She stood for a moment staring down at the macabre sight, paralyzed by shock. Then she dropped to her knees and started to dig, her frozen hands scooping up the slushy snow, slowly uncovering the corpse.
She shuddered as she brushed the snow off of the man’s face. It was no one she recognized — a forty-ish looking man, dressed in jeans and a shirt under a partially-zipped down jacket. Swallowing down her nausea, Marie forced herself to take a deep breath. She had to know. She unzipped the man’s jacket all the way, pulling up the shirt and looking for claw marks on the body.
Grunting with effort, she heaved the frozen corpse onto its side and checked his back. She pulled his wallet out of his pants pocket before pushing him back over, feeling his neck. Then, with a cringe of distaste, she blew on her thumb to warm it and pressed it to his frozen eyelid, thawing it until she could lift it enough to see the white of his eye.
She finally sat back, relief warring with confusion. Nothing. Not just no sign of Logan’s claws, but no sign of any injury. No bleeding, no broken neck, no bruises, not even hemorrhaging in the whites of his eyes. If it wasn’t so unlikely she would have thought that the man had just lain down in the ditch and died of hypothermia.
She kneeled in the snow, blowing more warmth onto her numb fingers for a moment to get the feeling back into them before looking through the man’s wallet. Identification, credit cards, receipts, money, a few family photos, business cards. Everything seemed intact, and everything seemed normal. Nothing to indicate that the man was any more than he seemed — Mark McCready, a bank manager from Pittsburgh. She looked through the receipts. Normal everyday purchases, and then a few gas and toll receipts from two days ago. Christmas Day.
She put everything back in the wallet and put it back in the man’s pocket. Thinking furiously, she started to cover the body back up with snow.
Christmas Day. Something had made this apparently ordinary man, a family man, get in his car and drive from Pittsburgh to the Adirondack mountains on Christmas Day. Made him park wherever the plowed roads ended, and make his way on foot to this point, apparently without any gear or supplies. And then something had killed him.
No, not something, she acknowledged. Someone. As much as she would like to believe that this man had walked himself out here and suddenly died of exposure, she would be kidding herself. He had been buried deep, beneath much more snow than had fallen over the last two days.
She couldn’t tell herself it was a coincidence. Logan had gone out that night, Christmas night, and hadn’t been the same since. Had he met this man — maybe even killed him? But if so how, and even more importantly why? If it had been an accident, or self-defense, or even an overreaction to someone snooping around their cabin, wouldn’t the man bear the mark of his claws? And why wouldn’t he just tell her about it? Why hide the body and pretend nothing had happened?
The man she loved had been able to tell her difficult things. Had even told her about killing someone innocent — that woman he had killed in front of her child. And god help her, but if he had told her she would have understood, would have forgiven him just about anything.
Now she didn’t know if that man even existed any more. The way Logan had been acting lately — he was not just upset or out of sorts, but completely unlike the man she knew and loved. She felt something inside her grow still and cold as she finally acknowledged what she had been feeling all this time. The man in the cabin right now — she didn’t love him. She didn’t trust him. She feared him.
The body was completely covered again. Marie took the pocketknife she kept in her jacket and cut a branch from a nearby fir tree. She swiped at the snow with the branch, smoothing it out, following her tracks backward. It wasn’t perfect, but if fresh snow fell it should be good enough to cover her tracks.
When she got to the edge of the woods she muddied her trail, creating several false starts, just in case. Finally, she crept cautiously towards the cabin. She opened the garage door slowly and carefully, cringing at every rumble. She had one leg over the snowmobile before she noticed it.
“Motherfucker.”
The keys were gone. With a sinking feeling she looked at the gas gauge. Empty. She always left the snowmobile ready, topping off the tank and leaving the keys in the ignition in case of an emergency. Always. Scott had drilled that kind of readiness into her head until it was second nature. Already knowing what she would find, she walked over to where the extra gas containers were stored. The shelf was bare, only the dusty outlines of the gas containers remaining.
She took a deep breath, fighting back the rush of panic. She slowly closed the garage door as quietly as she could. Then she pushed the door between the garage and the cabin open just a crack. She didn’t see him.
She stood for a moment, wondering if she should take off her boots. She would be more silent in her socks, but she wanted to stay ready for anything. Ready for what? she asked herself. To run away from Logan? To fight him? Was she really thinking along those lines? She realized she was. She left the boots on.
She moved quietly through the kitchen. She could see his head resting on the arm of the couch, but from this angle she couldn’t tell if he was sleeping or not. She slid silently past him and then up the stairs, her heart pounding in her chest, every muscle in her body clenched with tension.
By the time she reached the top of the stairs she couldn’t stand it any more. She glanced back down, and then breathed out in relief. He was still on the couch, apparently sleeping. She moved quickly into the bedroom loft, yanking open the drawer to her side table.
She sat down heavily on the bed, her knees weak, staring into the drawer. The satellite phone was gone, as were the keys to the Jeep. Only a few odds and ends remained.
“I didn’t hear you come back.” His deep voice startled her, and she flinched. She tried to compose her face before turning around.
“I tried to be quiet. It looked like you needed the rest, sugar.”
He leaned against the wall at the entrance to the bedroom, his eyes shifting between her face and the drawer. “Lookin’ for somethin’?”
She reached into the drawer. “My comb. It’s windy out there.” She stood up, trying to keep her posture relaxed. “I’m frozen. I’m gonna take a hot bath.” She shed her jacket and pulled off her sweater and shirt, trying to seem unaffected by his presence while exposing a maximum amount of skin. She reached for her mutation, feeling it stutter to life as she casually ran the comb through her hair.
She would have to walk within his reach to get to the bathroom. She didn’t allow herself to hesitate. She rounded the bed, feeling every hair on the back of her neck stand up as she passed him. She wondered if he could hear her heart pounding, smell her fear.
She plugged up the tub and started the water running, setting her foot up on the tub and unlacing her boot.
He was still watching her as she pulled her second boot off. Finally he seemed to make up his mind. He smiled that insincere smile again. “Okay. I’ll make us somethin’ special for lunch. You just relax, all right?”
She smiled back. “Thanks, sugar.”
He started down the stairs and she closed the bathroom door with a trembling hand. She sat on the edge of the tub, listening to the water run, her thoughts racing.
No phone. No Jeep. No snowmobile. She tried to push aside the panic that was welling up inside her at the thought that this cabin, her sanctuary, had suddenly become her prison.
She tried to make a logical assessment of the situation. Even if she could hotwire the snowmobile it was useless without fuel, and he could have hidden the fuel anywhere. The Jeep wouldn’t make it through the snow even if she could hotwire that. So, she was well and truly trapped here with him unless she went on foot. It was only half an hour or so on foot to the grocery drop, even in deep snow, but she wasn’t sure if that road was plowed or if Samuel was coming by snowmobile as well. Even if it was plowed, no one would be using it except Samuel, and the next grocery drop wasn’t for four days.
Logan was stronger than her, and faster. But she had two very formidable weapons. Her mutation, which could drop him if necessary — maybe even kill him. And Magneto’s power — control over his very metal-laced bones. If it came down to it, she would use them both.
She really was frozen, inside and out. She pulled off her socks and soaked jeans, using a washcloth to trickle the warm water over her legs. She could leave tonight. If they slept apart again — and she would make damn sure they did — she might get enough of a head start before he realized she was gone. In the meantime she just had to play it cool. Pretend that everything was okay. She wasn’t sure if she could pull it off.
She had probably delayed enough. She toweled her legs off, dampening her face with the washcloth as well so she looked like she had taken a bath. She dressed, leaving the sleeves of her shirt rolled up to expose more skin.
“Honey? Lunch is ready,” he called from downstairs.
“Be right there,” she called in return, trying to keep her voice light and cheery.
She turned to the mirror to check her appearance, hoping she looked calmer than she felt, and then suddenly froze. She felt her world tilt on its axis again, her stomach flipping and her heart thumping as his words replayed in her head.
Honey. She hated it when people called her honey, ever since that truck driver who had picked her up in West Virginia. It set her teeth on edge.
He had never called her that before, she was sure of it. Darlin’ always, as naturally as breathing to him. Baby sometimes, but never, ever, honey. She sat back on the bed again, staring into space, furiously trying to remember every detail of the past few days. Since his behavior had changed, he had never once called her darlin’. Never even said her name in that way he had that made warmth rush through her. She had thought it was just because he was out of sorts, but now...
She felt a slow, creeping fury starting to supplant her fear. She gathered her courage and went downstairs.
He had pulled out the dining table, carelessly casting aside her exercise mats. They had never eaten there before, but he had laid it out with two place settings. She felt like she was going crazy. It was like an optical illusion — a few hours ago she would have thought that it was just Logan, trying to make a special effort to make up for how moody he had been. Now, looking at it with new eyes, it just amplified that voice inside her. The voice telling her that she didn’t know who this man was, but she knew one thing: Not Logan, not Logan, not Logan...
She sat down and picked up her fork. “This looks great, sugar.”
“Thanks, honey.” He took a few bites, his eyes on her, his expression neutral. “How was your walk?”
“It’s cold out there, but it was good to get out. I can understand if you’re gettin’ a little stir-crazy, shut up in here with me, sugar. I think it’s a good idea to get back to the mansion when we can.”
“That’s great.” He smiled, and she forced herself to smile back. “I think Xavier will be a real big help to me. I can’t wait to meet him.”
Now or never, she thought.
“Maybe we can stop by on the way and meet your friend Gus? You must miss him,” she asked casually.
“Gus?” For a moment he seemed confused, and she tensed, readying herself. “His place is all the way up by Ottawa, honey. First place I ran across after breakin’ out. That’d be completely the wrong direction. But we can take a trip up there some time if you want.”
“Oh.” She took another bite or two, her mind roiling with doubts. Maybe she was being crazy. Just being paranoid. But she thought of the snowmobile, and the phone, and...
“If you don’t mind I’d like to make a stop in town,” she said. “Scott and Jeannie must’ve had their baby by now, we can’t show up without a gift. Do you think there’s a bookstore? There was this book when I was a kid, it was my favorite. About an elephant named Charlie. It’d be kinda fun to get the same one for little baby Summers, ya know?”
“That’s a good idea. I don’t know if there’s a bookstore in town, but we’ll find one along the way.”
She clenched her fists under the table, forcing a smile. “My sister and I used to fight over that book like nobody’s business. That’s always the way, ain’t it? You each gotta have what the other one wants.”
He grunted. “You could always get two. In case they have another kid later on.”
“That’s smart thinkin’, sugar.” She managed to drain her water glass. “Want a beer while I’m up?”
“Yeah. Thanks, honey.”
She moved toward the fridge. She poured herself some more water, reaching for Magneto’s mutation. She felt the metal in the room sing to life. The refrigerator, the cutlery in the drawers, and...
Shit. She could feel it — the clear sweet note of adamantium lacing his bones. Not a shifter, then, no one could replicate that. What did it mean? She felt the cold fury washing over her. Whatever had happened, she would damn well find out.
She yanked him out of his chair by the metal in his bones, dropping him to the floor. In a flash, she was over him, a knife held to his throat.
“Who are you?” she hissed. “Where is Logan?”
“What do you mean? Quit actin’ crazy...”
“Don’t fuck with me. That’s not my favorite book and I sure as hell don’t have a sister. Now tell me what you’ve done to him or I start slicing.”
His golden eyes bored into hers for a long moment, and then suddenly he relaxed, smiling.
“I’ll admit, lass, I dinna see that one comin’.” His entire demeanor had changed, his accent changing to a broad brogue. “But what would’ye be plannin’ on doin’ wi’ that knife? The mon heals, aye? So what harm d’ye ken ye can do me?”
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