X-Men

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  The broken-nosed trucker took another full swing, this time hitting Logan in the gut.

  Logan doubled over, pretending the guy had actually hurt him. As he was bent over, he clenched his fists and pushed the knuckles of each hand against a leg of one of his captors.

  Then he popped his claws.

  Twelve-inch metal claws shot from behind his knuckles.

  Six razor-sharp claws stabbed through cloth, skin, and muscle as if it weren’t there.

  The sound of metal echoed across the room.

  Logan pulled his claws back in quickly. Both truckers suddenly shouted in pain and let go, each grabbing his leg.

  The bloody-nosed trucker stared at his two friends as they collapsed to the floor and screamed in pain, blood flowing from their legs.

  “What did you do?” he demanded, panic beginning to edge into his voice.

  Logan stepped toward the man. He was no longer grinning. “You always ask the same stupid question?”

  The guy backed away, slowly, grabbing glasses off of tables and throwing them on the ground between them. Then he picked up a metal bar tray, holding it between himself and Logan.

  Logan’s fist shot out. His claws extended again and skewered the tray. He yanked it out of the trucker’s hand and tossed it away.

  Then Logan grabbed the man’s bloodied shirt, shoving the guy’s head hard against the rough wooden wall. He was going to scare this guy, and scare him good.

  While holding his opponent against the wall, he held up his fist, claws extended. Then he reared back and made a forward motion, as if to punch the guy, claws and all.

  Behind him, the girl screamed as his claws sank into the wall on both sides of the guy’s neck. His middle claw had withdrawn just enough so that it only pricked the surface of the guy’s neck.

  The trucker looked as if he might faint, or be sick. Either way, this just wasn’t fun any longer. What Logan really wanted to do was fight. So he withdrew his claws.

  “Run,” he said into the trucker’s face.

  The man tripped over himself as he scrambled for the door, clearly not caring about his friends, who were still writhing in pain on the floor.

  Logan took the moment to glance around. The girl also was gone, and the bartender looked terrified now. The other drunk customers were still sitting at their tables, petrified with shock.

  Logan moved back up to the bar. “Sorry about the mess, but they started it,” he said, nodding at the men on the floor. “Add the repairs to their check.”

  He picked up his half-finished cigar, put enough money on the bar to pay for his beer, and headed out into the snow. There was still time to make some miles.

  Outside, he stopped and looked around. The girl was nowhere to be seen.

  Too bad for her. He might have offered her a ride if she’d waited around long enough for him to get finished with his fun.

  He shrugged and climbed into his camper, turning the key and gunning it to life. Then he drove hard and fast through the snow to get it out onto the road. He was a half mile down the highway when the odor reached him.

  He took his cigar out of his mouth and sniffed again, just to be sure. Then he sighed and hit the brakes. No one was going to hitch a ride without his permission. He didn’t care how young she was.

  Or how much trouble she was in.

  Chapter Three

  Alberta, Canada

  Marie huddled under the tarp, shivering next to the cold metal of a motorcycle, as the camper slid to a stop on the slick road. For an instant she thought about making a run for it as fast as she could. But where would she go? Back to the truckers? The bar? It was snowing—she’d freeze to death before she got very far.

  Maybe the guy was stopping for another reason. If she could just stay in here until they reached a town, then she would get out.

  She still had the memories of the trucker swirling around in her head. She had a clear picture of what he had planned on doing to her. It disgusted her.

  But the realization that he was planning on killing her, just as he had done to two other girls, scared her even more. She hadn’t been this terrified since she had run away from home.

  She knew what he had done to those girls, where their bodies were buried. Now she wished she had held the bastard longer, drained everything from him, so there would be no chance of him ever recovering. Just as his victims had not been given a chance.

  Just as he hadn’t been planning on giving her a chance.

  There truly were some animals in this world, human animals, and she knew she was going to have to learn to deal with that if she stayed on the run.

  She held her breath, trying not to move at all as the intense quiet of the Canadian wilderness closed in around the camper.

  She sat there, scared and cold, waiting.

  Ever since what happened to David in her bedroom, her life had been a waking nightmare. She had been scared more than not. And very lonely.

  At first she had tried to pretend that nothing had really happened. She had pretended she hadn’t been cursed with his every thought and memory. She had tried to convince herself that it had all been her scared mind, making things up.

  And after a month or so, she had succeeded. David’s memories and thoughts had faded from her consciousness, and David had recovered. Since everyone thought it was something wrong with David, no one said much, and the incident was kept quiet around school.

  She had even come to think the same thing, fooling herself that it was something wrong with David.

  Then, a few months later, she had ended up with Sean at the dance, caught in the moment, forgetting David and her first kiss altogether. For an instant the kiss with Sean had been wonderful, exciting. Like nothing else she had ever felt. Her heart had been pounding, her every nerve wound tight.

  Then, just as with David, everything about Sean had seemed to flow into her, as if she were draining him, like drawing water from a sink.

  The next thing she knew, Sean was on the floor, his eyes wide. He was hardly breathing.

  And she knew everything about him: his strengths, his habits, his loves.

  She had stood over him saying over and over, “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything.”

  The rest was a nightmare. People scrambled around her, trying to help Sean, get him to the hospital. She had tried to go back to school a few days later, but Sean’s friends hadn’t let her. They blamed her. Then, in defending herself, she had touched another person, and she had stolen more thoughts and memories.

  And she’d left that person with eyes wide open, almost not breathing, lying on the floor.

  She had hurt someone else.

  Again.

  At that moment she had realized, with terrifying clarity, that when she touched a person, she actually absorbed that person’s thoughts, their memories, their life, even their abilities—everything about them. She hurt them, even though she didn’t want to hurt them.

  From that moment on, she couldn’t stand the looks she was getting from people, even from her parents. The word “mutant” was starting to be whispered loudly when she passed. So the night after she had tried to go back to school, she had packed a few things, covered her body completely so no one could accidentally touch her bare skin, left her parents a good-bye note, and run away.

  Now here she was, hiding in the stinking bathroom of a man who clearly had strange abilities, just like she did. She didn’t know why she had gone to him for help in the bar. Something about him, even though he was the hairiest person she had ever seen, had seemed to draw her. He looked almost more animal than human, and when those claws had popped out of his fist, it had scared her.

  So why was she here?

  How he had easily dealt with the three truckers—that had scared her even more. While he finished the fight, she had run.

  Outside in the snow she had seen the camper, supposing it must be his, figuring he would be leaving right behind her. She had thought it would be her best choice to get away
from there. She could hide until he stopped in a town, then jump and run away.

  But now, with the camper stopped on the side of the road, a good distance from anywhere, it didn’t seem like such a good choice after all.

  The door to the camper opened, and the trailer rocked as the hairy man climbed out. She could smell the biting odor of his cigar. Maybe he was just getting something, then would go back to driving.

  She held her breath, not daring to make a sound.

  “Get out!”

  His voice seemed to come down on her like a sledgehammer. Her heart pounded. He knew she was here.

  She eased back the tarp slowly and climbed out. The man with the black hair and claws stood there, facing her across the small space. The door to the camper was still open, and all around she could see dimly the white road and the shapes of trees through the falling snow.

  “Where am I supposed to go?” she demanded with faint defiance.

  “I don’t know,” the man said. “Get out.”

  She moved past him, the cold air biting at her face. “You don’t know, or you don’t care?”

  “Pick one,” he said. “Get out.”

  She stepped down into the snow and walked a few steps away, stopping behind the trailer.

  The hairy man turned on his heels, got back into the camper, and slammed the door. A moment later the truck’s tires were spinning as the camper pulled away.

  She watched it for a moment, then glanced around. There was nothing out here. And the cold was already starting to bite at her. She was going to be lucky if she could even make it back to the bar.

  At least they would blame him for the fight.

  The camper’s taillights were almost invisible in the snow when suddenly the brake lights flared. After a moment, a voice came though the snow.

  “I can’t wait forever.”

  She smiled. She had known there was something about this guy. For all his gruff exterior, he couldn’t leave her to die out here.

  She walked to where he was parked on the road and climbed into the passenger seat. “Thanks.”

  He didn’t say anything as he shoved the camper back into gear and spun back into motion.

  The silence in the cab was tense.

  She sat, pushed against the door, grasping her seat belt, as he smoked his cigar and drove. The windshield wipers barely cleared the blowing snow, and she doubted he could see more than a car’s length in front of them. Considering that the two-lane road was tree lined and had sudden curves, he was driving far too fast. But at this point, she certainly wasn’t going to say anything.

  “So, what’s your name?” she asked tentatively.

  The man chewed on his cigar for a moment, focusing all his attention on the road. Then he finally answered. “Logan. What’s yours?”

  She almost said Marie, then decided to stick with the name she had been trying to use since she left home.

  “Rogue.”

  They sat in silence again for a long few moments. The snow seemed to be coming down even harder, and the slap, slap, slap of the windshield wipers counted the time as it passed like the blurry outlines of the trees.

  Finally he said, “What kind of name is Rogue?”

  She liked the name Rogue. She felt it suited her perfectly at the moment. “What kind of name is Logan?”

  He nodded, chewing on the now-short stump of his cigar. “Good point.”

  Slap, slap, slap. The silence continued. Rogue wasn’t sure if she should even be trying to talk to the man.

  After a moment he tossed his old cigar butt into a full ashtray, then pulled a new smoke from under the seat and, while driving with his leg pressed against the steering wheel, lit the tip. The cab filled with clouds of fresh smoke, and he sighed. She wanted to open the window, get some fresh air blowing in here before she got sick to her stomach, but didn’t know if she should even do that.

  Finally she decided that trying to talk was better than sitting in frustrating silence.

  “How long have you known?” she asked.

  “Known what?” he asked back, glancing at her.

  “That you were, you know, like me?” Rogue had heard that there were others with special powers like hers. Mutants. She just hadn’t believed it.

  “I’m not like you,” the guy said, blowing a large cloud of smoke between his face and the windshield. She had no idea how he could see the road, but he seemed to be managing just fine.

  “Right,” Rogue said, laughing, “you’re just a normal, everyday claw guy.”

  “Listen, kid,” Logan said, “right now the only thing you’ve done to endear yourself to me is to get three big truckers to attack me. Now granted, that was kind of fun, so I’m cutting you some slack. Any more chatter and the slack runs out.”

  She smiled, staring through the snow at the faint outline of the mountain road. Then she said, “You know, you should wear your seat belt.”

  “What did I tell you?” he asked.

  But she could tell he was almost smiling. Almost.

  The next instant the world seemed to end.

  Something big toppled in front of them from Logan’s side, falling directly across the road.

  He reacted, but he had no chance of success. The camper came to an almost-instant stop.

  Rogue was smashed against her seat belt. Her head snapped forward, then backward, banging on the panel behind her.

  Logan was tossed hard through the windshield, bouncing and tumbling down the road like a rag doll.

  Out her side window the trailer full of wood and the motorcycle shot past, tumbling end over end, the trailer’s contents scattering like leaves in the wind.

  To Rogue it seemed as if everything in the camper suddenly piled around her, shoving her forward. She could see Logan’s body through the broken-out windshield. Snow swirled in and around her face as everything finally came to a stop.

  They had hit a massive falling tree. The force of the impact had shoved it forward and to one side. From where she sat, it was clear that this truck wasn’t going to be going anywhere again anytime soon. The hood and front end were wrapped around the log.

  The silence now seemed almost heavy. She sat there, trying to catch her breath, trying to stop her heart from pounding out of her chest. It was the first time she had ever been in an automobile accident. It had happened so fast.

  Then through the snow she saw movement.

  Logan was alive. How was that possible?

  In the road ahead, he climbed to his feet, brushing himself off. “Damn it!” he said.

  She sat there, staring at him in shock. No one could live through being tossed through a truck windshield, then bouncing down the concrete like he had done. He had to be dead, or at least seriously injured. Yet here he was, walking toward her, swearing under his breath.

  As he got closer, she could see that there were gashes in his cheek and forehead. Deep, bleeding cuts that were going to need treatment quickly.

  Then, as she watched, the gashes stopped bleeding and began to heal up.

  That wasn’t possible.

  Logan didn’t even seem to notice, or think anything was out of the ordinary. Then she realized that her ability—to take someone’s thoughts, abilities, everything—also wasn’t possible. Yet she did it.

  “You all right?” Logan asked, stopping in front of the truck and staring at her through the windshield.

  “I’m fine,” she said, still not really wanting to move to check that claim out completely.

  Logan nodded and studied the tree they had hit, walking along it toward the shattered trunk, shaking his head. From what Rogue could tell, the tree had come off the side of the cliff, probably brought down by the heavy snow.

  She was still shaking so much that she didn’t even want to try to move. Instead she just sat, trying to get herself to relax.

  As Logan climbed up to check the base of the shattered tree, a hand punched out of a large snowdrift right beside him: a huge, clawed hand that grabbed him by the bac
k of the jacket.

  Rogue screamed as a snow-covered monster rose up, towering over Logan. It picked him up and swung him around, tossing him into the cliff side with enough force that Rogue could feel the ground shake even from where she was.

  The creature stood there, staring at where it had thrown Logan. Rogue saw that it wasn’t actually an animal, but a large man with long yellow hair, wearing animal hides. He had sharp teeth and cat’s eyes, and he was the ugliest thing Rogue had ever seen.

  As the creature stepped toward Logan, Rogue tried to move. The seat had been shoved forward and was jammed behind her by the camper. Her legs were trapped under the dashboard. The more she fought to get them free, the more it hurt.

  She tried shoving the passenger door open, but it, too, was stuck, so she went back to feeling around her legs with her hands, trying to find anything she could move to get free.

  Then behind her she heard a slight crackling sound.

  She twisted around, expecting to see another creature, but what she saw through the cracked camper was something far worse.

  Fire.

  The camper was on fire.

  She went back to fighting to free her legs.

  Through the windshield she could see Logan emerge from the snow, clearly angry. With one backhand slap, the fur-covered man smashed Logan into a tree. How strong was this thing?

  Logan came up rolling, his claws extended. “You want a fight? You’re going to get a fight!”

  Logan slashed at the man.

  Missed.

  Slashed again.

  Missed again, as the man-creature moved quickly out of the way. The thing grabbed Logan’s wrist and, using Logan’s own forward momentum, picked him up and swung him 360 degrees, smashing him into the log.

  The log shattered.

  Rogue fought even harder now. She had to get away from the fire, from this mockery of a man.

  Logan was stunned, but he still tried to stagger to his feet.

  The huge man-creature picked Logan up like a pillow, held him in the air, then tossed him twenty feet back through the remains of the truck’s windshield.

  Rogue managed to cover her face and turn slightly in the seat as Logan smashed into her, unconscious.