He tried not to think about that because losing Charles didn't bear thinking about. Somehow he made it up the steps, stumbling on the first one, falling hard onto his right knee, jarring his shoulder. Blinking tears of exhaustion from his eyes he dragged himself to the door, reaching for the handle, leaning his weight on it. It stayed shut, locked. His resolve to live crumpled as he did, dropping heavily back against the door and sliding down it, stretching out his aching legs. Looking down at his ripped shirt and torn flesh, hysterical laughter bubbled up from his throat. He tried to think clearly, to work out what to do, but his thoughts kept slipping away from him like oily rags and the laughter choked its way out of his throat. He tasted the metallic tang of blood between his teeth and something clicked open in his head. Then the lock followed suit and the door opened behind him, tipping him backwards into the murky damp cabin.
That he hadn't used the abilities that had been an extension of him for all of his life turned him cold, scared him more than his injuries, chased away the madness and gave him a few moments of lucidity. The legs were still out on the steps, the metal threshold digging into his back. The boarded floor his top-half was lying on was filthy. His head had bounced off something rubbery which had gone skidding across the floor, cutting a shallow path in the dust and dirt. The cabin stank of damp and sewage and the stench hit him hard, made his stomach roll when the last thing on earth he wanted to do was throw up; he wasn't sure what, if anything, would stay in place. So he swallowed the bile and forced himself to sit up, screaming at the pain, taking deep gulps of forest air before turning back to survey the gloom.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he started to get his bearings. A pile of blankets, maybe the girl's bed, was under the front window. Carefully he shifted across the splintered floor on his ass, pulling his legs inside, going just as far as he needed to until he could lean over and make a grab for the corner of the blanket. With considerable effort, he ripped it in half, wrapping one half around his torso as tight as he was capable of doing, yelling out with every tug in a million screaming nerve endings. He tore the ends and tied them off, although it wouldn't be long before his bleeding wounds would glue the material in place. And then he would have two, maybe three hours before he passed out from blood loss or infection from the makeshift bandage.
He felt the hysteria rising again, face contorting in a rictus of agony, and again he tried to organize his jumbled mind enough to find Charles.
There was a flash, just a moment of bright white light, and he shouted at that point in his head as loudly as he was mentally able. Then it was gone, leaving him wiped out and as close to despair as he could ever remember being.
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Ten minutes were all Hayes needed to grab a bottle of Coke, a bucket of ice and charm the concierge into giving her every little bit of information she wanted. Something stronger would have been better, but Hayes knew she needed a clear head. And maybe it would help the professor, too.
Returning to the room she dumped the map from the concierge on the sideboard. Charles was on his back on the bed, eyes closed, looking for all the world like he was asleep. She wasn't sure, but she didn't disturb him right away.
She poured herself a glass of Coke, Taking some ice cubes and running them over her forehead where the headache was starting. After a few minutes she wrapped some ice in a towel and sat on the next to his head, touching it to his forehead, tried to ease Charles' pain. If she had a headache, she knew he must be fighting off a migraine.
He moved under her touch but didn't bat her away. His eyes blinked open and to her relief he appeared more lucid.
"Professor?"
He didn't respond.
"Professor, I need your help on this! I can't find Erik alone."
She took the glass, drank again, then held the mostly empty container over her face for him to see.
"You also need to drink something. I know it's not tea, but this will help. Trust me."
With a painful, deep breath, he sat himself up and reached for the glass, swallowing what remained.
"My head hurts," he told he and she nodded.
"I know. But you said Erik has been attacked by a monster..."
She tried to keep her scepticism out of her voice, pointlessly, all things considered.
There was the barest amusement in his voice when he asked, "You don't believe me."
"Of course I believe you. However insane it sounds, I believe you. Was it the attack that took you out?"
He nodded once, a mistake apparently because he pressed his palm to his forehead and groaned.
"Come on, Prof, stay with me. You taught me it's mind over matter for us. You can do this. You have to do this."
He gave her a pointed look through eyes that screamed pain. It made her think that perhaps there was nothing to do. "He is alive, isn't he?"
She regretted it immediately, watching more tears fall, his crying seemingly beyond his control.
"I think so," he managed, voice choked. "I think he went looking for the mutant."
"Where?"
It was a long couple of minutes before he said, "A cabin."
"You said so before," she told him, feeling herself reach out and try to push him into telling her.
A dry chuckle had her pull back. It sounded broken, bad, not at all like Charles Xavier.
"You felt that, hm?"
"Yes."
"Good. Tells me you're taking control. What cabin, Charles?" she pushed again.
He turned to look directly at her and again Hayes was stunned by the pain she could see there.
"I got trees. Nothing more. A cabin and trees."
She felt her shoulder slump a little. "I talked to the concierge. Nice guy. Very talkative. He said there are about a million cabins in the woods. The ski resort has cabins. I have a map, but they're all over the place."
Erik couldn't have gone too far. He had been on foot. If they could get a direction, if Charles could tell her something he had seen; something like a landmark…
Looking at the distraught man, Hayes knew without using her ability that he'd told her everything he knew.
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
::Charles?::
Erik stared up at the wooden ceiling, trying to shake the feeling that he was being watched, trying to somehow fix the anchor line, to speak to Charles. It was difficult trying to pin down a single, coherent thought, trying to form a string of sensical words. But the pain of his own body felt strangely distant now. He felt like a tourist on an unpleasant trip.
::Charles!::
Shouting at a particularly sore spot in his own head didn't feel like a great idea even to him, even in his state. Charles was going to kill him anyway if his lover found him before he died.
::I'm sorry, Charles::
Sorry for striking out on his own, for being so arrogant that he imagined he was invincible against any other mutant. This one, if indeed it was a mutant, was more powerful than anything they'd ever encountered before. More powerful than he was anyway. What he'd been thinking he did not know. He'd accused Charles once of arrogance, and he'd been proven right. But Charles had fixed his mistake, albeit not without consequences. The psychic strain, the overload to his mind, had led to him seeking a mental anchor and he'd chosen Erik. Not that he'd had much choice, but Erik hoped Charles didn't regret it. Even now. Even if he died here.
::I am so sorry::
But what rights did he have to call Charles arrogant; the world's most powerful telepath, someone who could kill a person with a single thought, convince their brain to quit breathing, their heart to stop beating. Not that he ever would. Charles would rather get hurt himself than see another person hurt, human or mutant. Not that he was any kind of coward. If someone he loved was threatened, Charles would retaliate, protect, kill if he had to, if that was the final and only option. Who was he to call someone with that kind of power arrogant? He was the arrogant one, assuming he was unbeatable when his command over metal had proven so utterly useless in the face of such brutality as he'd faced here.
::Forgive me, Charles. And please, please find me::
All this thinking was getting him nowhere. The anchor line had been damaged. He could only hope Charles hadn't been too. He could feel the darkness at the edges of his mind, blissful unawareness of pain and misery.
::I'm sorry::
He let the black crowd in, let himself lose consciousness.
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Hayes chalked it up to the fact that she normally wasn't in charge of missions and was better at taking care of only herself, caring only about her goals, and generally working alone. In the past year she had learned a lot about her abilities, as well as team work, but in a situation like this, knowledge went out the window fast.
It was why they trained, a nasty part reminded her coldly.
She bit it back. It had sounded a whole lot like Erik, who kept telling her that cockiness alone didn't make for survival. She had been nearly thrown into jail for good because of it and only because Charles Xavier had taken an interest in rescuing mutants had Hayes stayed off the wanted lists and free.
With a severely compromised telepath on her hands and no back-up, her team leader god-knew-where and probably hurt, she had done what she could – but not thought of the logical next step.
That would have been to call home.
Hank was still working on some long-range communications device - the first had died in a shower of sparks and electronic squeals when they had first given it a test run – and she had to use the phone in the room. Charles would probably kill her for running up a tab, but right now she didn't care.
Hayes dialed the manor and prayed that someone would pick up.
It happened to be Harriet, their equally mutant housekeeper. Hayes tried to make herself sound half as lunatic as she thought she must be, but somehow she got the message across because next thing she knew she was talking to one of the other grown-ups at the mansion.
"Wait for us," was all Riptide said.
Hayes hung up, looking over at the bed and found herself meeting intense blue eyes in a chalky white face. Whatever energy Xavier had left had been put into levering himself into a sitting position.
"We need to find Erik," he whispered, voice rough.
"We should wait for…"
"He needs help," Charles insisted and pushed himself up, only to fall against the bedside table and nearly crash. His eyes were screwed shut and he was panting, but when she touched him, he straightened.
Determination in every muscle, face pale and lined with what he had to be feeling, he faced her.
"He needs us," he repeated.
Hayes swayed between rational thinking and emotional reaction. This was bad. Really, really bad. If Charles was affected like that… Erik was probably a mess, and she didn't want to think about it.
"Please, Hayes. Help me find him," Xavier begged. "He needs us. I can…" He shuddered. "It was bad," he finally just said.
She closed her eyes, fighting with her inner instincts to run and let the others deal with it, then bit her lower lip. The brief pain jolted her into action.
She grabbed the car keys, then looked at the telepath. "Can you make it out of here and to the car?"
He nodded. The determination was by now burning in his eyes.
"Then let's go."
Wherever. Because they had a lot of ground to cover.
x x x x x x x x x x
The car pulled away from the lot.
She couldn't know that right at that moment, someone entered their hotel room.
x x x x x x x x x x
The room was empty. The curtains draped closed. The bed was tossed and there was a still damp washcloth on the sheets.
Azazel looked around the silent room, brows drawing down in a frown. He pulled the long-distance communicator out of his pocket and thumbed a button.
"They're gone," he said.
"What?" McCoy's voice came out of the tiny loudspeaker. "Where?"
"I don't know."
A colorful curse had him grin briefly. He walked around the room and stopped in front of the desk, tilting his head thoughtfully at the map.
"Looks like they went camping," he commented.
"What are you talking about?"
He snapped the communicator off, took the map, and disappeared in a puff of quickly dissipating smoke.
tbc...