He tried to block as many bullets as he could, put as much of himself on their way as it was possible. They hurt, but he’d heal. The girl was a bit trickier to put back together if she got hit, and he wasn’t going to loose his memory and life for yet another time. She’d tell him about the world. She’d teach him how to live. She’d tell him about himself if she had known him. But all those things required her to be alive to do them. Who knew, maybe she could come back from the dead even when her brain was splattered all over this dingy corridor, but he wasn’t going to take any risks. He would get them both out from here, but it would be up to her to keep them out. At least as long as it took from him to learn the ropes outside.
He unsheathed his claws, wincing from the pain, cursing when he noticed how much of his blood was coloring their silvery surface. There were limits. Certain limits his healing wasn’t able to overcome. He had learned it the hard way when they had tested him and pushed those limits, nearly killing him in the process. From the warm blood running down his arms and dripping on the floor he could tell he was closing those limits already. His body wouldn’t take much more before it would need some time to recover from what was done to it.
He realized his mistake when he got closer to the figures that were still firing at him and the girl. This wasn’t the team he had killed earlier. This was the first team he had encountered and left supposedly dead, their bodies pierced through several times. This time he was going to make sure that after they died they stayed dead. Instead of just stabbing them he lopped off their heads. Torsos fell to where they had stood, no silent guns rattling on the floor.
Air was wheezing in his lungs. He could feel the blood pooling inside of him. Wounds were closing, but nowhere near the earlier fevered pace. He leaned against the wall, trying to stay conscious. Coughed up bullets and soft bits and pieces he’d rather not know of what they were. He turned to look at the other end of the corridor and squinted his eyes. The girl was still on the floor, face down. Was she hit?
“Rogue…” He cleared his throat and spat out the blood, then called her again. This time she moved, sat up slowly, and he could see the blood coloring her back, and when she turned there was blood on her face and chest, it was everywhere. So much of it. She was hurt, she’d been hit, she’d die and there would be nobody to show him how to live.
He took few swaying steps to her direction. World tilted on its axis and he fell on the floor on his hands and knees. His claws were still out and blood was pooling around his palms and he should have put those back in but there was no time to do that, he’d have to get up and go to see if there was anything he could do but there was nothing left of him and he fell face down to the warm and sticky pool, redness around him deepening, darkening, until he could see only small bright spot somewhere far ahead, and she was walking in the light. Walking towards him on her own, then running and screaming. He could hear noises from somewhere behind him, but he was too tired to turn and look for their source. His eyelids felt like they weighed a ton. His every muscle and tendon were paralyzed. He couldn’t have moved even if he wanted to, and at the moment he couldn’t really muster up any urges to move to any direction.
He closed his eyes, and there was only darkness.
He came back to his senses. He was on his back, one hand awkwardly hung over his head and the ceiling was moving. It took him a while to put it all together. Ceiling wasn’t moving. He was moving. He was being dragged. Somebody was holding his hand and dragging him. He tried to struggle free from the grip. Nobody, absolutely nobody dragged him to anywhere when he was at this state. He was cold and tired, and he could tell from the stench of blood that he was still bleeding.
“Let go…” He rasped and tried to pull his hand away. His claws were still out and hard grip from around his wrist was chafing the blades against tissues inside of his wrist making them hurt and bleed.
“Let the fuck go of me!” He thought he was shouting. His voice should have been booming from the walls, filled with anger and authority, but he could hardly hear his squeaking himself.
“Shut up. I think they’re dead, but I’m not sure. I don’t want them to find us…” The girl. He would have laughed if the blood hadn’t glued his vocal cords, rendering them quite useless. Instead he coughed, trying to clear his throat.
“Will find anyway… Just follow the trail… I’m still bleeding, brainiac…” He forced the words out. And finally she stopped and let go of his hand. He stretched his protesting muscles and drew his claws back in their sheaths. Rolled on his side and turned to look at her.
“I snapped their necks, but I’m not sure if they can recover from that. I don’t have a knife. I tried to use your claws to decapitate them, but you’re too heavy to jostle around like that. I just left them there, I don’t have the slightest idea of where we are, and if you were planning to go all the way down to the janitorial level I may have screwed up that plan completely. Are you going to get better soon?” He closed his eyes and tried to comprehend everything she had just said.
“I already chopped off their heads…”
“Yes, you took care of the ones with the guns. But then you went down and there were more waiting. I had to take care of them.”
“I have no idea of where we were… Was just going to direction that felt right…”
“Have you been down here before?”
“I’m not sure… Might have… Where are we now?”
“I don’t know. I found a working elevator and pushed a button. They didn’t have numbers on those, just colors. I think it was blue. Might have been, because it looked a little like purple. Are you going to get better soon?”
“Blue… I have been here before… Hospital wing…”
“Are you going to get better soon?”
“I don’t know… You in a hurry?”
“No. Do you need anything? Like a blood transfusion or something? I don’t know about these things, but I could try…”
“No. I’ll be fine… I’ll be just fine… It’s just so goddamned cold…”
“Oh, shit… What… What are you doing…” She was jostling him. Turning him around, pushing and pulling and it hurt.
“You said you were cold. Come here. Maybe you’d be more comfortable… Lean back.” He did as she told. He could feel something soft behind his back. His jeans were soaked through from his blood and his ass was still freezing on the floor, but there was something warm and soft behind his back, around his sides and thighs. She was sitting behind him. Hands and legs cradling him. He let his head fall back on her shoulder and let his whole body relax.
“I’m too heavy… Just push me back to floor if…”
“It’s okay. Sleep. Get better. I’ll wake you if something happens, okay?” Her hand combed back tangled hair from his forehead. He closed his eyes.
“Don’t worry… We made a deal… I won’t bail out from it…”
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