New Beginning
After holding her limp body against his, begging her to turn her skin on when she was too delirious to acknowledge his presence there was no way in hell he was going to let her go. When his well practiced and polite speech gave no result, she just stood there and stared at him, he decided it was time for desperate measures.
“Hell with it. I will come with you. You don’t get to vote in that matter,” he spat and walked out, leaving her dumbfounded. Old man, Peter, was sitting at the front porch of his tiny cabin. He closed the book he was reading when Logan stormed past him.
“Your friend seemed little agitated.” She had gotten dressed, and was brushing her hair when Peter walked in.
“He has some issues,” she said, trying to make sense of Logan’s behavior.
“He threatened to kill me if something happened to you. And he looks like a man of his word. You have no idea what a relief it is to get rid of him,” Peter sighed, putting the book away.
“He is a little overprotective.”
“Little? Do you know he has metal claws inside of his hands? He nearly stabbed me when I found you. Heard a terrible ruckus in the middle of the night. Went to see. There you were. He had both of his hands under your shirt and he kept telling you to turn on your skin. From the looks of it he had been doing it for some time.” Peter knew he would never forget that sight. Haggard, wild looking beast of a man, screaming and crying, nine inch metal claws protruding from his knuckles, hovering over young woman, baring his teeth like an animal.
“I’m so sorry. He had no right to threaten you…”
“Psah. Don’t fret it. But keep an eye on him. I have a bad feeling about him,” Peter warned her when she picked up her backpack and sleeping bag.
“We are back to square one?” She asked. They had left half an hour ago. True to his word Logan had stayed back, keeping his distance, and hadn’t uttered a word. His silence started to get on her nerves.
“Not that bad. But there are things that need to be talked through. That talk can wait up until tonight.”
“And you promise not to go all homicidal on me?” Tone of her voice was light, even joking, but they both realized she wasn’t joking.
“I won’t. Things have been a bit hazy lately, but I am getting better. I really am.” He didn’t know which he tried to assure more, her or himself. During the time they had spent at Peter’s he had managed to shut out malicious whispers from his mind almost completely. He could still hear them occasionally, but they were rapidly weakening. Dam inside of him had been repaired. It would be up to her to fortify it.
“Talk.” She looked up from the fire and drew a deep breath.
“From where do I start?” She asked.
“How about from the beginning?” Logan suggested. She smiled sadly.
“We will be here for a while…”
She still remembered the attack. Chaos and pure horror. There had been no place to run when Sentinels arrived. She had been standing at the front porch, trying frantically find a suitable route to escape, when suddenly Bobby had been there, his body shielding hers. There had been something wet and sticky on him. Later she had realized it had been his blood, flowing from the wound on his chest. When Bobby fell, Sentinel landed in front of her. Short burst of light and then complete darkness.
Apparently people that were responsible had needed lots of cellular material for experimentation. They had gathered all the corpses from the battlefield when fight was over. Bodies had been transported to some top-secret storage facility. Out of pure luck, or accident, somebody had brushed against her skin. Even when she was dead, her skin still worked. That had piqued their curiosity, and further examination was in order. To do that they needed her alive. They had had cellular material from another mutant. From somebody who healed fast. They had doped her up with those cells, and soon enough she was alive and kicking again.
They had actually treated her nice, as long as she co-operated. There had been people who listened her when she cried over Bobby. She had cried for Aislin, too, but that she had done in secrecy. She hadn’t known what had happened to her. Her best guess had been that the same people, who held her in captivity, had taken her too. But there was always a small possibility she was somewhere outside, free and taken care of. She couldn’t risk exposing her to her captors.
During those years they run several long series of tests with her skin. Some were very painful, some she didn’t even notice. Some of those tests didn’t go so well. When they had resuscitated her with gene therapy, some of those cells had bonded with her own, transforming a little. They stopped her aging process, but gave up their original task, healing. She didn’t mind, although some days prospect of spending next eternity imprisoned nearly drove her insane.
“First three years she had played nicely, out of fear what would happen to Aislin if she didn’t co-operate. When it came apparent they didn’t even know about her baby, she had been forgotten. Technicians came every week to check her vitals, but there were no tests run anymore. She had been planning to escape, but every time same thought managed to stop her. Where would she go? Even if she was a prisoner, she had relatively comfortable room, food and occasional company.
It took her few more years before she realized what was going on. They kept her drugged. Very mild sedatives, and some weird compound in her food to ensure she stayed docile and easy to handle until they needed her again.
She spent agonizing week pretending to eat, flushing all the food down to toilet, drinking foul smelling tap water. Her head cleared enough that she tried to escape. They caught her easily. She was put in storage to prevent new attempts. Cryogenic tank.
When she woke up from the stasis she had been transported to another laboratory, and it looked like testing would start all over again. Then something happened. People started dying from her left and right, dropping like flies.
“… And that’s when they set us free.” She stopped talking. Logan sat there, staring to the fire. Thought of her, his Marie, in a Lab. He didn’t know exactly how long he had been kept in there before he managed to escape, but she had been in the system for twenty years. And from the sound of it, last ten frozen solid. Brief image of her, covered in ice crystals, blue lips, blue, nearly transparent skin, motionless in a coffin made him grab her hand and pull her closer to him.
“I’ll take care of you. I promise.”
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