She scooped ice into a clean white towel and hurried back to Eddie. He was sitting on the metal countertop, still holding his hands over his mouth. She winced as she approached him.
“You all right?” she asked. He nodded and put his hands down. Marie felt tears tickle the back of her throat at the sight of his bloodied mouth. Both of his lips had split, and there was a gash above the upper one where his teeth had punctured through the skin on impact.
“You should rinse your mouth out first.” She went to the sink and poured him a glass of water, handing it to him with shaking hands. She watched as he put the glass to his mouth and leaned over the sink. When he was finished she motioned for him to sit down again and gently pressed the icepack to his bruised mouth.
“Do I need to call an ambulance?” It was Mark. He peered into Eddie’s face, trying to assess the damage to his employee. “Where’d he get hit, just in the mouth?” He turned to Marie for confirmation before looking at Eddie again.
“Yeah, it looks painful.” Eddie nodded in agreement to this.
“Move the ice, Eddie, let me see.” Mark swore under his breath when he did as asked. “Regardless if you go to the hospital tonight, the kitchen is closed. Understood? You need a ride?” Eddie shook his head no and looked at his feet. “You ok, Marie? I heard that one of those assholes grabbed you.”
“I’m fine, Mark. Just a little shook up is all.” She crossed her arms over her chest and tried not to shiver. Logan was here. She didn’t know how she felt about that.
“Well, you look like hell. I’m sending you both home. Did either of you see anyone pull a knife?”
Marie closed her eyes and wished she were anywhere but here. If Logan got in trouble, it would be over for her. A job she liked, friends she loved, and her first real home; gone. She shook her head no and waited for more information.
“This guy got in the middle. Never seen him here before. The MP’s searched him; he didn’t have a weapon on him. Several people said they saw him draw a knife.” He began to pace the kitchen. “You know him, Marie?” he asked point blank.
“No, why do you ask?” Her voice was loud to her own ears, and more confident than she felt.
“Because he asked about you. When the MP’s let him go, he came over and asked me if I was the manager. I told him I was. Then he growled at me. Scariest shit I’ve ever heard. He asked me ‘what kind of a place I was running here, with an underage bartender breaking up bar fights.’ I told him he needed to leave for being involved in the fight. He left after that.” Mark shrugged and looked at Eddie. “So, you need a doctor?”
Marie walked over to the ice machine and leaned against it, seeking the comfort in the low hum it constantly emitted. She couldn’t settle her mind on one thought; instead her brain was running a mile a minute while her body was exhausted. She felt Darwin place a hand on her back and turned to face him. He looked down at her, but unlike any time before, he didn’t smile. The eyes looking back at her were contemplative and dark.
And then he spoke.
“He came for you. But you already knew that. You belong to him. There will be no more running after this.” His voice was soft and melodic, not what she expected at all. He lightly squeezed her shoulder and walked away.
It took her less than an hour to count down her till and clock out. She headed for the bus. What were the chances that he hadn’t found her apartment yet? Should she get on a bus with just the clothes on her back and run? Darwin’s words haunted her then:
He came for you. But you already knew that. You belong to him. There will be no more running after this.
It was the first time she had ever heard him speak. She always assumed he was mute, or couldn’t talk at all. Something about what he said, and the way he said it, chilled her to the bone. It took her a second to figure out why.
Because it’s the truth.
Even if she tried to deny it, she knew it would be a lie. He was here. And there would be no more running. And she didn’t want to run anymore. This was her life, her home. She would just tell Logan that, and let the chips fall where they would.
Marie unlocked the door to her apartment and flipped on the light. She heard a low growl seconds before he grabbed her.
She was spun violently and pinned face down across her brand new kitchen table. It was actually quite small, and only seated two people, perfect for her tiny kitchen area. Her feet never left the floor and she felt Logan behind her, his fist tangled in her hair at the nape of her neck.
“Nice place you have here.” His voice was a savage whisper in her ear. The table groaned and shifted under their combined weight. He eased off of her, but his hand never left her hair, his torso pressed to her backside, her legs trapped between his. She watched her breath fog as she exhaled across the polished wood in the dim lamplight and waited. His heartbeat pounded in her ears and she felt an odd sensation, somewhere between excitement and fear.
“You need better locks.” He rocked his hips against her once.
“I doubt anything would have stopped you from breaking in.” She started out in a soft voice but she got louder and more forceful as she continued. “You could have waited outside, greeted me at the door like any normal person.”
“I’m not a normal person and neither are you.” His voice rumbled in his chest and vibrated across her spine. “How long did you think you could hide? And on a fucking military base!”
“You come to rescue me, Logan? ‘Cause I know I didn’t call for your help.” She tried to push up from the table only to find that she was unable to move.
“I thought you trusted me. We need to talk about what happened before you ran.”
If she hadn’t been pinned to her kitchen table, unable to move, she might have thought he sounded reasonable. He knew her better than anybody else; he had to. How else could he constantly be her savior? In the past she had longed for him to stop calling her “kid” and see her for the woman she was becoming. Unrequited love was romantic in trashy paperbacks, but it did nothing to ease the low ache she felt in her belly whenever he looked at her. She was frustrated, as only a hormonal virgin teenager could be. The fear she’d felt earlier was quickly replaced with a fiery anger.
“So this is about your hurt pride?” She knew she sounded sarcastic and biting, but she was past caring. “What do you want?”
“Spread your legs, Marie.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
If I owned them, X-Men 3 would have been monumentally different.