Thanks for the reviews, people! I just got back from a week-long family vacation and it was wonderful to be welcomed back. I love reviews.

Seriously, if you look forward to these chapters a whole, whole lot, then you can kind of understand how much I look forward to reviews. After I post a new chapter I sit there and refresh every five minutes, watching the "hit" count on the new story and hoping for reviews.

Pitiful picture? Yep. Still, hopefully it works as good encouragement for you guys.

Shorter chapter this time. Be patient. More is coming soon.

Thanks again for reading. Enjoy!

Chapter 21: No Rest for the Wicked

September 7, 20—

It's kinda funny.

Storm's apparently been ripping the place apart to clean up the mess I made. The second time I've smeared this place with blood.

The whole place reeks, and not just with disinfectant. Same as with the blood of the guys I killed back when Stryker stormed the place—you can still smell it. Every time I walk in the front door I can smell the blood of the clowns I sliced up there, under all the coming and going, fading—but always there. Now the stink of my blood's smeared all over on top of theirs. Can't come or go without smelling it.

Storm rained down the front walk until the grass around it'd turned into a swampy mess. Walked out and took a look around, and stood where I'd died on the steps. Rain kinda puddled where my eye shoulda been. Felt weird.

It takes more than a bunch of chemicals to clean up blood, and rain don't do a thing—just washes it around and hides it in the grass. Even time can't really take care of it, 'cause even after the smell's gone—it's still there, both inside and out.

Wish there was a better way to clean it up.

Now:

Logan took a long hot shower and limped out of the steaming bathroom, zipping up his pants. He flopped down on the bed, then immediately rose with a sound of disgust. The bedsheets were stained and stank to hell.

One place the cleaning brigade hadn't gotten to yet.

He stripped the bed and was roughly rolling up the stained floor rug when there was a knock at the door.

"Yeah, what?"

"Can I come in?" Beast queried.

"The door's unlocked." Not like it mattered in this place. He'd seen Beast slam a fist through a steel-plated door once. Hardly slowed him down.

Diplomat his ass.

Hank opened the door and stepped kicked. Logan kicked the soiled rug against the wall and clapped his hands together. Besides the blood, he hadn't realized it'd gotten so just plain filthy. Course, it figured. He couldn't count the number of times he'd stomped in after a mission, muddy, bloody, or covered in who-knows-what. Probably about time to get a new one anyway, even without the newest bloodstain.

"What d'ya want?"

"I am soon to leave for the airport. I took off without much warning, and some of my associates are none too happy about my absence, I'm afraid." Logan nodded. Beast cleared his throat, adjusting his glasses. "Yes, well. I took the liberty of procuring this for you," he reached into his suit pocket.

Logan reached out, and Hank dropped it into his hand.

An eye patch.

"I thought it might spare the students a nightmare or two."

Logan grunted, closing his fingers over it.

"Alas, they had no such patch for the whole visage . . . ."

Logan snagged an old t-shirt from his floor and chucked it at Beast's head.

September 8, 20—

So I told Storm and Rogue 'n all of 'em that I wouldn't leave. But that doesn't damn-well mean I put myself into house arrest, even for a day.

Gotta get out of here. Gotta breathe. And it sure don't help that Cyke's bike's insurance had expired five months ago.

And most of all, I gotta find out who this clown was. He knew who I was. Knew more than I do.

Dammit.

Logan stood on the front steps, above the stone walkway and staring out over the front lawn. His eye patch covered his empty eye socket.

He could still smell the traces of his own blood, and he knew the darker traces on the walkway weren't there naturally. Even Storm's rains could only wash away so much.

He drew deep on his cigar.

Who was that guy? What was it—Bloodscream, or whatever the hell. It couldn't have been his real name, but then again—half the people who knew him knew him as Wolverine.

Madripoor. France. The ugly bastard'd said they'd seen each other there, and for the life of him he couldn't remember a damn thing.

Not like he had expected anything else.

But no matter how many questions that clown had brought up, he'd answered something even more important.

There was a Before. Before the white snow, before the adamantium. He'd been someone.

Immortal.

Logan scowled.

You'll never learn, Patch.

Patch? He said it like it was a name.

Damn. It sounded like a dog's name. Even worse than Wolverine.

I can't be killed—not by any weapon forged by a man. And that is all you are—all you ever have been.

Logan dropped his cigar and ground it under his heel.

He'd left a note for whoever found it. He'd said he wouldn't leave—permanently, for now—but he needed air.

He headed across the grass, still limping slightly, but not slowing his pace for it in the slightest.

September 14, 20—

It's weird going back. Course, I've only been outta Canada for a few months, and that's nothin', so that ain't the weird thing. It's walkin' into a high-class bank, bein' let in, bein' recognized, even with this damned patch . . . .

I think security near had a heart attack. Still, things went through all right, 'specially once I showed my claws and offered to get the money myself.

I don't like that. There's a reason I ain't been there in ten years. Got what I came for, and got out. Headed back to the states 's fast as I could, 'cause I knew that as soon as I left they'd make a couple calls . . . .

There's a reason I drove around in an old camper for all those years. Didn't have to, but damn . . . they're still lookin' for me. No, not Stryker's clowns—other people. Canadian gov folks. Good people, if you wanna call them that. The worst kind to have after you.

They might not've made me into what I am—a weapon—but they recognized me for it. They honed me, used me, and I got sick of it. So I left. They didn't like it one bit, and tried comin' after me . . . probably saw me as an investment, or a secret weapon or some crap that they didn't want to give up.

Either way, that's long past. No regrets, either. Not about walkin' away, anyway.

Not like getting to the states would leave 'em behind, though. Got them on my tail just outside Ottawa. Ended up leadin' them on a wild goose-chase 'til I lost 'em near Marathon. Knew some guys there that helped me sneak back over the border without drawin' too much attention.

Some day they'll learn that the Wolverine goes where he wants ta go.

Storm was overseeing the placement of the last of the new carpets when she heard the motorcycle roar up the drive.

She didn't think anything of it at first—it was a common enough sound, after all, and always had been, with first Cyclops and then Logan. The bike had gone silent before she realized what was wrong with it.

Cyclops' bike had been beyond repair. It'd sat slumped in pieces at the back of the garage for the past few days since Logan had left, and no one else around here drove a motorcycle.

She walked to the garage to find Logan kicking down the stand of a red, gleaming Harley. He looked up and gave a crooked smile, which looked even more crooked due to the eye patch he still wore. At least all of the other scars had healed up and vanished.

"Beauty, ain't she?"

Storm stared. "Where did you get this?" she asked, reaching out a hand, but Logan caught her wrist before she could touch it.

"Not unless ya want to shine her up, darlin'. That's a custom paint job. Virgin—never been rid before." He stroked a handlebar gently. He almost missed her suspicious glare, but caught enough of it for him to raise his hands innocently—or, as innocently as Wolverine could be. "I didn't steal her. Got the registration forms and everythin'. All legit."

"I did not think you had stolen it," Ororo claimed. Logan snorted, and she glared at him defensively. "Well, where did you get the money for such a thing?"

Logan raised an eyebrow at her. "Who died and made you Cyclops?"

Storm folded her arms, stepping back. "That's not funny, Logan."

Logan ducked his head. "Yeah," he admitted, putting down the garage door and engaging the lock. "Been a long week." No need to expound. His life was complicated enough as it is.

"At least you came back whole this time."

Logan snorted, heading to the house. "Yeah, whatever," he muttered.

All he wanted was food and a nice, long nap.

Then:

Wolverine slipped downwards on the slope in his eagerness, craving fresh meat and warmth. His claws itched beneath his skin, and he growled softly.

Then, suddenly, he froze, staring down at the ground, and the clear tracks that he had slipped into after his slide down the muddied incline.

There were footprints there, and not animal ones either.

Wolverine crouched down, staring around warily as he breathed in the stink of leather and gun oil, and no less than five individual humans. He remembered the stench vividly, though distantly. Like his dreams, spiking pain and terror, yet without understanding. He gave a low growl, feeling a wild roar of red rising in his mind. But these tracks were not completely fresh—maybe an hour old. He felt a sudden terror, and an urge to run and keep running and not look back. He could lose them again.

Or he could follow them. Follow them and kill them all. Easy.

He knew them now. He wasn't weak anymore, if he ever had been. He knew who he was, what he was.

He was the best. And he wouldn't let them hurt him again.

And if they were dead, they never would be able to, ever again.

He straightened slowly, already baring his teeth at this new hunt, but he caught himself.

The kid.

He shook his head, growling as he stepped in the direction in which the tracks led, but then stopped again.

No. The kid.

He looked down at the tracks, then back at his own, and felt a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the snow.

He'd left his own tracks, and they were impossible to miss in the melting snow.

These guys were bad news, and something reminded him that they never traveled alone. There were always others.

Why were they here? How had they found him?

There were always others, looking for him. Looking for freaks like him. Looking for freaks like the kid.

Wolverine growled again.

No.

He'd gotten careless. He'd gotten careless, and he'd led them right to the kid.

Wolverine turned around and darted back up the slope, refusing to let the thought that he was running away enter his mind. He backtracked, running straight rather than following the winding path that he had taken in following his prey this long.

There was something cold and hard inside of him—something sharp, and honed. He wanted blood—he wanted to kill, and to tear—to let the red rage take him, like it did—let him forget.

His hands shook, and he convinced himself it was the cold, and that the cold pit of tar in his gut was just hunger.

He was hunted again, and it's something that he hasn't felt for a long time.

He hated it.

Wolverine was running full out when he heard the angry roaring. He looked up, trying to find the source of the sound as it grew louder—closer.

Too loud.

He dove under some bushes, hugging close to the snow as some giant creature passed overhead, making the tops of the sway with the wind it left.

A helicopter.

Damn.

If there was any doubt in his mind before of who these people were, for some reason this banished it. As soon as the noise passed farther away he leaped to his feet, running again.

Somehow, they knew he was there. They were looking for him again.

Wolverine slid into the cave through the muddied entrance, but then stopped, frozen.

The kid was asleep, his breathing loud even over Wolverine's own panting, huddled in his coat by the dying fire.

The kid was too sick to run. Too sick to even walk from here.

Wolverine straightened slowly, his eyes not leaving the kid. His hair brushed the top of the cave. His heart pounded in his ears.

Panic faded. Fear vanished. Resolve took their places.

Hard, metal, fearless resolve. A soft growl rumbled from his chest.

The kid shifted slightly, and Wolverine looked away—back to the white snow and the world behind him.

He stepped outside of the cave into the sunlight. He tested the air, like a wolf heading out on a hunt.

It was time to stop running.

TBC . . .