Chapter Seven: Caught
And if I shed a tear, I won’t cage it
I won’t fear love
And if I feel a rage, I won’t deny it
I won’t fear love
~ Sarah McLachlan
He woke unnaturally early, startled by the warm presence beside him. Moving cautiously, so he would not wake the woman beside him, he sat up against the headboard, looking down at the familiar beauty of her face.
Her lips were parted in sleep, her breaths slow and even. He watched the subtle rise and fall of her bare chest for a long time before looking down at her long, smooth legs.
It had been a complete shock, coming out of the gas station and spotting the motorcycle parked outside. There was no logical reason that damned thing could be in the middle of Indiana, but there it was. He’d looked for her immediately, searching for that trademark hair.
Only when he caught a scent of fresh rain mingled with a hint of fear that he even bothered looking across the street. Unable to believe she was really there, he had waited until she decked the kid before crossing the street to intervene.
His sharp hearing had caught her “cover” and he took the chance to build on it. The Friends of Humanity were stupid enough to believe he’d really run off in the middle of the night on a lead, without so much as his boots. He took as good luck and played their idiocy against them.
If he hadn’t, there would have been no reason for him to use the safe house in Roman. No reason to be in the same city as ‘Ro. He wouldn’t have been able to find her in time.
As it was, he had to shake his “friends” off of his tail enough in the last forty-eight hours, telling them he needed space to track their lost mutant. Running from them was easy; especially when they had no idea he was evading them.
Ororo muttered a little in her sleep, turning onto her side, closer to him. He smiled at her, tracing the supple lip she pouted out in sleep with the pad of his thumb.
Either absence made the heart fonder, or he just didn’t remember how fucking gorgeous she was.
And she could walk, all on her own. If the sight of her had not shocked him, the simple fact that she stood tall and battle-ready would have. The last time he had seen her, she had been barely able to walk the length of a bedroom unassisted. Yet, he had watched her sinuous body stand ready to take down those idiot boys.
At first, his goal had been to park her supple ass right on a plane back to New York, once they were able to shake any lingering Friends from their backs. She had undermined his mental plan, breaking the resolve he had built in the last weeks with little resistance.
He couldn’t help himself. Her smell was so familiar, the flash of defiance in her eyes begging him to reclaim her as his own, the touch of her skin intoxicating. Finally, after months of longing to be hers again, they had held one another.
Then, of course, gone at it like hormone-crazed teenagers into the wee hours of the morning. He’d lost count of how many times -- ways -- he’d had her. Toward the end of their athletic mattress session, he had nearly blacked out.
Logan slipped out of bed, pausing to ensure he had not woken her. He had frequent phone calls from Rankin and the others, mostly just irritating him with updates on Storm’s “location”. Their information was shit and he knew it, but it kept them off of his tail.
Now that he knew where Ororo was, he could really get the hell out of Dodge. Once they were back at the mansion, he could give everyone a full report on what he’d been doing for two months.
He could go back to fixing his relationship with their resident weather witch. Get his life back in order from the mess he’d made.
When the phone rang, he picked it up immediately, knowing the sound would wake Ororo.
“Kinney.”
“You’re not gonna believe this, buddy,” Rankin’s voice was way, way too chipper and smug for before dawn, but Logan decided to not comment on it.
“What?” he grunted, feeling a pair of piercing eyes digging into his back along with the rustle of clothing and bed sheets.
“We found her. She’s real damn close to you.”
Logan turned to Ororo, knowing he couldn’t hide the twinge of fear that clenched his stomach.
“She was seen in Roman last night. She changed her hair, but the kid was sure it was her. Said her eyes turned a little white when she was pissed off.”
“Got it.”
He clicked the phone off, moving back into the bedroom. They had to get out of Roman. Now. His mind whirled as his lover sat up, wrapping herself in the sheet.
“Logan?” her sleepy voice held an edge of worry, but he knew time was against them and decided to just have out with it.
“They found us.”
He had no idea she could move that damn fast.
Blinking at her, he watched as she pulled her clothes on, running a hand through her sleep and sex mussed hair. Logan finished dressing himself, stuffing clothing into his own duffel bag.
She didn’t speak until she was pulling her boots on, the leather of her pants squeaking as she bent at the waist. It still surprised him to see her move without a wheelchair or cane or something to hold her up. It was almost as if the shooting had never happened.
“You have to stay.”
Whirling on her, heart leaping into his throat, he growled.
“Did I shake something loose last night?”
She gave him an amused, if fleeting, smile. “No. But your cover is still in tact, right?”
Logan gave her a one-shouldered shrug. “I was using it to find you.”
Shaking her head, she looked around carefully, as though searching for something she might have forgotten in her haste to get dressed.
“Then you have to keep it that way. At least until you can get out of here safely. If they know where I am, they will converge on this area.”
“Ro, we went through hell, twice, trying to fight these fuckers, and you want me to stay here with my thumb up my ass while you…what? Use yourself as bait?”
Her dark eyes flashed at him. Even with the alien color, the look was so familiar, it hurt. Her hands planted on her hips and she used that commanding tone she usually reserved for pulling rank on him.
“I can outrun them on the bike, if I leave now. You can wait until they have passed, then return to the mansion. I will find you there.”
Logan crossed the bedroom, walking on top of the bed to pull her into his arms. Cupping her cheek with his hand, dropping his forehead onto hers, he stood in silence for a moment, choking on sentimental words before he ground them out.
“I just got you back, there’s no fuckin’ way I’m letting you walk out that door alone.”
Her hands framed his face, her touch so tender and loving that it brought a lump of emotion to his throat.
“I can protect you. Us.”
“They can riddle me with holes, I’ll survive.”
“And if I get caught in the crossfire?”
Ororo’s blunt words hit him with more force than if she’d conducted lightning through his adamantium skeleton. The thought of holding her bloodied body, lifeless and limp, in his arms for a second time brought back memories he had tried so hard to forget.
“’Ro…”
She silenced him with a searing kiss, flattening her lithe body against his. He held on for dear life, terrified that if he let her go, it would be the last time he ever saw her.
“Trust me, like you used to.”
“Low blow, darlin’,” he sighed, stealing another kiss, his resolve broken. “Take the north-bound highway to Kelly, then go east, follow the back roads.”
Ororo nodded, the look in her eyes telling him she had already filed the information away in her brilliant mind. She wouldn’t fail, she never did.
“I love you,” she whispered against his lips.
“Yeah,” he replied just as quietly, his eyes never leaving hers. “I love you, too.”
His Storm pushed away from him, then, slinging her bag over her shoulder and turned. He closed his eyes, unable to watch her walk away from him. He heard the heavy sound of her boots taking her out of the bedroom and into the main area of the cabin.
The front door slammed closed a moment later, the roaring of the bike’s engine broke the dawn silence. He waited until the stuttering engine was out of his earshot before pulling his boots on.
He had to trust her, trust her instincts as he had before, in battle. She was well trained, smart…she could do it.
Right?
The important thing to remember, the thought that would carry him through whatever happened next, was the simple fact that she had actually said she loved him. In all the time they had been together, they never once voiced their feelings. Logan had seen no reason to and he’d never heard a complaint from his beautiful lover. They had simply accepted it without mucking it up with empty words.
It was different now. He had needed to tell her, before their fucked up lives stepped in to screw it all up. Again.
Stupid. Stupid. Fuck. I can’t…I just let her…fuck. Fuck. FUCK!
The mental dialogue continued as he quickly straightened up the mess he’d made of the safe house, ridding it of any trace that Ororo had been there. Burning the sheets in the clearing behind the cabin so they would never know she had spent the night in his arms.
It almost seemed as a dream while he waited for another call. Rankin was sure to notify him if she was spotted leaving town. It wouldn’t be that hard to just slip away once they were on her trail. Hell, he could even call them, say she headed south. Damn, good idea, Log”
The crunch of tires skidding over gravel brought him sharply from his inward thoughts, crouching low and putting nose to air, trying to locate and recognize whoever was approaching, he crept toward the front door.
Heavy work boots stomped up the drive, then up the stairs onto the porch. A loud banging on the door hurt his sensitive ears as he flattened his body to the wall.
Gunpowder. Chewing tobacco. Rankin.
“Kinney!”
Throwing the door open and hoisting a sneer onto his face, Logan glared at the intruder.
“What the hell do you want?”
Heart thundering in his chest, grateful Ororo had thought to leave without him, he leaned on the doorframe heavily, hooking his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans.
“Couple of scouts spotted her a minute ago, heading north toward Kelly.”
Logan kept his eyes from widening in fear by sheer force of will. He grunted with a nonchalant nod.
“I’ll drive.”
~@~
His truck was flanked by four others, barreling down the highway in search of a lone mutant on an old motorcycle. Logan’s fist smacked the steering wheel over and over, his claws itching to slip from their hiding place with his barely concealed rage.
After convincing Rankin to ride with the others so that he could have his truck to himself, Logan released his pent up anger and worry on his poor steering wheel, not sure how in the name of hell he was going to get Ororo out of this one.
Flipping the mobile phone he’d purchased on the way out of town, he manipulated the keypad quickly, hacking directly into the mansion’s private lines. It was a useful trick he’d been given just before leaving for his assignment.
On the third ring, a familiar female voice answered.
“Xavier’s School For Gif”” Jean Grey said in her cheery tone.
“For the love of God, shut the fuck up and get me Xavier.”
“Logan?”
“Jean! Listen to me. I’m in deep shit trouble. I have to talk to hi--”
He could hear her breath hitch angrily in her chest and banged the phone against his forehead. When would the girl learn to just listen to him without turning everything into a goddamn brawl?
“You’ve got a lot of nerve.”
“Jeanie, shut up,” he skidded the truck around a corner, almost popping the machine up on two wheels. “Storm’s in trouble and the only one that could even think to help me right now, is the guy in a wheelchair. Bald, kinda skinny, you remember him?”
There was silence, the sound of clothing and the clicking of the receiver telling him that she had either handed the phone over or someone had taken it by force.
“Conundrum?”
Relieved to hear the clipped tones of his friend’s voice, Logan carefully avoided a head on collision, glancing into his rear view mirror to ensure the other trucks were safely behind him.
“It’s me,” he grunted. “We’re fucked. I found Storm, had her hidden, but someone tipped off my new friends and we’re in the middle of a high speed pursuit.”
“Where?”
“Outside of Roman, Indiana. They kept my cover for me, so I used it to find her,” he swallowed hard. “I didn’t know she’d left until yesterday…”
“Logan, it’s all right,” he could almost hear the powerful mutant’s brain working overtime to think him out of his situation. “Is Ororo with you?”
“No,” Logan growled. “She left on the motorcycle, thinking she could outrun them. We didn’t know they were so close behind us.”
“All right, remain calm, Logan,” the older mutant said, though Wolverine could tell his voice was raised an octave or two with alarm. “Do you think she can stay ahead of them long enough for the X-Men to arrive?”
“Fuck no, not on the gas she had left.”
“Damn it.”
Logan pulled the phone from his ear to stare at it, shocked into silence at hearing his friend actually swear. It was more rare than Ororo using contractions. Replacing the earpiece, he glanced into the rear view again.
“I could use an idea or four, here, Chuck.”
Before Xavier could answer, Logan heard the excited honking of horns from the trucks behind him. He poked his head out of the truck’s window, trying to decipher what was happening without stopping his truck.
“Logan?”
“Hang on,” he barked into the receiver, knowing from the older man’s tone that he knew something was wrong.
It wasn’t until Rankin’s truck pulled up beside his that Logan truly realised how bad things were about to get. The terrorist was grinning as he shouted to Logan from his open truck window.
“Looks like she had herself an accident!”
Logan’s eyes darted to the skid marks on the Indiana highway, his heart dropping to his feet at the sharp memory that brought to the surface. He could see that same group of young boys from the previous evening yanking something…or someone out of the brush along the side of the street.
“No,” Logan whispered to himself, heedless to the alarmed voice echoing from his mobile phone. “No, not again.”
Pulling his truck into a swerving stop alongside the others, Logan leaped from the seat, breaking the seatbelt in the process. He dropped the phone somewhere as he raced toward the excited male shouting and frightened female cries.
Boiling rage and cold fear fought for dominance inside of him, neither winning or losing, keeping him rooted to the spot as Ororo’s form was finally yanked out of the underbrush. She was spitting angry, though his heightened hearing could detect the fear in her voice, the escalated beat to her heart.
Across the accident scene, the dozens of men, the smoke, heat, and emotion running through the space between them, Ororo’s eyes met his. For a moment, Logan let his feral instincts take over, his claws screaming for release.
He could take them all down…he could end it here.
What if I get caught in the crossfire?
Her words pulled down the raging beast within him, that look in those eyes telling him to just leave it, to play along for now. She would not risk her life, or his, by exposing him too soon.
When Rankin appeared at Logan’s side to congratulate him, he turned to the man with a barely restrained growl.
“Take her back to camp. Lock her up, hands behind her back and eyes covered. I’ll interrogate her myself.”
Rankin’s face was split by a pleased grin, though he was gesturing to his boys to get everything and everyone off the street as soon as possible. They herded Ororo’s struggling form onto the back of a truck, one of the younger men slapping her smartly across the face when she tried to squirm away.
Logan had to count to twenty before he tore off into the group and gutted the idiot like a trout. He turned to Rankin, grabbing him by the front of his shirt.
“Don’t let them rough her up too much, we need her alive,” he jerked his head toward the caravan. “Cops’ll be here soon. Get everyone out.”
“Yeah, I’m on it,” Rankin laughed. “Come on, Kinney! Celebrate the victory here.”
Logan stomped away, scooping up the mobile phone as he yanked open the door to his truck. “We haven’t won anything yet.”
He turned the key in the ignition, revving the truck to life as he watched the scrambling Friends out of his windshield. Four of the younger men were guarding her, armed with pistols and semi-automatics. Ororo seemed to have calmed down, no doubt battling her own demons with guns.
Their eyes met “ just for a moment “ through the dirty glass of his windshield. Silently, he told her again and again that he would get them both out of this. She rewarded him with a small, quick smile.
Stomping on the gas pedal, Logan whipped the steering wheel around, redialing the number for the mansion.
Before the first ring even ended, Chuck’s voice came through the other end.
“They’ve got her. I’m going back in.”
“Godspeed, Logan.”
With that, he clicked the phone off, tossing it onto the highway as he drove back to the Friends’ compound, a plan already forming in his head.
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