“You -- you were just going to leave me?”
“Rogue -- just wait...” He reached for her, but his reflexes seemed slow, his coordination disrupted by the lingering effects of her mutation. She ducked away, turning her back and reaching for her bra.
“Just give me a minute, okay?” She could feel the blush on her cheeks as she buttoned up her shirt and pulled on her jeans, trying to think calmly despite her hurt feelings. It helped that she had caught not just his thought, but his emotion. This decision wasn’t easy for him either.
She took a deep steadying breath and sat down on the bed again, pulling her knees up to her chest. He had buttoned up too, and he now watched her somewhat warily.
“You weren’t going to tell me,” she said matter-of-factly.
“No.” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, spiking his already wild locks further. “I knew how hard it would be for you to trust strangers after what Shaw’s done to you. I wanted you to meet them, see that they really meant to help you, before I told you that I was heading back.”
“Because of Jean.”
He nodded. “Rogue...” His voice was thick with emotion as he reached a gloved hand to her face. He pressed his palm against her cheek, and she closed her eyes, drinking in his touch. “I can’t just go, knowing that they have her. I’ll never get the information if I leave now. She’d be as good as dead.”
She nodded, feeling tears prickling behind her eyes, hating that weakness. “If you’re staying then I’m staying.”
He sat up, a new tension in his frame. “Like hell you are,” he growled.
She felt the tendril of anger spreading through her, bracing her. “You think you can order me around? What the hell are you thinking, Logan? If I disappear now -- from right under your nose? Sebastian will go ballistic. He’ll turn you to dust in two seconds flat. You just expect me to take off and not care about that? To let you die without a backward glance?”
She expected more anger from him, but instead his face softened, his clenched jaw easing and his eyes growing warm again.
“Hey. C’mere.”
He gathered her in close to him, holding her against his chest. She closed her eyes, feeling his warmth, listening to the steady beat of his heart. Her anger dissipated as quickly as it had flared, replaced only by heartache.
“So you’d be sad if Shaw turned me to dust?” he murmured against her hair.
She thumped his chest with her hand in aggravation, torn between tears and laughter. “Well, don’t get a swelled head over it.”
He sighed, rocking her a bit as his chest heaved up and down. “Listen. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to boss you around. But whatever Shaw has planned, you’re the key to it all. You heard it yourself in his thoughts. You staying here for even another day -- that’s not a risk either of us can take.”
He ran a hand over her hair, his gaze meeting hers. “You said yourself that he needs me for something, which means he’s probably not going to get rid of me until he has it. And if it has something to do with you, getting you out of Shaw’s grasp is only going to make me safer.”
She drew breath to argue, but then let it out in a sigh. She knew he was right. Whatever Sebastian had planned, if he accomplished it they were all in danger. Just the thought of Sebastian with even more power -- the kind of world-changing power she had sensed in this Phoenix -- chilled her blood.
“What are you going to tell them?”
He laughed softly. “That you're a wildcat -- you caught me off guard and your mutation knocked me on my ass. I don’t remember a thing.”
She shook her head against his chest. “There’s no way they’ll believe that. And won’t Emma read your mind and know you’re lying?”
“Maybe Shaw will buy it, maybe he won’t. But if he gets angry enough to kill me, he’ll be wrecking whatever goddamn grand plan he has. And Emma can’t read me. Probably all the metal in my head.”
She lifted her head, looking into his hazel eyes curiously. “Metal...in your head?”
He shifted her closer to him, and she felt him hesitating, as if unusure where to start. “You know I’m feral, right?”
Her lips quirked. “The constant growling tipped me off a bit.”
He gave her a mock swat. “Smartass. Anyway, from what I’ve pieced together, I had claws before, but they were made of bone. The metal came later, at the same time I lost my memories. It’s all through my body -- not just the claws, but grafted to every bone in my skeleton, including my skull.”
She traced her fingertips along his cheekbone, as if she would feel the metal through the barriers of her gloves and his skin, and then felt foolish. “How?”
“They cut me open, put liquid metal in me, and let it harden. Once it’s set, nothing can break it. I’m as damn near unkillable as Shaw is.”
His tone was matter-of-fact, but he couldn’t hide the shadow of pain in his eyes.
“Logan...” She nuzzled into his chest, horrified by the thought of what he had gone through. “How did you survive something like that?”
“Hmmm? I thought you knew. I heal.”
She looked up at him in surprise. He held up one hand, popping one claw and then retracting it, and she watched in fascination as the skin closed up, leaving only a slight trace of blood behind.
She ran a gloved finger down the space between his knuckles where the gash had been. “It still hurts you -- doesn’t it?”
He nodded, and she leaned down, kissing the healed skin gently, eliciting a soft growl of surprise and arousal from him.
Suddenly she sat up, heart racing with the realization. “That why he wants you -- your healing.”
Her mind spun, nausea rising up from her belly as she suddenly saw the whole picture. “He wants...it’s like a Frankenstein creation. He wants to use my mutation to steal your healing. And the treatments -- trying to transfer his consciousness to me, trying to take over. That’s what he wants -- his mind...in my body...with your healing. And then the power of this Phoenix. He would be unstoppable.”
His expression grew grim. “Christ, Rogue. I think you’re right.”
He pulled her up against him again, both of them shaken by the idea of an all-powerful, completely invulnerable Shaw.
His voice was steely with resolve when he spoke again. “We’ve got to get you out of his reach. If that last treatment had worked...”
She shivered, petrified at the thought of Shaw in her body. Would she simply have been erased, or would she have been trapped -- a helpless bystander in her own mind as Shaw did whatever horrible things he had planned? Logan seemed to sense her fear. He held her tighter, stroking her hair, soothing her. She felt the tears prickling behind her eyes again at his kindness. “I don’t want to leave you here with him, Logan. He’s insane.”
He sighed. His voice was a low rumble against her ear. “I know, baby. I don’t want to leave you either. I’ll get the info about Jean as soon as I can, even if I have to twist Emma’s head off to get it. And then I’ll meet you. It’ll be okay. My friends are good guys. They’ll take care of you. I trust them, and I don’t trust easy.”
There seemed to be nothing left to say. She settled closer into the warmth of his body, listening to his breathing and the steady thump of his heart, trying not to think about how easily Sebastian could stop that heart...still that breathing...turn his whole body to ashes, metal skeleton or not.
She hadn’t even realized she had fallen asleep until she felt him gently nudge her awake, placing a kiss on her hair. “It’s time, darlin’. You ready for this?”
She nodded, rubbing her eyes, pulling her hair into a knot at the back of her neck. She slipped on her shoes. “How will we get out of here without being seen?”
He opened the window and looked out. The back lawn was deserted. “Shaw’s crappy security...all the guys are in the house, and all the guards are at the perimeter. I’ll lower you down.”
He pulled the sheet off the bed. She couldn’t help smiling despite her worry -- it was just like a jailbreak in a movie. “Do you need me to tie it around you, or can you climb down?”
She sat on the windowsill and looked down. They were on the second floor -- it was high, but not unmanageable. “I think I can climb.”
He quickly made a few knots in the sheet, and lowered it along the wall. He held her face, kissing her one more time, soft and deep and urgent. “When I get down there with you, stay close and stay quiet. I’ll let you know what to do, okay?”
She nodded, taking a deep breath. He braced his feet, and she held onto the sheet, lowering herself slowly. Once she got the hang of it she was able to go quickly, dropping the last few feet to the lawn. She watched in confusion as the sheet disappeared and Logan reappeared in the window. With a sudden bound he simply leaped down, landing beside her on the balls of his feet.
“Logan! Are you okay?” she whispered.
She saw the gleam of his teeth in the darkness as he straightened up, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck.
“Just fine, darlin’. Here we go.”
They made their way toward the south gate, Logan appearing to have no difficulty finding the path despite the near-total darkness. His feral nature seemed to come to the forefront as they moved silently across the lawn and through the woods -- his movements becoming more predatory, golden eyes glinting in the wan moonlight, muscles bulging in his arms and shoulders as he stopped to sniff the wind every so often.
Rogue saw a light winking in the distance as the trees thinned. The guard booth at the south gate. As they got closer she could see the guard’s back, chair tipped back, chin on his chest.
Logan crouched down, pulling her down beside him. “Stay here,” he whispered. She watched him move stealthily toward the guard booth. Suddenly he stopped, sniffing the air again. Her breath froze in her chest as Logan abruptly wheeled around, claws springing from his hands.
Everything seemed to happen at once. The guard sprang to his feet, pointing a gun at him -- Rogue saw that it was Marcus, he had only pretended to be sleeping. At the same time there was an odd thwucking sound, and Azazel appeared behind Logan. A split second later, Azazel had thrown himself at Logan’s back, and with another thwucking sound they both disappeared.
Rogue hadn’t even realized that she had leaped to her feet. She stood at the edge of the woods, stunned and shaking, as Shaw emerged from the far side of the gate, three men with high-powered flashlights in his wake.
“Rogue....come out, come out, wherever you are!” Shaw taunted in a singsong tone.
Rogue stood for another moment, frozen in shock. Then she turned towards the forest and ran.