Logan had no idea what that guy was doing here, but he was way too old and way too cocksure to be any good for a girl like Marie. It was all over him, in the way he sat, trying to mark his territory, when in fact Marie could throw him out any moment and Logan would be all too glad to help. All that false confidence made him sick. As if that guy wasn’t scared shitless after facing his claws.
And then there was that nagging suspicion on the back of his head. What if?
He still was not sure what to make out of all the things that kid had told him. About the power to touch and kill or steal time. About relating those things to his Marie. About believing that she could not only do that but that she might have done that already. Fooling him and everyone else all too easily. Was she really just a fake going back to where she felt she rightfully belonged? Maybe to that guy?
He had to know.
With the darkest stare he could muster he tried to pin that guy to the sofa, adding a threatening note to his voice. “So who are you?”
Patrick returned the stare unmoved. “I am more curious as to who you are. Obviously no teacher. No man in his right mind would allow someone with your... temper…to be anywhere near kids.” There was a moment of silence, before he continued with a challenging tone. “And I don’t like psychopaths hanging out with Marie”
“If it wasn’t for me she wouldn’t be alive now. I’m a friend. One of the best she has. So what are you to her?”
“What ever she needs me to be.”
“Don’t you think you are a little to old to even consider sleeping with a 16 year old? Least of all Marie?” There was a warning note in Logan’s voice that was loud enough to be heard in the entire house.
Marie made a hasty appearance, coughing a little too obviously, glaring at Logan. Well, when this was over she would definitely need to search for a new home. There was no way she would live down such a story anytime soon. And the talking part had not even started yet.
Patrick turned a questioning look to her. “Marie, why would this guy be thinking you are 16?”
She set down the tea tray on the table, sat down right beside Patrick and said with the best matter of fact voice she could muster, “That would be because I didn’t have the heart to correct his assumption.”
“And how would he come to assume so in the first place?”
There was a slight trace of red on her cheeks as she continued. “Well, probably because I have been using that lie quite a lot lately.”
Logan still tried to wrap his mind around it. She had been lying. The “how old are you?” question, still hanging on his lips sounded rather flat.
“32” And just like that she had said it. It was only then that Patrick turned to her, adding quietly, “34, Marie.”
She looked questioning for a moment. “Oh, right. Did my best to forget two of those years.”
There was the hint of a pained smile that made Patrick lay his arm around her almost instantly. And for the first time at a rather long while Logan found himself lost for words. A part of him had been prepared for this. Maybe he had expected a frightened little voice admitting that there were things he should know, but not to come here and have her act like it was no big deal. As if age made no difference. And it dawned on him that to her it might not.
Patrick used his other hand to pour a rather healthy dose of rum into his coffee. Logan eyed the bottle contemptuous. That was the downside of his mutation. He didn’t get drunk unless he made an effort, and even the entire bottle would not be enough to let him forget about the weirdness factor of all this.
Beside the fact that Logan’s instinct to run was trying to get the better of him, he started to feel the first cloud of sympathy toward the guy as Patrick spoke out loud what Logan had only thought that far.
“I have the nagging suspicion that I am about to hear something I am not going to like.”
Marie gave a tired smile but this time the movement betrayed her age. She still acted like Logan wasn’t there at all. She just spoke to Patrick as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “You were the one that told me that I am too brutally honest for my own good. That I could have a much easier time, should I just get around to using all the little lies everyone else delivers so well. I mastered that art by now.”
“And how many of the things you told me were true?” Patrick eyed her over his pot of coffee.
“Well, quite a lot actually. Boarding school is one of the closest words you can use for Xavier’s place. It’s just that I did not get there right after I left home. I was there the last two years and only started to become an interpreter a few weeks ago.”
Her cousin nodded. “That leaves a gap of 12 years for me. How much does your friend know?” Patrick indicated with his chin into Logan’s direction and both actually started to stare when Marie answered, “The last two years, nothing beyond that.”
“You didn’t even tell him why you ran away? How did you explain that away?”
Marie just shrugged. “You’d be surprised. They hear the same story over and over again. Just say what everyone else says: ‘My mutation manifested and the people surrounding became scared of me, so I ran before they did something to me or my parents.’ Just add a slight tremble of the lip and some watery eyes every time you say Mom or Dad’s name and, woho, there is your membership certificate.”
Patrick nodded at that. “So basically your friend over there knows nothing at all.”
Marie nodded too. And before any of this got any further Logan’s claws extended, basically shredding the table. “Anyone going to clue me in anytime soon?”
Marie got up, excusing herself to the bathroom, and Patrick gave a rather tired sigh the second the door closed after her. Turning to Logan he answered. “Listen. I have no idea who you are or how you came to know her. But this” and he was pointing toward the bathroom door, “is your one and only opportunity out. I don’t know what you guys saw of her, but the first time she kissed a boy, he became comatose.”
“We know that.”
“Did you know that this wasn’t the real problem? He had Asthma. It was explained away just like that. An attack at an inappropriate moment, and you can think for yourself what people thought about how this came to be. Neither of them ever officially denied it, but with all the questions Marie asked me afterwards she eventually had to spill the beans. She had seen everything of this kid. All his thoughts. All his memories. All the dirty things a randy boy in puberty wants to do to a girl. I tried my best to help her through it and after some struggling she seemed to get a hold on things from one day to the next. I never asked how, but things seemed fine for a while. That was till the boy started to age right in front of our very eyes. And I don’t mean growing up and getting a beard. He physically aged ten years in about a month. 120 years in 356 days.“
Patrick looked at Logan, provoking.
“His body gave in halfway through.”
How ever he had expected Logan to react, there were no tell tale signs that the man even registered what had just been said. Patrick mustered the other man’s face for almost a minute, and couldn’t detect a single muscle moving. Little did he know that Logan just wasn’t ready to apply this knowledge to himself, to figure out what it could mean for him, to go and think of his Marie so lowly, when in fact he had a number of reasons to do so.
Instead Patrick just reached for his cup and continued talking.
“You’ve got to see; the word mutant wasn’t that well known back then, but people started to whisper. The whole thing had taken two years. He had died. And she? It seemed like she had not aged a bit. None of the tale tell signs that she was going to enter womanhood had developed any further. Arguments started. Things got nasty when her father called her a whore and a witch. But what hit her the hardest were people calling her a murderer.”
“I think she would have stayed if it wasn’t for her father. I mean, she was crashing at my place rather regularly back then. Things are bearable when you have at least one person at your side. But the last straw was when her own father called the army on her. Things got REALLY bad then. I mean, I know it sounds stupid, but it’s the truth. Normally you can’t just ask the Army to get such things done, but her dad called in some personal favors. She got to know of it. And before I could even start to figure out a way to help her she was gone. Just gone. Took most of my money with her, but it was fine in the end. She made it, right? Never really believed she would. But how ever she managed it, I am sure it was a hard way. And unless she really has a good reason to trust you I suggest that you get lost this very minute.”
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