a strong odor it made his eyes water painfully.
God. What the fuck had he bathed himself in? And why the fuck did he smell like blood?
“John, what...” Ororo began.
That’s when he caught it. It was there. Just a faint smell, hardly noticeable above all the other stronger smells.
Marie.
Before he could even consider the implications he found himself slamming the man up against the wall and wanting to bury his claws into his body.
He smelled like her, she was on his hands, on his shirt... Livid rage rose like bile in his throat. He couldn’t control the words he gritted out through his clenched teeth. “You smell like her.”
And he let the blades cut the man’s throat the slightest amount, just to get him talking. The result almost brought him to his knees.
“I found something of yours,” the man ground out.
Then Ororo was there, gently placing a hand on his arm. “Logan, it’s John. He’s a friend.”
His mind finally landed on where he’s met the guy. The cop. From New York. The one from when Marie and he had found that huge stash of drugs.
He let the man slide down the wall to his feet. “Start talkin’, bub.”
XXX
They took off in the Bird and Logan could barely contain his impatience. He sat in his seat, agitatedly releasing and retracting his claws. He stared at them with the intensity of his fury, trying to imagine them buried in someone’s gut.
He heard John gulp in his seat across the jet and turned his eyes away from his blades to glare at the man. The man had come all the way down to Westchester to tell them where Marie was -- he’d give him that. It was not enough, however, to let Logan forget that he’d left her in there in the first place. Maybe it was an irrational anger, but Logan didn’t really give a fuck.
They hadn’t gotten much further than location. A few sentences and they were scrambling down to the jet as fast as they could. If what John said was true, and they were moving her this very morning, they were running the very real danger of completely missing her. Logan was not willing to entertain the thought of that actually happening.
Now that they were in the air, though, Logan wanted more answers. When he’d asked if she was okay, John’s cursory response had been that she was alive and aware. Logan found that statement more damning than reassuring, and while it had been enough for that moment while they were still rushing to the jet, now he needed to know more.
He looked at the man as he continued to compulsively spring and retract his claws. “How bad is she?”
When John pulled his eyes up from Logan’s blades to meet his eyes, Logan struggled for breath. The man looked almost sick.
“Logan...” John cleared his throat. “I don’t think...”
“I don’t really give a fuck what you think,” Logan interrupted. “I care about her. And if she can fuckin’ take what they’re dishin’ out over there, I can take hearin’ about it. So answer the goddamn question.”
John nodded the tiniest amount. He looked towards the front and swallowed. “She’s pretty beat up.”
Logan ground his teeth.
John continued. “She’s gone through registration, been labeled. That can be pretty rough. The men there, they’re pretty callous. When I first saw her, she was fending off one of the guards trying...” He swallowed painfully.
Logan clenched his eyes and felt the claws spring out. He heard John jump in his seat. Fury. Boiling rage. Murderous intent. They swarmed him, making it difficult to breathe.
He opened his eyes and looked towards John again. “...And?”
John faltered. “It didn’t....nothing happened....that time. I was there so....I took over and that’s how I figured out who she was.”
Logan’s hands were shaking.
“The doctors had already gotten a hold of her by then,” John said in a shaking voice. “Normally that doesn’t happen until the third or the fourth day. But they went at her right off.”
Logan’s jerked his seat belt off and stood, pacing to the back of the plane in an attempt to control himself.
They got to her. They got to her. What were they doing? Slicing her up? Drugging her? What were they doing?
“What did they do to her?” he ground out, leaning his forehead against the side of the plane while he gripped the handles at the side of the hatch.
John’s voice was almost a whisper. “They took some of her... skin....”
Logan roared in fury.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Another chapter up and ready for you! Hope you enjoy! I'm not supposed to thank my Beta, doctorg, every chapter...so here I am, NOT thanking her for all her fantastic work, support and efforts! : p
Chapter End Notes:
Hope you enjoyed...Remember, I hold Rogue hostage until until I get my reviews! So, get typing! :-) Tee hee.