Part 36 – Broken

It was nearly seven o'clock when John decided he needed to stop. His legs were throbbing, his back ached, and his throat was becoming dryer by the minute. Every time he swallowed it stung like mad. And even in the cold air, he was sweating. He swallowed one last time before lowering himself onto his knees and dropping Kari onto the ground. An uneasy feeling came over him. His vision blurred for a moment and he shook his head, blinking several times. He wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his jacket and took in a steady breath, calming himself. He looked over his shoulder. Kari was lying on her side with her mouth half open. Her breath was slightly ragged.

"Please let there be water around here," he begged to himself, getting to his feet slowly as to not dizzy himself. No water, just patches of snow. He had no source of fire. If he had his damned lighter with him…he cursed under his breath. Well, what else to do?

He grabbed a small handful of snow, just a small ball in his palm and shoved it in his mouth. It melted slowly, but felt nice and cool on his throat. He sighed and swallowed the rest after a minute, earning a small aftertaste of dirt. He swallowed again and looked at the ground. It was slightly damp. He was getting unusually warm, so he decided to take off his jacket. His thin long sleeved shirt kept him the same temperature. He found this odd, but shrugged it off and tossed his jacket onto the ground, sitting on top of it.

The sun was just finishing setting over the trees. It was dark, until finally all light disappeared and all he could see were the faint outlines of every object, including Kari's body, still lying in the damp soil, still unconscious. He felt a tremble in his stomach, and then a low growl. It was the first time he noticed he was hungry.

No kidding, he hadn't eaten in how long? He rested his arms on top of his knees, giving another dreaded sigh. After all the things he had survived, he was going to be taken out by starvation. Lovely.

He snapped his head at the girl when she made a small groan.

The first thing Kari noticed was cold against her face. Slightly grainy, meaning soil. NOW where was she?

When she opened her eyes she didn't see anything but the ground and her arm. Her body was still in pain, but she felt fine enough to raise her head. She saw outlines of trees, and some one sitting on the ground. She couldn't make out the face, but she had a guess of who it was. Skepticism and anger came to her, and when she was about to make a comment, a sharp pain emitted from her shoulder blade. She winced and cried out for a second, making the figure jump.

She heard a small crunching noise in her body that gave her mouth a bitter taste as though she would puke. The noise came again and her shoulder blades began burning like she was laying in a fire. Then a feeling of pressure, and then the burning again.

"AGH!" she groaned, grinding her teeth. She felt the middle of her stomach twist and burn and she curled into a ball as her shoulder blades started to throb. Then a shockwave of pain through her limbs, and slowly the pain subsided. She opened her eyes in a small grimace, and then began breathing again. Her surprise through all of this was Crevan made no response, no comments or anything.

The only pain she had now was the familiar bruising pain in her shoulder. She remembered that now. Getting hit by Spyke's attack, which left her with a torn wound then went clear through the other side of her shoulder. She managed to roll her body upright until she was sitting up clutching her shoulder. Whether it was bleeding or not was undetermined, and would be pretty hard to considering her clothes were slightly damp from sweat. She rubbed her face in fatigue and out of habit, took her tangled hair out of its ponytail with difficulty. She slid it around her wrist and ran her fingers very slowly through her hair, attempting to comb it out to make it easier to manage. After giving up in two minutes and putting in back up with the hair tie, she dropped her hands and stared at the figure.

Glowing eyes met glowing eyes, both pairs unable to see the others face, but both knew who the other was, and neither of them wanted to speak.

Though Kari had so many questions inside, she didn't want to say any of them, because she knew she wouldn't like any of the answers he gave her.

John had so many pissed off comments he wanted to shoot off in every direction he could, but he knew he would get some sophisticated response he didn't want to hear either.

But she did have one question she wanted an answer to, whether she liked it or not, and that was —

"Why'd you bring me here?"

"How do you know I was the one that brought you?" he answered in a heartbeat.

"Who else would? Everyone else obviously thinks I'm dead."

"Are you?" he asked, trying to sound sarcastically hopeful.

"If I was you'd be right there with me," Kari shot back.

"Well, hell's lovely then, isn't it?"

Using whatever sight abilities she had, and any strength she somehow managed to recover, she leapt at him and grabbed the collar of his shirt, dragging him to his feet and slamming him into the nearest tree.

"You've got some nerve talking to me like that after what you did," she growled, her fists clenched on his shirt as tight as they would go.

"Me? Speak for yourself! You've killed me TWICE!"

"If I killed you, you'd be dead, a position I could easily remedy."

"Back off," he threatened, pushing hard on her shoulders, making her release him and stumble back a step.

"What exactly were you planning to do with me? Toss me in the river and hope I drown while I'm unconscious?"

"That's actually not a bad idea," John muttered thoughtfully, not at all sarcastic. But he wanted to stick with his original plan, and if he blew it now, he was screwed.

"Forgive me for having some sympathy. If I left you in that tent, once more military showed up they would have either killed you or shipped you off to some lab to do tests like they do on animals. They'd treat you like a serial killer, put you in one of those high security prisons, and constantly question you about where Magneto is." He surprised himself at how fast he was able to concoct this lie.

"Funny, they would have had the wrong mutant," she retorted with narrowed eyes, though he could hardly see. She was quickly getting a headache, but wasn't backing down so easily.

"Ha ha," he sneered, "Whatever. Just take your ungrateful little attitude and point it back at yourself, all right? I'm not the one jumped at the chance to kill herself. Quite literally," he added.

"Oh really? You weren't the one who leapt out of a flying helicopter?"

"I'm not the one who jumped AT the helicopter. And I was protecting my leader, and you KNOW that!"

"It was a stupid, pointless choice, and you know THAT!" she shouted angrily.

They both fell silent, and Kari knew that truth was slowly sinking into John, unwanted.

"You wouldn't know anything about loyalty," he argued, his fists clenching in frustration. "All you care about is your STUPID SELF!"

"Oh, I'M selfish? Whatever happened to 'It's All About John'? Whatever happened to you being the center of attention all the time? What happened to showing off! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU!"

She shouted the last part with such anger that John, for the first time in his life, was left completely speechless. He had no sarcastic comebacks. No joking comments. He didn't even have an honest answer.

Not even for her.

"You know, some days I hoped that you would change. One day, I hoped that you would for once think about some one other than yourself. I wanted you to change. But I never hoped you would change into this."

"Into what?" he said in a normal tone after a minute's pause.

Kari pulled something from her pocket that she only remembered was there a moment ago. A small silver lighter. In the dim moonlight, it shone, and she tossed it at him. He jumped and caught it in surprise.

"You used to be so predictable, and for the first time you did something I never imagined you would. Now I'm going to do something for a change."

John stared, still holding his lighter in surprise and confusion.

"I'm giving up on you."

She turned and disappeared from sight. He still stood there, utterly speechless, and wondering what the hell he had done, to make her finally give up.

Kari had no idea where she was going to go, and chances were, she would get found by the military and they'd kill her. She didn't care; she just wanted to get away from John. He didn't know. He would never know how hard she had tried to find him, how much she cared, enough to give her own life. He would never understand.

He was so ungrateful! So selfish! He was such a BASTARD! She wanted to punch his face in, she was so mad. But at the same time, she didn't want to look at him. She didn't even want to be near him. So now her only choice was to keep walking and hope she could find a way back home.

She felt that burning between her shoulder blades again, but she tried to ignore it. If she stopped now, she probably wouldn't be able to get back up. Her legs were already searing in agony. She was gritting her teeth, trying not to focus on the pain, and focus on how far away she was getting from John.

He was still standing where she left him, staring at his lighter in shock. Had she really just said that? And did she really mean it? Then a completely pointless question came to his head.

Why did she have his lighter?

She's getting away man, if she leaves, how are you going to get her to Magneto?

There was a good point. Maybe he could just make up one little lie, make her THINK he cared, and pretend to be leading her to safety.

That's perfect. It just might work. Besides, she can't stay out here all alone, she'd die. THEN what use would she be? She has to be alive for Magneto to extract her DNA.

He took in a deep breath and quickly made up an excuse in his head, then headed after her in the dark, snatching up his jacket. She couldn't have gotten far. And he was right.

When he found her she was face down on the ground, breathing harshly, her fingers digging at the soil, and groaning. She cried out suddenly and rolled onto her side, her arm reaching over her shoulder, trying to claw at something. He pocketed his lighter quickly.

"Kari?"

"AGGHH!" she yelled suddenly, trying to claw at her back again.

"What's wrong?" he asked quickly.

Her feet started kicking out and she screamed again.

"Okay, sight would be good, let's hope this works." He pulled out his lighter, begging for it to still work. Amazingly, it did. He kicked a bunch of damp leaves and twigs into a messy pile, picked up the flame in his hand and set it on top of the pile. It took a while to start, but when it did, he turned back to Kari, who was clawing at her shoulder again.

"You have to tell me what's wrong," he urged, running to grab bigger pieces of wood. He kept his eyes on her every second he did this. He grabbed some fallen branches and set them on top of the dying leaves. With a quick motion of his hand he made the fire brighter and hotter, enough to warm them. It provided quite a bit of light and he knelt down in front of her.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Kari grumbled, giving him a glare as she opened her eyes. Her forehead was covered in sweat.

"If you die, how the hell am I supposed to get you to the Brotherhood?" was what he wanted his response to be, but he held it back.

"I can't leave you here by yourself, you'll die, now tell me what the hell's wrong!"

"Get away from me," she snapped, pushing herself into a sitting position with much difficulty.

"Now who's the stubborn one?" he commented.

"BACK OFF, I DON'T NEED HELP FROM A PERSON WHO CAN'T EVEN BE GRATEFUL FOR WHAT HE HAS."

"Lighten up, just come over here, turn around."

"Why?"

"Would you rather die out here than have help?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?" she shot back, not ceasing her glare.

"Why did you have my lighter?" he asked, interrupting her with a loud tone.

She was taken aback by the question, and felt he didn't deserve the true answer.

"Why do you care, you got it back. You have your stupid lighter, you have your ego, and you don't have any of us left. What else do you want?"

"I want you to turn around so I can help you!" he answered sternly.

Angry that she might have been wrong about him, and her curiosity getting the better of her about why her back was hurting, she turned her back towards the fire and he looked at it. No bleeding, except from Spyke's wound.

"What was hurting you?"

"My shoulder blades. They keep burning, and I don't know why." Her voice sounded like that of a defiant child.

"Well, you aren't bleeding," he reassured. He pressed his hand against the back of her neck and moved it down to her left shoulder. She felt goose bumps run down the sides of her arms.

"Does that hurt?"

"No," she said quietly. She was becoming slightly irritated. "Why did you really come after me?" she asked

"I already told you, if you were out here by yourself, you'd get killed."

"So you were worried about me?" Sarcastic yet inquisitive.

"I didn't say that," he snapped.

No! Say you did, you moron, his brain yelled.

"Okay, fine, yes I was," he grumbled, pressing his hand on the back of her other shoulder.

"Well, don't think that means I'm not mad at you still."

"Your choice," he said with a silent shrug. He pressed right between her shoulder blades and she arched her back quickly, jerking forward.

"Sorry."

"Ow."

He sat there for a minute while she tried to relax. She scratched the side of her head, which he took as a nervous gesture. He ran his hand across the top of the fire and it grew a bit brighter as she slouched over, and then finally calmed.

"Okay, I'm going to see if it's bruised," he said. He grabbed the bottom of her shirt and her body locked up. He saw her freeze and looked up with raised eyebrows.

"What?"

"Nothing," she said quietly. She was getting nervous, but she felt that if she denied him she would be losing some silent battle, or be revealing something she didn't want to. Besides, she wasn't exactly in the position to protest. He stopped for a moment, and then slowly lifted up the back of her shirt.

The bottom of her back seemed uninjured, save a few bruises no doubt from fighting whoever, whenever. But she wasn't complaining about those. He hesitated for a moment as he lifted it higher and went past the back of her bra. He watched her shiver as the cold air went across her skin. He held the shirt up with his left hand and ran his fingers over her shoulder blades, staring in silence.

Right in between them were two jagged lines, like scars, which he suspected they were. They were outlined with red marks, like they had been scratched by an angry animal. The scars were about as long as his middle finger, and not very thick. He ran his fingers over them and she twitched.

"How long have you had these?" he asked.

"Had what?"

"These scars."

Kari raised an eyebrow. She looked over her shoulder and he looked up.

"What scars?"

It was his turn to raise his eyebrows. "You don't know where they came from?"

"I don't have any scars on my back," she said in an assuring tone.

He narrowed his eyes curiously and ran his fingers lightly over her back again, staring at them.

"Give me your hand," he said. She skeptically put her hand over her shoulder and he grabbed it, leading her gently to the two marks. She felt them, and stared ahead in total confusion.

"Feel that?"

"Yeah…" she answered quietly, half referring to the scars.

Just as she finished, she felt a burning sensation churning around the back of her neck. She jerked her hand away and grabbed at it. He pulled his hand back and froze, confused, his fingers still half outstretched at her back. She gasped for a moment and then felt the burning spread back down to her shoulder blades just like before. Then what met John's eyes, he realized soon was making him terrified and nauseated.

He saw a small bump, no bigger than the tip of his thumb, as though it were swimming, move across her back, over her left shoulder blade. Then it disappeared, only to come back, swimming this time over the other, becoming the small form of what looked like a tiny snake. Then it grew and grew, until it began to cover her entire upper back. The scars he had been touching moments before started snaking their way into larger marks, both longer and wider. Kari's hand was still on her neck, nails digging harshly into her skin.

"Kari —"

She made a small noise, like a yelp and her nails grew into claws. She started grabbing at the top of her back like an angry cat, unaware she was causing bleeding damage. She got her hands under the fabric of the shirt and started clawing furiously.

"Kari, stop!" John warned, grabbing her wrist to prevent her from continuing. Right as he did so, Kari grabbed his own wrist with her other hand, flung him over her head and threw him across the ground. In seconds she had leapt up with gleaming red eyes and jumped on top of him, pinning him to the ground. Her hands squeezed as hard as they could, pinning his wrists above his head, sinking the tips of her claws into the top layer of his skin. He squinted his eyes shut from the pain and she bared her fangs at him like a rabid dog. Her legs straddling his hips, he was incapable of any defensive movement. For once, he had to trust she didn't really intend to hurt him.

Then, she felt the most painful throb yet to come, it sent a shockwave through her back and around to her chest. She rolled off of him, arching her back in an unearthly howl of agony. John opened his eyes at the noise, unaware she had released him. He felt his own warm blood dripping down his arms as he propped himself up quickly on his elbows, looking over at her all in one motion. She flipped onto her stomach and arched her back like a werewolf during a full moon. She whined and howled, clawing at her back in furious slashes, still unaware that she was ripping at her own flesh.

Out of some unknown reflex, John tried to grab her hands again, only to be kicked aside in anger as she toppled over, still growling and hissing like some alien-like breed of tortured canine.

This time he went determined, jumping on top of her as they rolled at least three times, each trying to become the dominant one, like a fight for leadership in a pack of wolves. Finally John got her wrists in his grasp, and by managing to hold them both together with one hand, he used to other to hold down her chest as she tried to arch her back again. He planted his knees at either of her sides and grabbed her arms now with both of his hands.

Then, her eyes simply were drained of the harsh red inky color and returned back to their normal, confused green. Her harsh breathing ceased and she looked up at him in surprise.

"Are you all right?" he asked, letting his own heart calm from it's pounding beat.

"Yeah…I…I think I'm…okay…"

He gave her one last concerned glance before slowly lightening his grip on her arms.

"Why do you care anyway?" she snapped unnecessarily, childishly half pushing him out of the way.

"Forgive me for caring at all," he answered. Yet, of course, in all honesty, it was just an image. The only real reason he wanted to stop her was, of course, if she injured herself lethally, she was of no use to Magneto, and that meant he was no use to him as well. At least he had kept her from as much clawing as he could. As long as she was alive.

The problem with this was Kari was beginning to think he really wanted to help. She was totally falling for it.

"Are you okay?" he asked again.

"I'm FINE," she snapped, turning away from him. The back of her shirt certainly said different. Blood was soaking through in lines, a pattern from the scratches.

"No you're not. Come here." He motioned for her and she turned away.

"Just leave me alone, all right?"

"It's not like I'm DISEASED," (Author: Oh the pun.) he argued, frustrated, "will you just come here? Your cuts could get infected."

"Then let them. Better than being touched by you." She began walking away when he narrowed his eyes to be straightforward.

"If you keep going you'll freeze to death, not to mention the people looking for us. Add all that up with infected injuries and you might as well start playing your golden harp now."

"I'd whack you over the head with it first if I did. BYE."

"You never trusted me before. Is there any possibility you could start?"

"NO," she said in a loud, firm voice.

He was stuck. There was no way to stop her from leaving. Except…

"All right, fine. Kill yourself. I'm sure it would be a fine confirmation for Bobby and Kitty."

She halted slowly. She stared at the dark ground, then looked ahead of her with glaring eyes.

"Don't you even THINK," she said angrily, her clenched fists shaking as she looked at him over her shoulder, "of mentioning their names to me, you bastard. You abandoned us. They did trust you, and you left us for some dumb ass geezer in a cape. So don't you DARE talk about them, EVER! YOU GOT IT?" She was unable to keep her voice from rising in the end. And when it approached, she was flat out screaming in his face, fighting back furious tears and ignoring the fact her claws had just extracted into the middle of her palm, and trickles of blood were running down her fingertips.

"Don't you talk to me like that, you KNOW that they hardly cared about you! Once you came along, they IGNORED me! You made me look like a jerk, and they hated me! Why the hell do you think I left? THEY WERE MY FRIENDS TOO!" he bellowed, unaware that the fire had just flashed to ten feet and then back down to four.

"BULLSHIT!"

There was practically a field of energy around them both, flowing with irate intenseness.

"The only reason you left is because you were selfish. Don't give me any crap about you being alone. They cared about you more than anyone at the school! Even Xavier! They were your best friends! I never got in between that, so if you think I'm falling for your bullshit excuse, try again, buster, because I can tell right now that you're a conceited, selfish, flat out lying bastard."

"Speak for yourself," John spat.

"The only thing I ever lied about was denying the fact I did trust you. You were so blind, you were so…ABSORBED IN YOUR OWN GOD DAMN SELF THAT YOU NEVER EVEN SAW ME! YOU DIDN'T CARE ANYTHING ABOUT US! IF ALL OF YOUR LIES AND STUPID SARCASTIC COMEBACKS WERE ONLY GOING TO LEAD TO MY BROKEN HEART, I COULD HAVE DEALT WITHOUT IT!"

And for the first time, being in her own conscious mind without the assistance of any mutant power, she let her fist fly and collide with the side of his head, watching droplets of blood fly from his mouth. He stood there shocked, wide-eyed, and in all, defeated. He felt a bruising throb through his face and felt more blood drip from the corner of his mouth. Kari's fist was still in the air where it stopped, and she stared at it with half of his shock, her hand shaking with physical and emotional pain.

John sucked in a hard earned breath, and slowly reached his hand up to his cheek, his jaw aching. He slowly raised his eyes up at her, and saw she was crying. Tears running freely down her face, her eyes narrowed angrily, and he could tell she had fought to keep them inside, but her face still showed wide-eyed shock from what she had just done. She closed her mouth slowly and swallowed, feeling a knot growing in her throat.

"You've killed me, Allerdyce. Don't ever think otherwise."

Saying this with choking words, she lowered her fist, and walked away.