Chapter 16: Now
The house was nestled on a quiet street, deep in the suburbs of town. Even in the early grey light just before dawn, it was obvious that it was a well-kept neighborhood, each side of the tree-lined drive flecked with sleepy bungalows. There were swing sets. Dogs. Fucking picket fences. As the Bronco’s tires rolled quietly up to the address and then backed up a couple of houses, Logan double checked the numbers he had scrawled out on the back of a receipt. He had committed it to memory anyhow, but now, with the doubt there was anything left in him that was working properly, he had also written it down. This couldn’t be it. And, if it was…
A red tricycle in the lawn. The smell of coffee percolating. A distant alarm clock. Children complaining about brushing their teeth. Fuck.
He’s got kids.
“I know,” Logan murmured to himself.
You gonna kill a man with kids?
“Fuck, baby. Half the people I’ve slaughtered in my life probably had kids,” he muttered.
This isn’t a good idea, sugar.
Logan shot a glance across the road to a neighboring house as he detected movement. An older, greying woman in a bathrobe and house shoes shuffled down to the end of the drive to fetch yesterday’s mail. Magpies sang in the distance. Crisp leaves that had already turned yellow and red were starting to fall. There were fucking pumpkins carved on the porch. As the light grew from grey to pink to orange, the background sounds picked up in intensity. Bacon sizzling. Hair dryers humming. The rumble of a school bus.
The timing was all off, everything was wrong. He knew he would have to come back, later in the day or at night. There was no way he could apprehend Carl here in broad day light without drawing more attention to himself, and, obviously, he wasn’t about to storm in the house and scare the hell out of a couple of kids and a wife to get to the son of a bitch. As Logan finally turned over the engine of the Bronco, muttering “fuck” to his steering wheel, it was then he saw a tall woman walk out of the house with a small child, kneeling down to tell the girl something before zipping up the little one’s jacket in the cool, morning air. Logan sighed frustratingly, moving to put the car into drive and leave. Another done-up jacket. Another zipped backpack. Another kiss goodbye. Borrowed images. Borrowed time. Another day Laura would have to endure on her own.
--
The plastic plant in the corner of the cramped lobby shuddered, the fan throwing the air about the room, occasionally disturbing its dyed leaves. Logan walked in to hear the rumpled crackling of plastic being drawn back, and he found an achingly young brunette, twenty at most, stuffing an entire Twinkie into her mouth, before turning her attention to her smartphone, partially leaning over the counter as she did so. The florescent lighting abused the faded tile on the floor, and the restlessness in the air was palpable.
Logan had deliberately driven about ten miles out of town, and he now found himself on the fringe of Kelowna, near highway 33. The motel was a small, one-story sprawl with a sagging roof, a place probably originally intended for truckers and loggers, now seeing a slump is business due to the industry’s automation. He had carefully pulled the Bronco off the main road into the mostly empty parking lot, taking in the chipped teal paint and faded door sign. Logan had rubbed his eyes with a spare hand, knowing that he needed more sleep, but, even if he intended to stay here for a few hours, he wasn’t intent on it. In the background, the steady stream of sand, time pouring out from one bulb of the hourglass into the other. Eyes bloodshot and body weary, he had stalked into the motel lobby, his anxiety thick and heavy as he glanced down at the woman-recently-girl, half-lying on the counter before him.
“I need a room,” he gruffly said, finally getting her attention. The woman looked up, a quirky smile on her face as she brought her chocolate brown eyes to meet his. On the bottom of one lip was a smear of white frosting, and it was only after she languidly drew one finger along it to wipe it off that she responded.
“How long?” she asked, a little too knowingly. Logan had already known the motel, desperate for business, had probably had turned into one of those places that now easily rented by the hour.
“Until I leave. At least until the late evening, I s’pose…” He trailed off, his grip tightening on the strap of the pack he had slung over his shoulder.
“You alone?” she asked, a flash of something devilish in her eyes as she glanced behind him through the glass door and out toward the empty Bronco beyond.
“Uhh, yeah,” he muttered, but she was running her eyes over him, lingering on muscles and scars alike. Logan cleared his throat, which only caused her to smirk a little wider. Here she was: another woman looking at him like he had all the answers. Like life started or ended with a short, hard fuck in an alleyway or under a cold, sputtering shower. His muscles bristled with tension. He was already sick of her shit and just wanted the hell out of the lobby, especially with those fucking eyes on him.
“How much?” he heard himself gruffly asking.
“For the room or for something else?” she asked. Damn it. He had walked right into that one.
“Room,” he growled, already whipping out his wallet, fumbling through the notes.
“Eighty,” she said, glancing back to the phone, already losing interest.
“Any liquor stores close by?” he murmured as he put the money on the table, and she cocked an eyebrow at him again. They both knew it was ten in the morning. Not that it mattered to either of them.
“Yeah, just down the street,” she said, handing him a traditional metal key and plastic green keychain attached. Logan peered at it for a moment, before taking it from her. “Lucky number seven,” she said.
“Thanks,” he muttered, before snatching the key from her, turning for the door.
“If you need anything sir, I’m here all day,” she said, in a practically sing-song voice. He closed his eyes hard for a moment, before walking out into the autumn air.
--
On the television was a smear of blurred images and colors, running along in front of him. The light was making its way through the blinds, now lower in the sky. The plastic bottle was in his hand as he tipped it back, sitting on the bed. And as the hours moved, his mind stayed blank. Without her, without Laura, hell, even without Charles…all of it boxed up and put away. Like the room he found himself in, his mind felt empty, nothing else much left. The air was warm and stiff, the tick of the clock heavy in his ears.
You sure you wanna be drunk going into this? He heard her again, and he outwardly growled.
Another swallow the stuff, another locked box rattling in his mind.
Logan.
“Just get the fuck outta my head, woman,” he said bitterly, his grasp tightening on the bottle.
Logan.
“Marie,” he said, his voice breaking, almost pleading now.
It wasn’t your fault.
He shut his eyes.
Liar, he thought bitterly, downing the rest of the first bottle and reaching for the spare, flicking the plastic cap off easily.
---
A hallway from Xavier’s ruptured in front of him, the whole ground quaking. Kids dropped like flies around him as he struggled to move. He felt wood and plaster give way as he drove his claws into the wall to steady himself. And then there it was, the partially open door in front of him, trembling and seizing, the afternoon light escaping through the crack, as he made his way closer, a shaking, bloody hand just hovering over the door knob…
Logan awoke in a teeming haze from his spot on the bed, mind still drunk enough off of the cheap whiskey he had been drinking all day. He was slow to catch up, but as he glanced to the darkened window, he could hear the smattering of rain outside. He blindly reached for his watch that he had taken off and sat on the little table beside him, bringing it up close to his face for his eyes to be able to read the time, having left all of his pairs of readers back in Hay River. Just past seven at night. Shit. It was already a little past the time he meant to go back and stake out the place again.
“Fuck,” he murmured, fumbling around for this jacket, grabbing what the mostly-empty second bottle and stuffing it into a deep pocket.
He was out then, in the pouring rain, rooting for the keys to the Bronco. He was soaked by the time he climbed inside, breathing a bit heavy. He ran a hand through his wet hair and reaching once more for the bottle. For a minute, he simply watched the rain make indiscriminate patterns on the windshield, drowning in both the cheap liquor and the sound of the deluge. Then, there was a shadow of movement in his periphery, and, as he glanced to his right, he saw the profile of the woman from the lobby earlier inside in a parked Toyota, straddling some lucky bastard, both of them pouring themselves into each other in the darkened front seat of the sedan. For one long, unending moment, while the rain hammered outside, Logan hazily watched the strangely intimate scene just beyond him, watched as she gave up all she had, gave up the whole world, gave up everything and nothing with one swift, fluid motion of her hips. The moment ended though, and he pushed everything further down inside him before starting up the old, stammering car, driving off into the inky, wet night.
--
“Carl, don’t you start this with me tonight.”
“Well if you stayed outta my shit, Linda, maybe it wouldn’t be a problem.”
The clank of dishes being plopped into the sink. The running of a faucet.
“All I did was call the guy. A little…bit of encouragement. Jesus, it’s just like you to do this. Always the same. Just go down to the warehouse and find what you say you’re looking for.”
“And this is where you tell me I’m not enough, right? Never fucking enough for you, all your nagging-”
“-Carl-”
“-how about you just leave me alone for one goddamn minute?”
“Fine.”
Hurried footsteps, headed for the front door. The sound of it opening.
“Linda! You walking out on me again? Linda!” Logan stiffened as he made out the tall woman from earlier, slamming the front door behind her, stalking off in the rain to the parked Volvo in the driveway. He sat up a little more as she started the engine, backing up. Inside the house he continued to hear swearing. With her gone, he might be able to go in there, see what he could get out of the guy.
Not with the kids still awake.
He checked. He could hear the sound of kids watching some inane cartoon in their bedrooms. Still up. Fuck.
Follow her, Logan.
Why?
Just go.
He was starting the engine before he realized he was dutifully carrying out Marie’s orders like a fucking puppet, but as he pulled behind the Volvo onto a busier street, he finally admitted it wasn’t a half-bad plan. At worst, it was something to do until the kids went to bed. A best, maybe she’d go somewhere, accidentally give away something important, show him what he had missed.
He assumed the woman would head for a bar after that little scuffle, and Logan was surprised to find after a few minutes of driving in the rain that the Volvo was turning into a crowded diner maybe a couple of miles from where she lived. As Logan parked the Bronco on the other side of the street, he watched her slam the door behind her, running out into the rain once more, coat and umbrella apparently forgotten in her haste to escape her life for a while. Through the windows, he could see her make her way to one of the few vacant booths to sit down, before dropping her head into her hands.
Logan found himself getting out of the car before he knew what was good for him. He was crossing the street in the rain, then pulling open the door of the diner, to find it bustling in that typical way of late evening, a couple of pretty waitresses flitting back and forth between the busy tables. An older couple sat in the corner sharing a shortstack, and an older man sat at the counter on a swivel stool, nursing coffee. At a booth, two kids fought like cats and dogs, brandishing forks at each other like weapons. It was a family joint, still early enough in the night to not catch the drunks looking to sober up, and there was no alcohol to speak of in the place that Logan could smell. He saw her, hair and clothes damp from the rain, now with her own cup of coffee and an otherwise vacant booth.
He intended to take a seat at the counter, but something in him hesitated as he made his way over to her side of the diner. He could tell from here, her once sleek blonde hair was just starting to see its vibrancy fade. The skin on her hands showing the telltale lines of middle-age. She was an older mother, maybe late forties early fifties, almost too old to have children still in grade school, Logan thought, when, just as his lingering had gone on too long, he heard her speak, looking up to him.
“Well, just sit down, then.” Logan finally shot her a look from where he was standing just beyond her booth.
“Excuse me?” he muttered.
“Instead of just standin’ there like a buffoon, sit down,” she gestured to the vacant side opposite of her. Logan waffled for a moment, unsure of what to do.
“You’ve been keeping tabs on my family most of the day, anyhow, so we might as well just get to it,” she said, and this close up he could hone in on a mild southern accent that suggested she was hundreds of miles away from her place of origin. This far north, it just wasn’t a set of sounds you heard. Logan sighed, knowing he had been caught red-handed, somehow, and resigned to sitting down. Maybe he was drunker than he thought.
Ya think?
Shut it, Marie.
Logan looked to the woman again as she pulled out a pack of cigarettes, the classic kind, nicotine rolled tightly in paper. Something about it oddly warmed him, with all the electronic vaporizers these days. Something else about the scene was still off, though, and he reminded himself that, as often as it had happened back then, he hadn’t seen anyone smoke in a diner in North America in over thirty years.
“Want one?” she asked.
“Uhh, no,” he said, glancing around to the waitress taking the family’s order a couple of booths down.
“Don’t worry,” she said, lighting the cigarette and throwing him a small smirk. “They know not to cause a fuss about it. Owner puts up with it from me. He knows sometimes…this is what I need. Hard to go anywhere else.” Logan said nothing. This evening, this whole goddamn day, hadn’t gone anywhere close to how he had planned it, drinking aside, and now everything was moving too quickly for him to understand how the fuck he was supposed to react.
“You scared the shit out of him, you know,” she said, flicking the cigarette slightly as grey ashes peppered the ashtray that had somehow appeared for her out of nowhere. It was a move he hadn’t see in decades, the social graces and strategy that came with smoking a cigarette over a conversation.
“What?” he asked, still trying to clear the fog he found himself in.
“I don’t know who the hell your mama was, but my guess is she didn’t do right by you,” she muttered. At that remark Logan looked up to her.
“You’re not from around here,” he said carefully.
“No. Not originally. Roots in Birmingham… Alabama,” she added, before bringing the cigarette to her lips.
“Yeah, been there,” Logan muttered.
“Really now?” she said, through a upturn of her lips.
“Yep,” he said, motioning now for the waitress to bring him coffee.
“America’s gone to shit, from what I’ve heard. I was smart enough to get the hell out of there while the going was still good.”
“Listen, lady-” he began.
“-Linda,” she corrected.
“Yeah, Linda, I need to talk to him, you know, your husband,” She said nothing as she arched an eyebrow at him, another long draw of the cigarette.
“You know… you really beat the crap out of him. He needed eight stitches in his head. I’m paying for physical therapy on his knee, now, because of you,” she murmured.
“What did he tell you?” Logan growled, slowly realizing what she was really saying.
“That you’re a scary son of a bitch. Strong. Metal claws. Most likely a mutant,” she said, an odd, bemused look on her face. Shit. So Carl had seen him. In his goddamn rage, Logan had been so fucking careless.
“Who else did he tell?” Logan growled.
“Now, don’t get started with that. None of that investigation crap. I can make your job easy for you right now. He didn’t tell anybody else,” she said, giving him a cautious, knowing look.
“And why should I trust what you say?” Logan asked. She gave him a long, slightly pained stare, before sighing, snubbing out the last of her cigarette as she did so, and lighting another.
“Because your daughter’s missing, and you can’t afford not to,” she mumured quietly, before looking straight in his eyes, the teasing note in her voice from earlier gone.
“Excuse me?” he barely whispered
“Your daughter…” she trailed off. Logan paused, wondering if this was another sort of screwed up nightmare of his, when something in the blue of her eyes told the rest of the story. He knew that look anywhere, had seen it in Jean and Charles a hundred times: when his thoughts were their thoughts. She was reading his mind.
“Fuck. Fuck. You’re one of us. That’s why Marie told me to follow-” he said, before abruptly stopping.
“Marie? So that’s her name?” Linda asked, and they both knew they weren’t talking about his daughter anymore, before the conversation died as the waitress came back with a mug for him, and no one said anything as the younger woman filled his mug and then left. They sat there in silence for another moment, before Linda sighed, starting again.
“Look, Logan, right? Carl doesn’t know his left from his right. You beat the shit out of him, his hunting trip ended early. I’m sorry, but that’s the end of the story. And, as much as he’s a lazy sonofabitch, I’d like my kids to have their father around for a while longer, so I’d prefer you not gut him like a fish tonight, ok?” Logan just stared at her for a moment, the truth of what she was saying threatening to inundate him. This was a lost cause. And, if he wanted to go on not believing it, the scent on her told him she was telling the truth.
“You bet your nose I am,” she said, after his last thought.
“So… coming here was a fucking dead end,” he muttered. At this, her face softened.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she almost whispered.
Logan quickly ran over the likely scenarios in his head. If he was going to go south, he would need to leave as soon as possible. The Bronco had been giving him hell lately, as old as it fucking was, but if he filled it up, maybe stopped and checked the oil on the way out of town…The Transigen headquarters was in Mexico City, and that was…what, a four-day drive? Maybe three if he didn’t sleep?
“You think Transigen’s got your daughter?” he heard Linda say, and he looked up at her quizzically.
“You know it?” he asked, unable to hide the hope in his voice.
“It’s just… Carl used to-” she said, beginning to trail off.
“Used to what?” Logan practically barked, suddenly suspicious once more.
“He… worked for them, or, rather their subsidiary up this way. Up north.” Logan almost snarled at this, now turning on the woman in front of him he had already intuitively began trusting, leaning over the table predatorily
“Weren’t you just trying to convince me for the past couple of minutes that Carl wasn’t a fucking rat? And, hold on, why the fuck would you marry a guy who worked at a company who was experimenting on your own kind?” At this, Linda looked somewhere between disturbed and mildly disgusted, before she was already countering back.
“My own kind? Honey, just listen’ to yourself talk. There’s none of my kind left. And turn your ears on! I said Carl’s as dumb as a box of rocks. It was a factory job, throwing packages onto trucks. By the time I had figured it out, he was laid off anyway,” she grumbled into her mug.
“Hell,” Logan muttered, running a hand over his face, sitting further back on the vinyl cushion of the booth.
“They put it in the food, you know,” she said, with a tilt of the head toward the diner counter.
“Excuse me?” he asked, not quite taking her meaning.
“That’s why there aren’t many of us left. It’s in the food,” she said, with an disturbingly apathetic shrug.
“Like poison?” Logan asked, still trying to understand what she was getting at.
“No, like corn syrup. It’s in every processed food you can think of. Transigen has a contract with Canewood. You know, the corn people? Transigen biogenetically engineered a therapy to snub out the X-gene in our DNA, our children’s DNA.” Logan’s eyes widened, mind briefly traveling back to the dozens of conversations he had back in Westchester. All the long, winding debates about why they were all disappearing. And then, Logan’s mind immediately flew to the white frosting on the woman’s lip from earlier.
“Yeah, like Twinkies and shit,” was all Linda muttered. Logan glanced back up at her, his look hardening.
“So, did Carl tell you that?” he asked, suspicion still threaded into his voice.
“No. He had a boss of his over for a dinner party one evenin’ and he got a little too handsy on the couch while Carl was in the basement playing poker,” she said, sliding out a fresh cigarette.
“Far as I know,” Linda said, continuing on, “They didn’t engineer the chemicals there or anything, they just helped put it in the food, distributed it throughout Canada.”
“So…this subsidiary... they still operational?” he asked, as something in him, a flicker, a spark, a glint, burned brighter.
“I don’t really know. Like I said, he’s out of that business. But probably. Transigen hasn’t operated here out in the open for decades. But as of last year, Carl still had buddies throwin’ packages onto carts up north at the subsidiary’s headquarters.”
“What’s the name? The subsidiary?” Logan asked, jaw tight, tension doubling inside of him. Linda once again sighed, a pained look crossing her features as she brought her icy blue eyes to meet his.
“You’ve been in a bad way, haven’t you?” she murmured.
“Stay outta my thoughts,” he warned. “Tell me, Linda. Where?”
“You already know,” she said quietly, looking down once more at the lukewarm coffee between them.
Logan’s eyes widened, and then, without much mental prompting at all, a random image of the day Logan met Pierce floated through his mind, the day before everything had gone to shit again. His business card. Two names, two companies. Partnerships, one apparently operating legally still in Canada and one not.
Alkali Transigen.
Alkali.
Something in the world froze then, as Logan watched a couple of kids across the way pour more syrup onto a stack of pancakes, the viscous liquid mixing with the melted butter, trickling off the side of the plate. Around them, the sound of forks clinking together, the sound of people chewing, drinking, swallowing. Logan’s stomach turned over, a bitter taste rising in his throat.
“Fuck,” he said.
“From the things your mind is showing me,” Linda muttered, with another flick of the cigarette, “That about sums it up right.”
--
The bell on the door rang as he stalked back into the lobby, and she whipped up from where she had once more been leaning on the counter. It was pitch black out there now, and she shot his hulking frame a leery look, before she realized it was him again.
“Checking out?” she asked, something a bit like fear and a bit like lust edged in her voice and in those goddamn eyes as he stalked over to her, the animal on edge, dangerous and dark.
“Not quite,” he growled, suddenly stomping around the counter, flinging the key on the desk as he did so. In a quick second, he was up close to her, an arm sneaking around her thin waist, the feel of bare skin between a shirt that was far too short nearly almost sending him to the floor. Too fucking long, the Wolverine murmured. He was a breath away from her now, taking in her scent— too sugary too much vanilla— his senses screamed, and he ignored them, as he held her closer, her body easily folding into his.
There was sharp intake of air from her as he brought his mouth to her ear, his breath lingering on her pale neck, and then he smelled her arousal all around them both, a fucking overwhelming intoxication.
“What’s your name?” he finally breathed into her ear.
“Madison,” she said breathlessly, his grip tightening around her, idly grazing over the curves of her waist, mouth lingering just at her earlobe.
“Madison,” he said, the word sounding all wrong on his tongue, but nevertheless taking in another gulp of her arousal.
“Look at me,” he demanded, and, like nature, like it always was and always would be, she did as she was told, backing up a bit, although he realized her fingers lazily traced the still-sculpted muscles of his torso, eyes cast a bit downward.
“In the fucking eye, Madison,” he growled, his voice rough and harsh.
“Yeah?” she asked. Instantly, he whipped a hand out, grabbing the wrapper still on the desk from earlier, and held it out for her.
“I don’t care if your boss doesn’t give you a decent break and you feel like you have to eat out of the vending machine. I don’t care if you fuck your boyfriend in his car while you’re on the clock. I don’t care if you want me to fuck you hard, right here and now, over this fucking counter. Doesn’t matter. Just… stop eating this shit. It’s poison, you hear me?” he asked, voice wild. Only then did she look up at him a bit quizzically before he tossed the wrapping to the trash, letting her go in one frustrated push. She was breathing heavily, her wet arousal ringing in his ears, as he stepped back through the door, back into the night. In one brisk moment he forgot her as he turned his direction toward Alkali and toward its haunting nightmares, a scorned lover waiting for his dutiful, inevitable return.
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Chapter End Notes:
Got literally all of my family visiting for Labor day, so I don't have my typical weekend available to me to write, so it might take me a few more days than usual for Chapter 17. Its gonna be a long though, full of yummy things, so there's that. :)
I was blown away by all the love I received for the last chapter. Thank you, so much, for that. Sometimes it ain't easy writing this stuff, as much as I enjoy doing so, and you guys totally keep me at it.
Enjoy your weekend!
I was blown away by all the love I received for the last chapter. Thank you, so much, for that. Sometimes it ain't easy writing this stuff, as much as I enjoy doing so, and you guys totally keep me at it.
Enjoy your weekend!