Hiya. Not a professional writer, blah blah blah... Victor Creed, Logan, and the X-Men are Marvel's. No money is made. Don't sue.

Jack, Zach, Kai, and Three Eyes are ours. (That's Kaylee and Kael.) We make a great tag-team when it comes to fights. (Speaking from experience.<g>) Don't test us.

Comments to Kaylee1109@aol.com. Address 'em to "Kael." She wrote this, and she's eager to know how this story is being received! ;-)

Enjoy!

By Kael

The injury was treated twice a day for the next three days, and as the wound finally began to dry and close it took longer and hurt more each time. Jack's nerves were headed for the breaking point, but he forced himself to present only a calm, light attitude towards Creed. He'd mastered the first flush of rekindled hunger; beaten it down, driven it back. The threat now was more subtle. The feelings that invaded his mind during the prolonged physical contact were raising old memories and, much worse, the fragments of old desire. So much pain, and anger, flavored with that touch of fear. It was everything the hunger craved...the darker, stronger draw of the negative emotions and sensations that all but demanded he take it all in, drain it all away until there was nothing left of the man but a cooling husk. And it would be so easy...

If he just let Creed realize that he himself was a mutant, that he could sense the emotions underlying the fits of temper and sudden rages. That he was bearing witness to his weakness, not only physical but emotional. Creed would go for him then, and in self-defense...

Jack consoled himself that it was only the real hunger that wanted that. There had been a time when all of him had wanted the kill. That sense of satisfaction that came after -- only served to sicken him now. In memory and possibility. Oh, he could justify taking Creed, probably even to himself eventually, if only by the sheer joy Creed'd felt at the instant of murder. Except for one nasty detail.

When Zach had looked into his soul, after Jack had resigned himself to death and was tallying up the score he'd earned in life, he had doubtless found something blacker than anything Jack was getting from Creed.

And why did everything he thought about to get his mind off everything else he had to think about just lead in tighter and tighter circles? God, it had been easier just to give up on Muir Isle than to face questions like these. Then, giving up had meant dying. Here, it meant someone else dying. Again, around and around, more and more complicated...

"You know that somebody waits at home for you, and how hard this is for you to do, but we both know this is not where you belong..."

"Kid -- shut up," Victor growled over his shoulder.

Of course, yelling and cursing hadn't been what Jack had in mind, but it was an improvement over silence; one that had developed in the aftermath of the poachers' deaths. Not getting to vent his bloodlust had made Creed a very edgy man.

The fits and rages had been fading a little, Jack reminded himself as he followed Creed down the trail this first morning Jack had judged him fit to travel. The worst so far this morning had involved the murder of a sapling pine that dared slap snow into his face. And yesterday had held only three definite threats to Jack's life, though with the recession of genuine aggression the snarls and grumbling and petty gestures of anger had increased.

"Watch your step, kid," the gruff voice came from over the edge of a slight drop. "Don't jump off that -- there's nothin' but rocks down here."

"Yes, Mister Creed," Jack acknowledged obediently, quickening his pace a little. His "patient" had repeatedly left him behind since they left the camp, even after he had relieved Jack of his gear by the simple expedient of picking him up by the backpack and waiting for him to fall out of the straps. Creed was moving through the wilderness with an ease most men could claim only on city sidewalks, but he had at least started waiting whenever Jack got completely out of sight. His back might be getting better, but Jack was still Creed's ticket back to civilization. In return for not being left miles behind, Jack had been turned into the poster child for the "Stupid Boy Scouts of America." He listened to unending grumbles about his intelligence and physical condition, punctuated by the occasional directives pointedly intended to preserve his ability to travel. He took it stoically -- he actually was learning a few things. Creed was obviously an old hand at arctic wilderness survival, and even if Jack wasn't an absolute neophyte, if it gave Creed a safe topic to invest his ire in he wasn't going to rock the boat.

As far as Creed was concerned, everything at this point deserved his ire. The scarcely broken trail over hellacious terrain...the clinging wetness of the light but steadily falling snow...the brisk wind up his back throwing matted hair repeatedly into his eyes and the boy's nattering constantly into his ears. The endless, unchanging forest opening up around them...

The fact that all of it -- scent and feel and sound and sight -- came dimly, faintly, as if he were delirious or it were all far away. He was born and bred to this country, damn it; to the cold and the storm and the vast, trackless wilderness. Now it was all rendered alien. No. He was rendered alien, his kinship with the wild things revoked. And the forest knew it. This was old growth territory, yet the few scraggling saplings to a one conspired to catch at his ankles, at the pack he had liberated from the kid.

"Fuckin' salt water had to eat my fuckin' boots."

All the whispered secrets of scent and sound he was accustomed to depending on the wood now kept close, refusing him knowledge. Refusing him acknowledgment. Wherever he had walked in the world -- from urban jungles to tropical -- he had always been recognized as master. The very air had always known it. He belonged in the chain, as the first link among predators. But now he was just another tourist passing through. Unremarked on. Unrecognizable.

"...an' the kid's just gotta sing like a deaf crow."

He couldn't even make out the tune the damn kid was humming, though it seemed familiar. If he could just hear the--

A rock slid beneath his foot in the drifted snow and, preoccupied, he lost his balance and turned his ankle. Hard. He staggered and almost fell, the pack jerking across the thin scab over his shoulder.

"God damn it."

And now he could feel the light trickle of fresh blood down his back and his fucking ankle hurt.

"Are you all right, Mister Creed?" the distant, nearly inflectionless voice inquired immediately. Victor straightened instantly; turned to snarl at the boy for falling behind again.

Met bright, concerned eyes in an animated face from a distance of perhaps three meters. The snarl froze on his face, the harsh words in his throat. He stared a moment, then jerked around again, convulsively; refusing to give the boy even a glimpse of the sick confusion that almost dizzied him. And then nearly gasped as his shoulder and back protested the treatment. He ground his teeth on the indrawn breath; turned it into a growl. "Watch your step, kid. S'another rock fall. Bad enough I hafta keep waitin' for you -- no way am I carryin' your scrawny ass outta here."

Jack's sigh was inaudible. "Yes, Mister Creed."

But Creed had immediately gone back to ignoring him and didn't seem to hear. The scarcely audible grumbling resumed as the big man found his full marching speed again. The topic had returned to Jack and began with a litany on tender-foot boy scouts playing woodsman; moved on to why nobody with an ant's brain packed more than he could carry; became quieter and shifted over to the game that capricious bitch Mother Nature was playing with him, withholding all the information he needed while sending her icy breath deep into his bones. How come the cold was the only thing he could feel more keenly than ever? And then there was that cheap-assed Genoshan boat that sank in seas gentle enough that he managed to get to shore...

And when he ran out of imagination he grumbled on about disintegrating boots that filled with melted snow and pinched his feet mercilessly, and sunlight that hid constantly except for the moments it chose to strike with blinding force from the ice-crusted snow.

He kept it all under his breath, of course, where the kid couldn't catch his meaning. Wouldn't give 'im the satisfaction of knowing just how hard the going had quickly become in this puny human body. But quiet or not, he did keep it up over every single meter of trail, not admitting to himself the why in it except as a way of venting anger he couldn't yet afford to direct at the boy.

As long as he kept the buzz of his voice in his ears he could ignore the surreal silence in the rest of the world.

***

"Mister Creed..."

"...a kid out here, playin' Daniel Boone..."

"Mister Creed..."

"...'least in the Provs a man can find a place to get a drink..."

"Mister Creed..."

"What?" Victor demanded, turning fast in mid-stride to find himself face to face with the startled kid. Finally. After all day listening to the humming and singing, finally he was getting adjusted to his crippled senses. He got the momentary satisfaction of seeing the kid stumble back in obvious alarm.

Momentary, of course, as an instant, concerned babble followed. "Are you all right, Mister Creed? I'm so sorry, I should have been paying attention, I didn't mean to walk into you. Did I hurt your back or..."

"What," Victor broke in, teeth gritted. "Did. You. Want?"

"Oh." Jack paused, took a breath, visibly reset his train of thought. "Well, it's just that it'll be getting dark soon, and we've been traveling pretty hard, and if we want fresh meat tonight...well, we'll probably need to stop soon."

Creed swung around with a grunt and resumed walking. "Not here in the open, kid. I keep telling you, dangerous people are the least of our worries in this country."

Jack listened politely until Creed trailed off. "Actually, I was thinking of a rock face I passed coming in. It should be just ahead."

Creed stopped again, less dramatically. He glared at Jack, thinking about it, then reluctantly grunted assent. There wasn't any use in forcing the pace. It wouldn't hurry the pick-up date any. "Yeah kid, fine. As long as it's some kinda cover."

"Well, it's a short cliff facing; not high, but enough to shelter a tent and a fire."

"Fine," Victor growled, reminded unpleasantly that the kid had been out on these trails for weeks already without any help from him. "Show me the way then, 'fearless leader.'"

Jack smiled as if at a joke between friends, and Victor's teeth ground. Fortunately, the kid promptly took himself out of sight to the south of the trail.

***

Half an hour later, Victor sat staring into a neat little fire, reflecting grudgingly that it hadn't taken the boy long to set up a fairly decent camp. When Victor had caught up and divested himself of the backpack, Jack had pounced on it and unceremoniously dumped most of the non-perishable contents on the ground. He had exclaimed happily on locating the folded tarp and blanket--

--and arranged them beside the hastily uncovered fire-pit. Gesturing for Victor to sit, he'd located the leftover wood gathered on his previous stay at the site and within minutes had a cheery little fire going. He'd studied Victor's stiff posture for a moment on his way to gather more wood, looking almost hurt at the implied refusal of his offered comforts, but for once hadn't made any comment.

Victor had remained standing aloof, arms folded, until Jack was -- just -- out of sight before collapsing on the ground cover with what he would never admit was a groan. The boy had returned with a double armload of wood and an immense grin at finding Victor before the fire, the latter quickly repressed at the elder's glower. He had gotten the rest of the camp in order with surprising efficiency and a minimum of fuss and immediately disappeared again, this time to 'beat the shadows,' presumably to the rabbits.

Not that his belly would care. Empty as it was right now it kept suggesting that sea-soaked leather would taste just like jerky. He eyed his boots mistrustfully where they stretched forward between his torso and the fire. From what the kid had said it was a hard five more days back to the pickup point, and it would be one bitch of a walk in cloth wrappings if his boots fell any further apart. Now that he was off of them his feet were sending him sharp throbs of protest, one for every step he'd inflicted on them.

Not that either the boots or the pain were actually bad enough to deserve the voltage in the glare he was sending them, but he kid's parting words had left him with a gut-full of anger and nowhere to put it.

Victor's reply to that had been a look sufficient to send the boy hastily on his way. He would be all right? Where did the little punk get his ideas, anyway?

As if he hadn't been running wild in this terrain since this kid's parents were an itch in ol' Grampa's pants. As if he actually needed the kid for anything except tending to his back. Little tenderfoot was actin' like he was the one doin' the protectin'. Always fluttering around him like he was gonna break if he moved wrong. Kid had actually asked if he had hurt him today. Like that was gonna happen. Makin' a big presentation outta seein' to his comfort before anything else. Like he worried about havin' a place to sit or whether or not it was cold.

Actin' like the great provider over his pathetic little rabbits. Victor wondered briefly whether the pickup would recognize him, or if he could wait to kill them both until after they were landed somewhere civilized. Been a while since he'd piloted a chopper, and the winds up here were a certifiable bastard. There would be somethin' appropriate about leavin' the kid's blood in the ground out here, though. Of course, it would be even more fun to track the kid down back on the mainland, where there would be enough other factors to drag it out a little. Still be an easy mark, of course, but maybe he'd let the boy run for a few minutes. See up close and personal what the word hunt really meant.

He was just tired of the kid's presumption that somethin' like him could ever belong out here. It was by the grace of whatever god he followed that nothing more than a couple of poachers had found him. And that someone who did belong out here had been there when they did. He was tired of the boy's seemingly unconscious insults, tired of fighting his own response to them. Tired, damn it, of being asked if he was -- or earnestly assured that he would be -- "all right." Tired of fallin' asleep dreaming about this kid's guts between his fingers and waking knowing it would be a long time coming. Tired of counting in days terrain he could have covered in hours.

Actually, there wasn't really anything that he wasn't tired of just now.

Victor spat into the fire and listened to it hiss. The boyscout had actually made a picture perfect ring around his smoky little fire. There had to be rocks under it, of course, or thick wood to keep the melted snow from putting it out, but a fire ring? Where did he think the flames would spread to, the permafrost?

That made Victor snort a derisive laugh, but he could maintain humor even less well than anger just now. There was a deep place in his mind filled with thoughts he wasn't ready to consider and emotions he refused to realize that he remembered. They lashed up occasionally, to choke him or stop his breath in his lungs, and they had names like helplessness. And entrapment. And fear.

Surrounded by all the still, still cold, he let it drift in over the low-burning fires. Rage was easy, but it really did make him -- tired? And it walked a perilously close trail to that pit. Easier, safer--

--just to let the chill inside freeze to ice, to a hard sheet over all those canyons where he could just stand for a minute, and get a hold of himself. And if on top of that sheet was an empty, wailing wilderness, at least the winds could only knock him over. The things beneath the ice could drag him too deep to ever recognize himself again.

...then, he knew with certainty, then he would hunt down Wipeout.

And the world will make sense again, something beneath unconsciousness whispered plaintively.

...then he would make him suffer for a very, very long few minutes for causing all this. Then he would hunt down the people who had sent the soul-thief after him. Then he'd track down the bastards who had hired him and sent him to Genosha without a warning, then he'd find the little mutate teleporter and show her in detail what he thought of her sense of humor, then maybe he'd go play patty-cake with the runt just for the sheer bloody hell of it. He wondered what Kai would think of his killing her lover.

The part of him fighting to retain some sense of who, of what he was shied violently from the name and the thought. He had enough weaknesses to deal with right now that he managed to find reasons for without turning them all inside out with that. Purely physical weaknesses, undeniably inflicted by the outside world. Wipeout had taken his healing factor. No way to change that yet. A running battle and a shipwreck had left him half-crippled. Time would make him whole. And, damn it, he needed the kid to get his ass out of this frozen excuse for a country. Needed him enough to reach all the way into hard-wired instincts and short-circuit them, to deny even the fundamental rage lest it lead him into fulfillment of his fantasies. He would do anything, allow anything, that was necessary for him to live. As long as he was alive he had a chance to reclaim all that was his and punish all those who had taken it. And for him to live, the kid had to live. Simple equation. One life for one life. For now.

But what excuse could he find for leavin' Kai alive?

"Yeah, right," he muttered to the darkness. "Fixed that."

"Goddamnit, Kai, get outta my fuckin' head." The choked growl surprised him and he started to jerk to his feet, not sure what he was doing but wanting to move. Pain aborted the motion half-completed, a blood-tinted wave that broke over his head and planted his butt back on the blanket. Pain in his back. Pain in his feet. Pain in his goddamned legs from the goddamned walking.

He sat very still, sucking air through clenched teeth until the red haze left his vision. He actually hurt, damnit. Lingering, aching, every-joint-plus-those-little-muscles-you-forgot-you-had normal, human pain. No life threatening illness, no through-bone-to-viscera gouges to set his nerves shrieking. Plain old 'been through a rough time and walked a hard trail' stuff, and like any pathetic little human he just hurt. In every tiny little fucking cell he hurt.

Been through a helluva lot worse, his pride growled a consoling reminder, but there was only token fate-defiance in it. It had been a long, long time since he had been put through anything like this. Oh, pain was as familiar to him as drawing breath; but with the healing factor it was always a bright, searing current that fed the rage; that he could safely ignore, push forward, muscle through. Keep his head just enough to keep from getting killed and eventually anything left would take care of itself. Just survive. That was what it was all about, the only thing that was necessary in the midst of all the chances he took.. Just keep from dying, and when it was all over he would come out whole.

This pain, though... It wasn't just that it was long; it wasn't just that he kept catching himself waiting for it to fade. It was what it meant. He could be damaged. What -- nearly a week now? -- and the only thing keeping back the curse of pain when he shrugged into that backpack today was the kid looking up at him from the snow. He couldn't move his arm even when he blocked out the pain, not more than a little. Severed muscles that weren't going to heal any time in the near future.

Which led back to how he was supposed to get to Genosha from the wrong hemisphere with no way to access his funds. And how he was supposed to penetrate a base as a wounded human that had given him problems as a whole mutant. If he just had full mobility he would still be a force to be reckoned with, but that might take months in this body.

If he just had his damn healing factor back. Just that, and he could get the rest in his own time. Which was a week ago and gettin' later fast.

***

He had been sitting perfectly still against the pain in his back while his thoughts ranged, not really noticing as light left his surroundings. He had been staring into dancing shades of blue and orange and white, and when a faint rustling made him look up he found himself faced for the first time with darkness.

All the nebulous fears he'd been pondering instantly lost importance before the gut deep terror he realized at the discovery of blindness. He stood in a bubble not a dozen meters across that didn't even entirely encompass the tent, faced on every side with black walls. He realized that he gained his feet only when they yelled a protest and he stumbled, cursing, back to his knees, putting his hands over his face and struggling for a grip on his runaway emotions.

Sight'd never been that critical for him anyway. Just calm down, get a good breath in him, don't hyperventilate, you idiot, make it slow. The self-imposed darkness was somehow easier to take and his heart started easing back to a normal rhythm. All he smelled was cold and smoke. Another deep breath and the sudden realization of what he would look like to the kid, crouched over with his hands over his face, brought anger in to fight the fear. As always, that worked.

He looked up, away from the fire, and found that the bubble had expanded and the walls lost some of their opacity. Human eyes meant human vision, and he'd ruined his night sight by lookin' at the flames for so long. Something that he'd counted on many a target's guards to do in the past. Humans were stupid that way, getting lost in comfort rather than focusing on the necessities of survival.

Which brought him back to what had begun this whole little scene. He'd heard something. With a sigh he settled back on the tarp, this time with his eyes closed. Whatever-it-was hadn't made a human sound. At least he didn't think so -- he couldn't completely count on this body yet.

After he had returned to stillness it wasn't long before the sound came again. Out here the animals hadn't had enough contact with humans to fear them as predators, merely as unknowns. That was what made the bears dangerous, and the hunting easy. And speaking of hunting... A faint rustling danced across the forest, then the light, shivering tinkle of the snow's icy crust crackling beneath small feet. He straightened, startled, when the direction registered. He had just heard something before he smelled it -- and it was upwind. Another slow tilt of disorientation tried to take hold but he shook it off. His senses were not merely blunted; the relative sensitivities had changed. Humans trusted eyes, then ears, then nose. He would have to adjust to that knowledge, find the balance in this body. Until he could get back his own.

Careful not to look across the fire with his newly adjusted eyes, Victor rose and peered into the murky unreality of the night forest. The sound had stopped again, but he'd marked it. He tried to focus on the spot, then made himself stop trying. He just kept his gaze on that one stretch of ground and slowly the details revealed themselves. The wind had left its mark in the small drifts, looking like nothing so much as a beach after a falling tide. On one side of the massive tree trunk was the shadow form of a small boulder, and on the other side...

Victor gave a rough chuckle at what had been the source of his (terror) curiosity. He picked one of the smallest of the boyscout's firepit rocks and threw it hard, pleased when a soft whimper and the scramble of small feet came as his reward. It might have pulled his back, but at least he could still aim. Despite his protesting feet he made his way down the slight slope to where the silver and white predator had left its prey. A sneer touched his face with the thought that it was fortunate for both the fox and the boy that the real predators were not hunting them in turn tonight.

He almost didn't see the small prize when he reached it. White on white with the mist rising around it, the kill could have been just one more ripple in the snow if it weren't for the small splotch of color that slowly spread out from it. That and the faint tang of iron in the so clear air. When he finally saw it his lips curled again, this time in disgust. Why was everything in these woods hunting rabbits? He felt no urge to pick up the tiny, scrawny thing, despite his hunger and the fact that after this many days rabbit and food had become synonymous. There was a sick, queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach that had nothing to do with the light fever he still carried. He shivered, cursed the gentle breeze, and chafed his arms. He had never been bothered by cold, but it was reaching him now. There was a faint chuffing sound and a slight twitch by his tattered boots and the gorge rose in his throat. This wasn't prey. It wasn't even a kill. Lying there alive in the snow, the cold invading as the blood drained. There was nothing of his place in the chain in this. Nothing of the stalk or the chase or the close, or that bright moment when death claimed what the hunter had released. This was a slow fading, an unfinished kill.

Here he stood, the great alpha predator, reduced not merely to stealing the prey of a half-starved fox but to denying the kill itself. This was a life death had taken, not been presented in sacrifice. It had slipped in and claimed its prize without ritual or need of the hunter. What was left wasn't a kill. It was just meat.

The churning in his stomach made him take a rough breath. He would not, by god, get sick over a dead animal like some pathetic little tenderfoot. That was probably what had been taking the boy so long to hunt. He probably had to curl up in the snow and puke every time he took a life. And here he was, reduced to the ranks of those who had no knowledge of the true hunt, no understanding of the glory in the ritual, in the moment.

("If you want to eat...")

The voice came out of memory so clearly he flinched. No. That was a lifetime ago.

So soft fur and wide eyes devoid of comprehension. A fire in his gut and in his mind.

Small, shaking hands, holding the last there was of warmth, of companionship or comfort.

laughing, and crushing,

("But Daddy, it doesn't want to die." I don't want to kill it.)

And then the ice was back, and Victor stood on it shaking, choking, cold air reaching deep in his lungs, cold enough to burn. But it brought the stillness with it, and a new numbness, and an absolute knowledge somewhere beneath consciousness that if the ice ever cracked again he was lost. His mind came slowly out of blankness into simple thought. A return to a moment that everything in him demanded not to matter.

The kid would be back before long. It would be a pleasure to see the look on his face when he saw the meal spitted over the fire. Victor crouched carefully, cursing his boots under his breath, and lifted the food from the snow. At least this'd be the end of the great provider routine, when the boy discovered he wasn't the only one to bring meat to the fire tonight. Hungry as he was, one rabbit wouldn't have been enough anyway. He held the form across one palm, deciding to gut it where he stood. He was far enough from camp. He let his fingers trace the edge of the wound as he looked at it. No, he thought with careful, crystal calmness. Not a kill. This creature was merely an absence, despite the bright red blood drooling from beneath its chin. It was his meal, but the terms of its death had nothing to do with him.

He held still as the heat fled the small body, trying to remember what it did feel like to make such a death as his own kill. He knew his memory held the sensations, not just the cold remembrance, but all he got was two-dimensional memory. The struggling warmth between the fingers of one hand as the other clenched to bring warm wetness in a slow tide across his palm. Where was the scent of fresh spilled blood and primal fear that would fill his nostrils as the moment of ultimate connection approached? Then there would be a jerk, and a shudder, and the ritual would stand complete, the prey conquered, the predator exultant.

He tried to remember how many such small lives he had taken, for food or simple pleasure, over the years and couldn't. He tried to tap into the body-felt visceral memories his mind kept telling him he should feel on recalling any one of those. And couldn't.

Which left him wondering. Did human -- merely human -- hunters know what it really meant to kill? To reach out with hand and will and break free whatever was animate in a creature? Did the other human hunters, of whatever species from tigers up, comprehend the ultimate completion found in that moment when a sapient soul was devoured?

With a deep breath that blanked thought beyond the automatic, he set to gutting the rabbit. In a moment he had the carcass fit for cooking, and turned to look back up the hill. He promptly stumbled, half blinded by the moonlight coming off the snow. God damnit, his, this body was near to collapse after a day's walk and now his eyes were cross-circuiting on him. The fire peered dimly across the open ground from the campsite and a shiver took him that had nothing to do with cold or memory, and everything to do with the fight or flight rush of adrenaline. The sudden thought came that there was no guessing what else might be peering into the darkness. Finding him standing there, smelling of fresh blood and the 'sense' of the hunted.

Deep in his guts something clenched, then slowly turned over. The fever-dazed memories of his fight (hardly that) with the poachers crept unbidden into his mind. He took another deep breath and felt his lungs ache at the cold. His human lungs. And humans were easy prey, not just the pathetic ones like Trent and Tommy, but even the fast and the strong and the disciplined. He would be a force in his own right if he were healed, that was true, but compared to what? He would not be the first among fighters, and how effective had they ever been, against him or the wilderness? He had always known all the way to his nerves that humans were prey. And now he was merely human. And somewhere at the cellular level it came to him that he had joined the ranks of the hunted.

He had always known, since he first took his place in the world, that enemies would follow wherever he went. Some were strong, some merely foolish, but none had posed any real threat to his life or freedom. Oh, occasionally they would take him on and win the small victories, but in the end he always emerged free and whole. What would happen if the least of them found him now? He would go down fighting, of course, but there was a deep crushing certainty that he would go down.

He took a lurching step back towards the safety, (the illusory safety, something brutal in him corrected) of the camp and its fire. His head was spinning again, purely physical weakness. The fever had not left him and the cold was eating into him at every breath. His feet had gone nearly numb, a comfort that made for difficult going in the snow. Calm, he told himself. Just breathe and walk and don't focus on the shadows or the rustling foliage that would turn into creeping beasts and whispered threats if he let his focus wander. Just a little farther, it would have to be uphill going back, wasn't gonna let the kid see him rush up like a dog with its tail between its legs...

And in that thought a few stray comments became a conclusion and real terror, icy and burning, took over.

Facts: This kid was not a helpless babe in the woods. He'd been out here on these trails for weeks without Victor's help. Doing fine. He wasn't a stranger to a fight or a kill, though he had that mary pure revulsion to it. He knew Kai, well enough to know who she slept with. There was no way Kai or any of her new crew would let a fresh faced boy go out alone into this kind of wilderness. There was no sign that the boy had anything extraordinary in the way of powers. But he was talking about the X-Men by name rather than persona, (wasn't Lee that little fireworks tosser?) and hadn't batted an eye or even seemed to register as unusual a man with a set of claws.

Which suggested he was a hanger-on, or an aide, or even what the X-ers claimed as a human friend. Or maybe just Kai; he should know she was a sucker for causes, lost and otherwise, and so protective once she chose someone as her own, Don't think about that. And she would bust the head of an idiot coming out here solo. Unless there was some compelling reason, in which case she would never truly let him go alone.

Which added up to a shadow escort, someone out there following at a distance. Someone who didn't recognize him, or who had decided to give him rope to hang himself on after the fight with the poachers proved he would pose no immediate threat to the boy. Or someone confident that they could move from a distance faster than he could do anything drastic, which could only be Logan--

It could be Kai.

No, it couldn't. It couldn't. And he wasn't trying to run up the hill, and he didn't hear her voice laughing. He didn't, he wasn't. Until he stumbled and slammed to his knees with a strangled, wordless shout. He looked down at his hands, at the limp body clenched in one fist. He lurched away from that, back to his feet, revulsion churning his stomach. Prey. Cold and limp and bloodied and Logan could kill me now with a twitch of his muscles...

Another strangled yell and he threw the pathetic thing as hard as he could, some frozen corner of his mind observing that he was in full fledged panic. (Just get it away from me) and he couldn't even walk right, damnit, and a fox had outhunted him, and now there was more than one voice laughing, they had both come, damn them--

A wet sizzle and a visceral pop brought him back to the reality of the moment. He was on his knees in a quiet forest with nothing talking but the wind. No mocking voices. No revenge-crazed enemies. Probably no one for a hundred miles except a human he really could still take, and--

And the smell of burning hair carried in a cloud of oily smoke. He stood carefully and finished the distance to the fire. Great. Rabbit flambe. There was a whole forest to throw the damn thing into and somehow he had gotten it right into the heart of the fire. The thought of the boy's reaction chased away any hint of humiliation. The kid would get to try to eat tonight with that stench hanging in the air. Good thing he had appetite enough for both of them.