As he listened to Marie's footsteps hurry down the corridor, he breathed a sigh of relief. God that had hurt, and it wasn't feeling any better, with Marie gone now he could finally pass out and let his body heal uninterrupted.
He was woken sometime later by voices in the bedroom behind him.
"What do you think happened? The blood's got to be his, right?" A feminine sounding voice asked.
"I say she finally had enough of him smacking her around, I told you this was going to happen." That was a male, probably old One Eye. So, he thought he was smacking Marie around did he, what a moron, Marie would never tolerate that, in the incredibly unlikely event he ever stooped that low. And what the hell was going on with his senses, he felt like he was simultaneously weighed down with lead, and floating. Did his finger just twitch? Better not try that again with these dicks still around. Eyes closed, pretend to be dead, until you can move, then run when they're not looking - seemed like a good plan.
They sat around in his room for what felt like hours, he passed in and out of consciousness several times as his body continued to work at healing; spinal damage always took a while to heal, and would often leave him with a weird buzzing feeling in whatever limbs had been affected.
The room was brightly lit when he came too much later, a lot more aware than he had been earlier, it must be night and they'd turned all the lights on. The buzzing had set in, so strongly it felt like his whole body was burning. He took stock of his surroundings, he was still laid out on the bathroom floor, lying in a sticky puddle of his own blood, they mustn't have been able to manoeuvre him out of the space. There was someone in the room but his nose wouldn't tell him who it was, his ears on the other hand picked up the sound of someone entering the room.
"Any change?" Ororo asked, as she moved to the bathroom doorway.
"Nope," Jean replied boredly, "I brought some magazines up, if anything changes let me know but she may well have finally put him down for good. Enjoy your night." Jean said, hurriedly leaving the room, leaving Ororo alone to keep an eye on him. Bad, bad idea...
Over the next hour he progressively got more and more feeling back and began to gently flex his extremities, trying to be as quiet as possible. Ororo was on the couch, which wasn't in view of the bathroom but he knew she would likely hear him as soon as he finally moved, so he needed to move fast when he did, and take her out quickly. When he felt able, he slowly and silently eased himself into a sitting position, his head swam momentarily but as soon as could see straight he steadily rose to his feet.
He cast a shadow into the room from the bathroom light, though it appeared Storm was distracted as she didn't notice the change until he launched himself into the room. He had knocked her out before she could even reach halfway for the tranquilizer gun beside her.
He felt mildly bad for the fact it was Storm, she was the least offensive of the group of would be superheroes. Despite the fact he knew she'd been worshiped as a goddess in Africa she was probably the most compassionate and grounded of the bunch. But she was effectively standing between him and his mate and child right now, he'd apologize later if he got the chance. Quickly he tied her up with a shredded sheet, laying her out on the couch where she would be comfortable at least.
He was going to go straight for his pack and leave when the scent of blood reminded him, he was still soaked in it. He stripped off his shirts, throwing them onto the blood puddle on the floor - may as well keep all the blood in one place. His jeans were relatively blood free so he shucked them and threw them onto the bed to put back on, before he dove into the shower. Ignoring the initial coldness of the water, more interested in speed, he sluiced water over himself quickly to soften the flaking blood. His hair was the hardest to get clean but thankfully Marie had left one of her hair brushes behind, the stiff bristles broke up the clumps of matted hair. The water ran a murky brown for several minutes until he was satisfied he had got rid of, at the very least, the worst of the gore. He towelled himself dry as he walked back out to the bedroom stark naked, he quickly pulled back on his jeans, and grabbed the rest of his clothes from his drawer.
He pulled on shirts, socks, and his boots before he fished out his pack and crammed the rest of his clothes into it, before hefting it onto a shoulder as he lit out the service corridor, grabbing his jacket on the way. Hopefully it would be several hours yet before someone came to relieve Storm of watch duty and discovered him gone.
He managed to slip out of the mansion unseen and jogged into the woods, he didn't slow down once he got to the treeline, his night vision helping him pick out anything that might slow him down in plenty of time. Stepping out onto the side of the highway he turned north, he was less likely to be able to flag down anyone for a ride, little girls were seen as being relatively harmless but grown men were dangerous. Despite this, he tried his luck with the trucks that passed by frequently, surprised when he eventually heard the sound of a semi braking as it approached.
"Thanks bub," he said, to the driver as he climbed into the warm cab.
--
He couldn't believe it, almost a full twenty-four hours later, in almost the exact same spot as he had picked up the girl the day before, there was another figure trying to flag down a truck. Admittedly this one wasn't trying very hard, he'd probably been out here a while with no luck, he didn't even watch the trucks approach, just stuck out his thumb as he must have heard them approaching.
He wasn't in the habit of picking up hitchhikers but he'd broken that rule once already this week so what the hell. As he pulled past the male figure, and came to a stop a ways ahead of him, he briefly reconsidered but the guy looked wiped as he climbed into the cab. He was pale and breathing heavily from the effort of climbing up the ladder, and he stumbled trying to step into the cab, almost like his leg was asleep. Wherever this guy was going he was determined, like the girl the day before...
"Where to buddy?" he asked, as the wild looking, dark haired man collapsed into the passenger seat with a sigh.
"Malone," the guy replied.
"Malone?" the driver couldn't hide his surprise.
"Or as close as you're getting," the dark-haired man replied, either missing or ignoring his tone.
"You sure you don’t mean Ellenburg?" the driver asked.
Logan paused, turning to the driver, how did this guy know where he was heading?
"You're looking for a girl... with a baby?" the driver asked.
"You've seen her?" Logan queried, unsure yet whether he should be relieved or concerned.
"Depends, you her 'guardian'?" the driver asked, the barely disguised sneer in his voice telling Logan that the 'guardian' she had told this guy about was not a nice person.
"No, I helped her escape, now I need to catch up to her, she's... she's supposed to be waiting for me in Ellenburg, so we can get over the border before they catch up to us," Logan admitted.
"Why not just get rides over the border and meet on the other side?" the driver asked confused.
"Because neither of us have ID," Logan replied pointedly.
The driver paused, "Shit, you're going to try and walk over the border, with a baby, and no offence but you don't look so crash hot yourself."
Logan huffed a laugh, before leaning down and digging through his pack for some ration packs, "Some food and a few hours’ sleep and I'll be good to go, it's not ideal but we'll make it work, it has to work."
"You're the baby's father?" the driver asked, at Logan's halting affirmative nod he continued. "Is what the girl said true, are they really trying to sell the baby?"
"High level human trafficking, she wouldn't be going anywhere good," Logan replied, there really wasn't any other way to describe it. The driver paled, before letting out a curse. "You didn't tell me where you saw her," Logan reminded the driver as he swallowed a mouthful of protein bar.
"Picked her up about where I picked you up in the wee hours of yesterday morning, dropped her at Ellenberg about nine am," the driver told him.
Logan nodded, relieved that it sounded like she'd at least had an uneventful trip. "How was she?" he couldn't help but ask.
"She was okay, obviously worried but she got a decent amount of sleep and I bought her breakfast when I unloaded in Malone. The baby was good too, real quiet little thing, wish my kid was that quiet and well behaved sometimes," the driver added with a chuckle.
"Thank you, for helping her out," Logan said, suddenly he wasn't hungry anymore, the mouthful of protein bar he had to force down was like sawdust in his mouth. He couldn't help but feel like he had failed Marie, sending her off on her own, alone, with a baby, leaving her reliant on strangers.
"It was no problem man, glad I could help, seems like the three of you could use a helping hand. I'll drop you the same place I dropped her, in the meantime, bunk's free, go get yourself some sleep, you need it."
With a chuckle Logan followed the guys suggestion, surprised to pick up a hint of Marie's scent. It wasn't on the bed but it was on one of the blankets, she must have used the blanket when she was sleeping the day before. He pulled the blanket around him, to catch as much of Marie's scent as he could before he drifted off to sleep.
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