The drive across the veldt yielded choking dust and scorching sun as Charles’ Jeep kicked up stones and debris in their wake. Logan peered back every now and again to check on their diminutive passenger buckled into the backseat, still dozing due to the oppressive heat. Logan fought to stay awake, his efforts in vain against the haze over the horizon and never-changing scenery, with scorched sand and desiccated plants as far as the eye could see.
Charles was spent but pressed ahead, handling the Jeep easily, like someone accustomed to rough terrains. He’d stopped twice to refuel and replenish their rations; Logan didn’t protest such infrequent respites from their trek, thanks to his healing factor and the knowledge that Farouk’s hands reached far and wide, even in death. The girl wasn’t safe, and she was too conspicuous. They also had an unexpected travel companion.
“How ya holdin’ up, darlin’?”
“Fresh as a damned daisy,” Ainet barked, sucking deeply on her unfiltered cigarette and flicking the ash out the window flap. She peered down at Ororo’s snowy hair and gently smoothed it.
“How far are we?”
“Not much longer,” she informed him.
“Best news I’ve heard all day.”
“We’re marked now, y’know,” Ainet reminded him.
“That ain’t changed since yesterday, darlin’. Least not for me,” Logan shrugged.
“Everything’s gone for me now. I’m startin’ over with nothing,” she snapped.
“We’re all in the same boat.”
“I’m a man of my word, madam,” Charles interjected. “You will be well compensated and won’t want for anything.”
“If I had a thin dime for every time a man’s told me that, I’d be richer than Farouk.” Logan suppressed a smile. “Turn here.” Logan took the right in the bend in the road, glad to see the long line of shanties and tin rooftops and the drying clothing fluttering on the hot breeze. Logan was craving a cigar himself, jealous over Ainet’s immediate gratification for her tobacco fix.
It was the least they could spare her, considering she’d given up everything in the dead of night.
The night before:
“AINET! Open up, darlin’!” BANG, BANG, BANG! Logan pounded the door to the apartment adjoining the boutique as the locals began to mill in the street. Word of the incident in Farouk’s saloon was spreading fast, and Logan and Charles looked too guilty. Logan listened for sounds of the living inside, finally hearing the scuff of soft house shoes against the rickety floor boards. Ainet offered no greeting as she yanked open the door. She clutched her red satin dressing gown closed and glared at him, nostrils flaring and her face implacable.
“My girls are already hard at work at the Pearl,” she snapped. “Y’have no business knocking me up at this hour, Patch.”
“We’ll talk about yer girls on the road, gal,” he offered gruffly. “Ya gotta get outta here.”
“Like hell,” she retorted, drawing herself up to her full height, which wasn’t much. Her body was slender and surprisingly taut for a woman who looked to be in her mid-forties. Her hair was dark and abundant, springing up in wiry girls that were garishly streaked a lighter color. Her skin was scrubbed clean and gleaming beneath the dim porch light. She fanned and swatted away flies drawn to its glow as she sized them up. “Don’t make me sic Victor on your scrawny behind, Patch. Y’don’t ask me for anything after hours. Just ask Farouk if - “
“Farouk’s dead.” Logan shifted his burden, wrapped in a light, rough blanket more carefully against his shoulder.
“I don’t believe you.” Nevertheless, her eyes dilated and she fisted her robe more tightly.
“Ya know I ain’t lyin’, darlin’. Ya can’t feel him anymore either, can ya? I know ya don’t sleep at night with him pokin’ around where he don’t belong.” Dark circles ringed her eyes, which were now narrowed and pinning him where he stood.
“I don’t even want t’ask what y’had to do with him suddenly being gone.”
“Ya don’t wanna know. And for the record, Ainet, it wasn’t me.” Her eyes flitted to Charles, his blue eyes looking strained and his skin flushed.
“Small comfort.”
“Pack up yer stuff, yer comin’ with us.”
“Not likely,” she grunted, her eyes screaming that he was one can shy of a six-pack in light of what he’d just told her.
“We need ya, and you need us. Someone’s gotta help take care of the punkin’ here,” he explained. Ainet’s glare lost some of its wattage and she reached out, jerking down the edge of the coverlet, revealing soft white hair and smooth brown cheeks.
“Have y’lost your mind, Patch?!” Despite herself, Ainet’s strong hands tugged the child from his arms, and he surrendered her reluctantly. “You might as well have raided the damned safe, while y’were at it!”
“Didn’t have time,” he shrugged, but he was relieved to see her moving about her modest living room that was separated from her boudoir by a flimsy gauze curtain. Small, slender brown arms crept up around her neck as she began tugging items out of drawers and sweeping toiletries off the old dresser into a tapestry carpetbag. She tugged out a pair of rolled-up socks and seated herself for a moment, propping Ororo up on her lap and yanking them onto her tiny, dusty feet. She rummaged further for a long gauze scarf and bunched her hair into a twisted knot, tying it securely before bundling her back into the blanket. She laid her on the battered sofa where she stirred only to find her thumb and sleepily suck on it while Ainet resumed her packing.
“Y’think everyone working for Farouk hasn’t heard of this baby girl? She’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”
“I ain’t arguin’ that point with ya. And the last time anyone saw me was at the Pearl, whooping it up. If we leave fast enough, no one’ll be able ta say they saw me leavin’ yer place. All things considered, though, it ain’t like they’d be all that surprised.” Ainet narrowed her bloodshot eyes dangerously.
“Fuck you,” she spat, but she continued to pack.
“So, ya comin’ then?” A string of incomprehensible curses escaped her lips; Logan didn’t ponder what any of them meant, but he guessed they were from him. Charles merely watched her completing her chore…and blushed, a strange look on his face.
“Rather colorful vocabulary.”
“She loves me,” Logan boasted dryly.
“Sleep with one eye open tonight.”
“Wasn’t plannin’ on sleepin’ anyway, Chuck.”
Ainet did a final sweep of her humble quarters before dashing into the tiny kitchenette, grabbing a small, discarded cardboard box. Everything in the cupboard was tossed inside; the only thing she retrieved from the olive green refrigerator was a half-empty bottle of juice. She filled a second empty bottle beside the sink with water and capped it, tossing it to Logan.
“Shake a leg, woman!”
“One last thing,” she snapped. She retrieved Ororo’s dollie from the side table, along with one more from her cluttered bureau, its hair and outfit in surprisingly good condition. “Child has to have something to hold on to, or have you forgotten what that’s like?”
“Never knew what it was ta begin with, darlin’. Ya wanna hurry up now.” She shoved her carpetbag at him and beckoned for Charles to carry the box of provisions while she scooped up her sleeping charge. “God help you, child, from men like these,” she grumbled, but caught the soft look in her eyes as she tugged the coverlet once more over her head and swept outside.
~0~
Back at the Pearl, a humid wind rattled the curtains and carried the fetid odors inside from the street to mingle with the miasma of blood, death and stale liquor. A body lying on the floor stirred with a guttural groan, cursing at the metallic, coppery taste in his mouth. He spat and struggled to right himself, leaning up from the floorboards on shaking arms.
“Kin…still…smell ya, runt,” he rasped, before his eyes scanned the saloon and landed on the poker table. Farouk was still slumped and staring sightlessly ahead, his expression defiant and surprised. His beady eyes still appeared to pin Vic, as though still able to read his intent. Vic sneered, but he had greater priorities.
The bloat still hadn’t paid him.
He stomped out of the chamber and noticed Gideon and Davey still unconscious, wrinkling his nose in disgust; leave it to them to go out on a bender. A quick look around the kitchen showed him that the serving staff got the hell out once Logan went out the front door. Myriad scents told him which way they exited from the bar, but no one thought to head to the bookkeeping office in back.
Subtlety wasn’t an issue. The door splintered with a satisfying crash with one blow of his fist, and he kicked the rest of it off the hinges. He retrieved Gideon’s .45 from the desk drawer and aimed, taking out the lock on the safe. That night’s take had been good, he mused, packing the cash into an envelope and shoving the thick wad beneath his belt, dropping the hem of his bloodstained shirt to cover it.
The runt could wait. His scent continued along the gravel street, toward Ainet’s boutique, but fresh tire tracks told him he’d left town. Vic contemplated relieving one of the locals of their trucks, but thought better of it. He wasn’t in any hurry.
Eventually Logan would drop right into his hands.
Victor took one last look around his surroundings and sighed. It’d take him forever to wash off its stench. He lumbered back to the bar and plundered its offerings, selecting a bottle of Jack Daniels. He downed it thirstily, wiping his mouth as he plucked up a damp dishtowel from the counter. Wrapping it around another bottle of gin, he knotted it and lit the end with his Zippo, cavalierly chucking it behind him.
The flames threw an orange glow over his back as he departed the saloon. He never looked back.
~0~
“Nice digs, darlin’,” Logan commented.
“Don’t get too comfortable, you or your uppity friend,” she advised him as she laid Ororo out on a low cot and peeled back the coverlet. Curious children were already clamoring by her window to peek inside, and she shooed them away, swatting at them with a rolled-up newspaper, cursing in Egyptian. “Y’can’t mean to stay.”
“Didn’t plan on it.”
“Don’t expect me to feed you, unless you want to head to the market…”
“Tell me what ya need.”
“Everything that’s in that box that we brought, go out and buy more of it. Your friend can make himself useful by filling up the jugs from the well. It’s a mile down the road.” She pointed over her shoulder with a jerk, directing Charles where to go. He was already reaching for the jugs in question when she beckoned to him, “Put a hat on that shiny head of yours, while you’re at it! Bad enough folks’ll see you leaving my place!”
“This is your home?” Charles inquired.
“If you like,” she replied sourly. “Logan dragged me out of my place of business, but for all intents, yes, this is my home, such as it is. Farouk was kind enough t’let me think I was free from his eyes and ears here. I was foolish enough and desperate enough to believe it. Keeps me sane.” She didn’t hesitate to light another cigarette, not caring if either of her guests had any objections. She plunked herself down in one of her kitchen chairs, kicking off her shoes and digging her toes into the braided rag rug on the floor. “What are you planning to do with the child?”
“I have a colleague who is very concerned about her safety who would like me to bring her back with me.”
“Bring her where?”
“Back to the orphanage in Kenya where she came from.”
She snorted with exasperation, shaking her head until her dreadlocks rattled. “You’re fooling yourself if y’think she’s better off there than here.”
“Moira intended to adopt her before Ororo here was abducted.” Logan’s hackles stood up at the sound of that name.
“Moira? Shit. Ya picked now ta tell me that, Chuck!”
“Excuse me?”
“The kid. That’s what she called her doll. Stubborn little cuss, too. Yelled at me upstairs before I talked her into going with me. ‘Want Moy-rah,’ or some such shit.” Charles scowled.
“So she might not have been talking about the doll. Logan, I think Ororo wants to go back to the orphanage was much as Moira wants her back.”
“Tell me another one,” Ainet scoffed, taking a long drag into her lungs.
“Listen to the man a sec!”
“Moira was observing the children as part of her sabbatical and assisting with the inoculations and medical care at the orphanage. She sent me a vision in her mind of Ororo.”
“The devil you say.” Ainet paused in opening a jar of preserves on the counter, a thick, dry slab of bread already laid on the plate.
Give what I say a chance before you choose not to believe.
Logan didn’t even flinch when Ainet yanked a large kitchen knife from the drawer and pointed it at Charles’ throat in a twinkling. Her nostrils were flared again, like when they’d met, but this time Logan could smell her fear.
“You’re just like him!” she swore. “Like Amahl! STAY OUT OF MY HEAD!”
“Easy, darlin’, just settle down!” Logan easily relieved her of the knife, moving so quickly she didn’t even see him abandon his perch in the doorframe; it clattered from her numb fingers to the floor.
“Get out,” she warned him, her voice low and unsteady.
“Give us a chance, darlin’. We gotta plan out where we go next. Ya don’t hafta keep us, but we’ve gotta get our girl there,” he nodded to the cot, “where she’s missed the most. Chances are, that’s where she’ll be safest.”
“Moira doesn’t live in the region. She’s from overseas.” With a pang, Charles remembered the verdant groves and expansive lawn surrounding Moira’s estate. A brief vision of her riding ahead of him on horseback, hair flying, distracted him for a moment, but he mastered it.
“M’not arguing that she needs to be taken from here,” Ainet pointed out, as though she were explaining it to someone deficient. “But you’ve put me in a bad place. You’ve come here with me. Most of the heathens working for Farouk - yourself included, Logan - don’t know anything more than my job at the shop and my girls under my wing. They’ll have to fend for themselves, too.” Her lips were pulled into a grim line. She’d already gnawed off most the blood-red lipstick she’d applied just for appearances that morning. “What the hell have y’done?”
“I don’t wanna think about that now.” He waved her away and extracted his lighter from his pocket. “Gonna have a smoke outside.”
“In the back!” she barked imperiously. He waved at her again over his shoulder and stomped out. “And you, hurry up with that water.” She dismissed him by turning her back, chewing on the bread as though it were leather. He didn’t linger, even though he was loathe to leave the slightly cooler air of her home. The heat bit deeply into him, steam rising from the street and baking him from the inside out as it penetrated the soles of his low boots. Charles took the opportunity to scan the minds of the people milling around him. For the most part, all who saw him were curious about the American-looking stranger with stiff posture, hauling the jugs, but he sensed no hostility, which was a far cry from the denizens of the Pearl. He stopped at a nearby stall and gestured to the vendor’s small cart beside his stall, communicating well enough with him to ask if he could rent it from him. Money spoke more eloquently than he could; he didn’t mind the man’s thoughts at his expense that a fool and his money were easily parted, but it relieved him of having to carry the jugs himself.
He knew he was being followed on his way back, but he sensed no hostility this time, either. Once he returned, he found Logan finishing his cigar, chewing on the sodden end of the stub. Ainet was inside, putting away the meager food they’d brought from her apartment. Charles had no sooner set the jugs down before Ainet was carping at him again.
“Help Patch get the food. Keep yourself busy.” Before he could answer, Charles heard someone outside shooing away the children lingering outside the door.
“AINET!” A swarthy man garbed in loose pants and a sleeveless button-down shirt of seersucker cotton let himself inside, banging open the door. “Everyone said y’came back.” She grunted in agreement as he stared at Charles. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Charles realized the question was directed at him.
“Leaving soon,” she answered for him. “You may not have heard by now, but Farouk’s dead.” Charles almost felt the shiver that ran down this new guest’s back.
“Shit,” he breathed.
“Ya can say that again,” Logan sighed as he came back inside. “Heard business was pretty good, Achmed.”
“As good as it can be,” he reasoned. “Never seen you here when you’ve had good news, Patch.”
“Don’t expect that ta change, bub.”
“So you killed that giant leech, then?”
“Wasn’t me.” His eyes jerked from Logan to Charles, and he whistled long and low through his teeth. And stepped back from him. The corner of Logan’s mouth quirked up for a moment, and he cleared his throat.
“What’s on your mind?” Ainet offered, impatient with the discussion already.
“Word has it that there’s been trouble down at the mines a few miles up. They raided it. Took their tools, food, some children. They left behind bodies and torched everything else.” Ainet looked grim.
“They’re coming for us, aren’t they?”
“We don’t know that yet,” he replied.
“That means yes,” Logan supplied. Suddenly he flinched, frowning as he retreated to the back of the house.
“Where’s he going?” Achmed demanded.
“Our traveling companion just woke up,” Charles informed him, having heard the shift in Ororo’s thoughts.
Logan silently brushed aside the rough curtain and peered inside. She was sitting up on the cot, rubbing her eyes, her rosebud mouth pouting in momentary confusion. She sensed his eyes on her and she looked up. He sucked in a breath, not wanting to frighten her…
She didn’t move a muscle or say a word. Her kerchief had slipped loose from her hair and it was lying on the cot. Sunlight was slipping in through the gap between the curtain and window jamb and making her silver hair gleam so bright that it blinded him.
“Don’t be afraid, darlin’,” he told her. His senses told him she wasn’t, despite his rough appearance. He entered the room slowly, and her eyes pinned him, startling him again with their intense color and depth. He couldn’t describe them. The lively fire and spirit that greeted him before in the saloon was gone, replaced by an eerie blankness. Something had been squelched and extinguished inside of her since she’d stared him in the face, and he mourned its loss. It unsettled him, stabbing him in the gut; his fingers reflexively clenched, and when he spoke his voice was hoarse.
“Want somethin’ ta eat?” No reply. She continued to look through him before scanning the unfamiliar surroundings with more resignation than curiosity. She rose, ignoring him as she poked around in Ainet’s belongings. Her eyes landed on the carpetbag, and she began to rummage through it, undoing the clasps with difficulty after two attempts, and Logan watched her reach inside. She pawed through it a moment before lifting out the doll, smoothing out its crumpled red dress, not caring how soiled it was. She went back to the cot and sat with the doll propped on her lap, as though she were holding a child.
“Ya gotta tell me what ya want, punkin’,” he entreated. Still no response. “Have it yer way.” He turned to leave, and wasn’t completely surprised when he heard light steps behind him.
Achmed’s eyes widened when he saw her enter the room from the short hall.
“You took her,” he announced.
“Sure as shit we took her.”
“You’re a dead man.”
“Farouk’s deader than me.”
“Anyone waiting t’take his place’s going to be running down anyone who gets in their way. Farouk was a devil, I won’t deny it. But he protected me and mine. They’re urchins,” he muttered, gesturing in the general direction of the window, where children were still trying to stare inside before Ainet pulled the curtain. “But they’re my urchins. And Farouk’s. Now they’re vulnerable.” He peered at Ororo, who made herself comfortable on a short stool.
“What about you?” Logan inquired.
“As good as dead,” he deadpanned. “God save me from taking them all with me.”
The sounds of a clamor in the streets roused Logan from contemplating his words, and he heard the crunch of gravel beneath large wheels. Two trucks, maybe three. Men’s voices raised. Stumbling feet, trying to get out of the way.
“Hide her,” Charles ordered, scooping up Ororo and handing her to Ainet as she emerged from her kitchen.
“What the hell are you -“
“GO!” She didn’t argue with him, nor did she watch him file out of the house with Logan and Achmed in tow.
Logan smelled gunpowder, tobacco and stale liquor as men began unpiling from the large pickup trucks and a gray Jeep, rifles slung over their backs. The children who lingered around Ainet’s yard were gone from sight, and he saw vendors scrambling out of their stalls, collecting what they could before clambering off the streets.
He was never one for mincing words.
“What the fuck are ya doin’ here?”
“None of your business, Patch,” murmured the tall driver of the Jeep, with skin as dark as midnight and a mean scar over his eye. His front passenger climbed out, his expression menacing as he held his rifle in a tight grip.
“Yer a long way away from home, Sol,” he remarked casually.
“None of your business,” he repeated, “Patch.”
“Maybe I’m makin’ it my business.” SNIKT. Achmed staggered back at the sight of the gleaming claws erupting from his flesh, tearing the skin like it was butter. Charles was nonplussed.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Charles murmured calmly. Solomon sneered with contempt.
“Won’t be the first time someone who didn’t belong here himself told me where I needed to be,” he hissed, scratching his chin. His stubble sounded like sandpaper. Behind him his companions were already disembarked from the trucks, most of them a gang of boys ranging from school-aged to mid-teens. Their eyes were dead. Charles was appalled at how desensitized they were, and at their extreme lack of accountability. They wandered through the streets, knocking on windows, jeering and taunting the occupants inside. Before Charles could argue, a large rock crashed through the window of a small one-bedroom shack. Terror assailed Charles’ thoughts from this new source. This was the cue for each of the boys to begin rooting through the stalls and rousing people from their homes, guns waving in warning.
“I knew ya weren’t gonna make this easy,” Logan growled. Solomon shrugged.
He fired a shot directly at him, hitting his chest dead-center. Logan grunted and staggered a moment, staring with disinterest at the blood spurting from the wound.
“Dumb ass!” He lumbered forward, jerking each time another round hit him, riddling his body with torn flesh and ragged holes. Gunpowder and blood filled his nostrils and burned his throat.
His claws neatly cleaved through the air, separating Solomon’s hands from his wrists. Charles dove for cover from the last round that nearly took him as the rifle hit the ground, and Solomon bellowed a gurgling cry before Logan lurched forward and gutted him, plunging his claws into his chest cavity and nearly lifting him off the ground.
The next few minutes were a blur. Logan’s growls were savage, the roar of a lion provoked from its den, charging ahead as Charles jerked Achmed behind him, his first priority the civilians as he pulled him inside a house on the corner. The intruder in Charles’ sites towered over a woman curled up in the corner, praying for him to leave as she held her child in a nearly strangling grip, hands covering his head. He cried out in pain and his words died in his throat. Achmed swore behind him as he lurched to his knees. Blood dripped onto the floor from his nose.
“What…do…t’me,” he grunted before he toppled over, face down and immobile. His limbs twitched and Achmed heard the final wheeze issue from his chest. He looked ready to vomit.
“Get them somewhere safe!” Charles ordered before storming out of the house. Achmed gathered his wits and did was he was told, shoving them toward a small cellar in the back of the house. He paused to grab a long kitchen knife and handed it to the mother, who peered up at him thankfully, albeit still terrified.
Logan cursed at the burning tingle of the bullets working their way loose from their moorings in his flesh, feeling the vessels and muscle knit themselves back together. It was excruciating. Ain’t got fuckin’ time t’bleed… He followed the sounds of screams from one house to the next, wanting to roar to the sky at the screams of woman being hauled out from their homes, children shrieking and coughing up dust behind them. He was just one man.
One very, very angry man…
If Achmed had to describe Patch at that moment, it was as a man possessed by demons and giving them full reign. Another raider drew fire, and the hail of bullets was interrupted by sickening, ripping sounds as Logan tore open his jugular. Achmed did something he that would haunt him for the rest of his days, rushing up behind a boy holding a knife to the throat of the fruit stall salesman’s pregnant wife and ramming his head with the stock of an abandoned rifle. He slumped, giving Achmed the chance to tug his captive aside, screaming the whole way back into the tiny chapel where the community held its service, shooing her to safety before moving back outside. The boy was older than Achmed’s own son, perhaps some fifteen years, old enough to grow a beard. Achmed steeled himself, concentrating on the gall he felt at witnessing him threatening a woman with child. He hit him again with the rifle, and jerked him up by the back of his collar, using him as a shield when another thug fired on him. His body jerked and vibrated beneath the impact of the shells as he made his way to the next home reverberating with screams, and in the back of his mind he wondered where the bald foreigner with the strange accent had gone, praying he hadn’t met an ill fate.
I’m all right. Just busy.
Achmed couldn’t nail down why that voice in his head gave him odd comfort. He could only go where his ears took him, following myriad screams and knowing Charles was taking measures no less desperate than his.
He was cornered. The rough texture of baked mud paving the outside of the house scratched along his spine as he brandished a stray gun, knowing full well he couldn’t fire, not when a stray shell could kill one of the fleeing innocents if he missed.
“You don’t belong here,” he warned. “Don’t make me do this!”
A rumbling laughter bubbled from the mouth of the first youth, holding Charles at knifepoint. His chipped teeth leered at him, and a strange, ethereal fire glowed in his eyes. Charles blanched, seeing the same eerie aura surrounding the other two. They mocked him, and he was suddenly caught within the grip of memories long suppressed. Faces of his fellow officers and infantrymen lay twisted and blown away beyond description again, agony marring their features in death. The helplessness. The feeling of uselessness. Out of control. No control. It was happening again…
Rage colored his vision red. Not again. He closed his eyes and centered his focus on the three minds that swam within reach, and he lashed out with everything he had. Their screams filled the alley way, and he added his own to their gut-wrenching chorus as he burned and tore his way through their consciousness. Suddenly everything went black.
Agonizing seconds ticked by, but they felt like hours as he rose, not realizing he’d staggered to his knees. He stumbled over the lifeless shells, tripping over their boots and wondering when he’d lost his soul. He’d mourn them, he promised, and he’d mourn for himself.
Bodies. There were so many bodies. The ground grew sticky with blood mingling with the dust. He called out to Logan a moment before he dispatched another man pleading for his life, brandishing his claws. He cried out to him again, and he spun on Charles, fangs flashing and clenched, all humanity gone from his eyes. The sound he emitted was guttural and savage, a beast staring him down and uncontent until Charles showed his throat, something he couldn’t afford to do. He needed the gruff mercenary too much for what needed to be done.
“Come back, my friend. Think of Ororo,” he beckoned. Logan growled again, narrowing his eyes and resuming his grisly chore and planting his fist beneath the man’s jaw. His eyes were still bulging out of his head right before he extended his claws, puncturing his brain and sending blood spurting up from his skull in a macabre fountain before letting him drop.
“Don’t make me stop you.” Hell was breaking loose around him, but Charles was focusing on Logan now. He had to bring him back. Logan bared his teeth and stood like a sentinel, feet planted apart, but his concentration was broken as another young boy ran past, his rifle bobbing over his back. Logan yanked him back by the scruff of his neck and snarled at him, nearly showing him the whites of his eyes. He drew the boy up close, and Charles hurried forward this time, unwilling to hesitate any longer.
“NO!” Charles pushed himself between them, jerking the child out of his grasp and wrapping himself around him. “Don’t. You won’t.” The boy trembled in his grip; his body was gaunt from weeks of malnutrition, giving his face an even more haunted look. Even his hair seemed leeched of color, almost a steely, dusky silver.
“Quit fuckin’ around, Chuck,” he growled. “I ain’t finished with this little snot.”
“I think you are. He’s a child.”
“This is how they start. They grow up t’be scum like these,” he muttered, waving his arm at the broken men lying on the ground, some still gripping weapons.
“Feel his fear,” Charles intoned, and he took a risk, once again reaching into Logan’s mind, and forcing himself beneath the walls, opening a connection him and the child struggling in his arms. “See how he sees you!”
He was flooded with a tide of terror from the boy, and swam in his own self-loathing. He saw everything through his eyes, saw himself, covered in blood, hair standing on end like a wolf’s hackles. Savage. Not a man. Devilish. He recoiled with disgust.
“Shit,” he whispered, and Charles still heard him over the din of people running through the streets.
“He won’t hurt us,” Charles assured him. “And there’s more to him than meets the eye. He’s a victim, just like them.” He gestured to two small children peering outside through the crack between the curtains.
“M’just a boykie,” he moaned, as if confirming Charles’ words. “Don’ hurt me!”
“C’mon,” Logan barked, leading them both away, back toward the church while he searched for Achmed.
Ainet was mouthing prayers that felt foreign on her lips in the rearmost corner of her house, hiding herself and Ororo beneath a musty burlap tarp. Needlessly she covered Ororo’s mouth, hoping they wouldn’t be heard amidst the din from outside. They couldn’t find the girl. Not on her own life, Ainet vowed. Gunshots rang out, each one nearly making her heart stop, and clammy sweat ran down her back in their stifling space. The child was fighting her, merely for the sake of wanting out of such close, dark quarters, and it pained her that she couldn’t indulge her desire to emerge for one cool breath. She didn’t so much as whimper, but her stubby fingers dug impatiently into her flesh.
She knew Patch would be back. He always came back when he cared enough -
“Check the back!” a ragged voice boomed, and she heard scuffling footsteps cross her threshold as various items in her kitchen were overturned, her jar of preserves crashing to the floor as they rummaged for possible valuables, particularly her knives. She willed them to turn back and leave. Better to die than be found.
Heavy footsteps scraped the floor, drifting closer as the owner paused to scan the tiny space. Blood rushed in her ears and made her taste metal. She shrank back against the wall, compressing herself so firmly against it she knew she’d ache for days, if they made it. One of the interlopers found her cigarettes, pocketing them and announcing that he would look for more. She didn’t even fume.
An icy chill ran over her flesh when one of them announced “Look at this!” and two separate voices chortled and crowed in shrill tones over something purloined from her bedroom.
It was the second doll Ainet had packed in her satchel. She closed her eyes in defeat: Now they knew a child was staying in her house.
More crashing and general disregard for the sanctity of her home continued while she gritted her teeth. She hated herself for a moment, seething that these men might have even been clients at the Pearl, attended to by her own girls, and now it was coming back to her in ways she’d never fathomed, dangling her over gnashing teeth.
The burlap was whisked away, exposing them to the gaze of the large man in torn fatigues and filthy boots, his dark skin gleaming with sweat and standing in stark contrast with his bloodshot eyes. Ainet recognized the effects of narcotics and she knew whatever decency he possessed had been cured with the prick of a needle. He rocked back on his feet and whooped as his eyes landed on the tiny girl clutched in her embrace.
“C’mon, little lady, come out, come out wherever you are,” he leered, prying Ainet’s wrist roughly and laughing when she attempted to twist her way out of his grip. “Y’want to come with me, don’tcha girl?” I’ll meet you in hell if you try, you sonofabitch… Her muscles burned with the effort to hold onto Ororo, and his grip left her skin feeling burned and abraded as he jerked her savagely away from the wall, and venomous eyes spat at him even as he swung out and backhanded her across her jaw with a hollow crack. She fumbled feebly as Ororo was wrenched from her arms, and a guttural cry rose up from her throat as she reared up like a lioness, clawing at him and pouncing on his retreating back. She nearly stumbled over the doll in her haste, and he cursed and roared at the plunge of her teeth into his ear, talonlike fingernails clawing at his bald, vulnerable scalp.
A long, mean hunting knife clattered to the floor in the scuffle, and Ororo grimaced and cried out at the twisted look of anger and fear on Ainet’s face looming over the bad man’s shoulder, shrieking at him to let her go. Ororo was knocked free from him as Ainet succeeded in landing a blow across his nose. Ainet screamed until she was hoarse, and his companions merely called out encouragement from the kitchen as the finished the chore of looting her belongings, bundling everything into a small sack…
A bone-chilling growl sounded from the front door, a sign that they’d lingered too long on the wrong territory, and the leader of the pack had arrived to defend his den. He was fearsome and magnificent, eyes glowing a feral, fiery yellow and his hair standing up like quills. His chest expanded deeply and roughly as he sized them up.
“Ya wanna get the hell outta here now.” Ainet’s attacker didn’t heed him, choosing to finish what he’d started by flinging her against the wall. She landed hard and bit her tongue on the way down, where she sat dazed and stunned; a more permanent solution presented itself in the form of the pistol he’d holstered to his ankle. Ainet felt the cool metal cocked against her temple and held her breath. His companions had other immediate concerns and brandished rifles and the stolen knives, broadcasting false confidence over their safety in numbers. Logan didn’t even blink as his claws once more pushed their way through sinew and skin.
Blood sprayed the meager furnishings and mud walls of Ainet’s home and ragged cries echoed in her ears, but her fear was for the child, hating the carnage she had to witness at such a tender age. Even if she walked away without so much as a mark after that day, she’d still be scarred.
Her tormentor spoke through bloodstained teeth. “She’s worth more to you alive than me.”
“Damn straight; she’s worth more alive to me than you, too, pal.” His resolve never wavered, even at the faint click of the pistol being cocked. Ainet’s face was twisted in anguish, but her eyes held acceptance; she placed her fate in Logan’s hands.
“You won’t get to me fast enough with those.” He nodded at Logan’s claws. He ignored the faint flicker of movement behind him, but he saw the burly foreigner’s eyes widen in disbelief and something that looked like fear.
Burning, tearing pain stabbed its way through his back; the red-streaked, silver tip of his hunting knife protruded through his gut. His fingers lost their grip on the pistol, and Ainet yelped as she pried herself free from his arm, now slack, gulping in deep breaths no longer tinged by the liquor on his breath. He gazed down at the point of the blade incredulously, staring at Logan vacantly before he staggered against the wall, finally slumping to his knees. Ainet watched his lips silently plead with her before the light left his eyes. Her eyes darted to Ororo. She smothered a cry behind trembling fingers.
“Oh, my God,” she moaned before scooping her up and clutching her to her chest. Logan didn’t respond; only then did his breath seem to leave him.
Hesitant footsteps approached him from the doorway, and the scents told him there was no threat. Charles wore a look of resignation until he saw Ororo. Relief softened the set of his posture as he ventured forward with his tiny companion.
“Ainet, Achmed is at the church. He’s all right.” She nodded numbly, weeping and unwilling to let Ororo go. Her nose and lips were buried in her thick white hair, now faintly streaked with blood and dirt. “I have someone I think Ororo would like to see.” Logan grunted at the sight of the strange looking boy with the faded hair. He was still skittish, and he looked at Logan with a mixture of terror and shame as Charles led him into the storage space, but that was short-lived when he saw Ainet cradling the sister he’d nearly lost. He sobbed a keening, wailing cry and shook his head; Charles was struck by the depth of emotions rolling from him. He watched Ororo gently remove herself from Ainet’s grip. She stared at Japheth long and hard, measuring him silently.
“’Roro,” he murmured hoarsely, reaching for her.
She flung herself at him and hugged him with all her might, rocking him.
“Didn’t think I…had a hang of a chance!” he cried. “Missed you, girly-girl. M’sorry! M’sorry, ‘Roro!”
“Ororo big girl,” she insisted. Her eyes remained dry.
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