I DO NOT OWN LOGAN.
Laura's P.O.V.
Keep driving, Laura, I tell myself. Just keep driving. You don't need any more distractions. You don't know these people and have no obligations towards them. But I find that I can't just drive past the two teenagers that are walking along side of the road, sticking their thumbs out as to try to get me to stop. Something is making me pull over and wait as they walk up to the car. I don't know why I'm doing this. Nothing good ever comes from picking up hitch hikers; I should know as I'm the prime example of what could go wrong when you let a stranger into your car.
But I find that maybe I could help. I mean, they look like they could use some help. And as I've already pointed out, I'm more than able to protect myself. I roll the passenger side window down as the teenagers come to a stop by it.
The girl looks to be sixteen or seventeen with brown hair, blue eyes and has a cautious look on her face. The boy looks to be fourteen or fifteen with brown hair that hangs into his blue eyes and has a smile on his face. They're obviously siblings. The resemblance is strong between the two of them.
"Can we have a ride?" the boy asks me. His voice sounds squeaky, he's probably still going through puberty.
"Where to?" I ask them. I'm careful not to repeat the words that Blondie spoke to me all those days ago back in North Dakota. It'd bring up things that I don't want to remember.
"Westchester, it's just a couple of hours from here," the girl informs me. What are the odds. I wonder if they, too, are going to Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, but then quickly shake the thought out of my head. I doubt that I'd meet any mutants. It'd be too much of a coincidence.
I sigh as I nod my head. Both the girl and the boy get in the back seat. I can't blame them considering I'm a stranger. Thankfully I had the sense to clean out the car yesterday, which included the bloody knife along with a bunch of trash.
As I get back on the road, a silence falls over the three of us, and I start to feel more relaxed. I'm more comfortable in silence, I have been ever since I was born. I rub my eyes, trying to erase the drowsiness that is starting to settle over me. I manage to shake off the feeling... for now.
Ten minutes into the drive, I see the girl and boy exchange looks out of the corner of my eye. And then I think I see the girl hand a small piece of paper to the boy. A minute later, she speaks.
"So, uh... what's your name?" she asks. I don't answer her, keeping my focus on the road. I want to keep a low profile, and that means that I can't just go and give my name to complete strangers.
The siblings share another look. I swear, if I wasn't driving I'd duct tape them to opposite sides of the car, facing away from each other, so that they couldn't share anymore looks. They're probably silently talking about me. I quickly shake the thought out of my head. What do I care? I don't even know them. Whatever they're thinking doesn't mean anything to me. I just need to stop over thinking things or else I'll drive myself crazy.
"I'm Audrey and this is my little brother, Logan." I almost drive off the road at the mention of the boy's name; but manage to hold it together. I forget that there is more than one guy on this planet that is named Logan. It just took me by surprise and reminded me of my dad.
When I don't react to her, Audrey sighs loudly and looks at Logan.
"Um... does it hurt?" he asks. What does he mean? I furrow my eyebrows and catch his gaze in the rearview mirror. "When you unsheathe your claws, I mean. I was just assuming that it does hurt because of the metal that covers them..." He cuts off as I slam on the breaks and pull off the road. A line of cars honk at me as they pass, but I ignore them.
I turn around in my seat and stare that the siblings through narrowed eyes. How the hell do they know about my claws? I met them ten minutes ago!
"How the hell do you know about me?" I growl at them. The pair look taken aback for a moment, but then quickly recover.
"We're both mutants, too," Audrey tells me. "Logan's mutation is the ability to manipulate water. Mine is the ability to know who is a mutant and what their mutation is. That's how we know."
"So, is that why you asked me for a ride? Because I'm a mutant?" I ask. They both shake their heads.
"No!" Logan exclaims. "We didn't even know you were a mutant until you pulled over. We were just looking for a ride to-"
"Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters," I finish for him. His eyes widen.
"Yeah, how'd you know?"
"Lucky guess. I'm headed there, too." I turn back around in my seat and rub my temple with my fingers. I take deep breaths as I try to calm down. I knew I shouldn't have stopped. Now what am I gonna do? If they start blabbing about my mutation to everyone at the school, then I won't get my chance to properly introduce myself to Charles and my father's old friends. And it'll make it a lot harder for me to bring up my mission and what I need from Charles.
"Okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'll let you stay in the car; but you cannot bring up my mutation to the people there."
"Why not-" Logan starts but I cut him off quickly.
"Because I said so." I sigh loudly and grip the steering wheel so hard that I feel it beginning to bend. "I'm not exactly from here and I need to keep a low profile, alright?" After a moment, they both nod slowly.
I take another few seconds to calm myself down and then slowly get back on the road. I wish I could just teleport to my father and skip all the rest. But of course, I can't do that as that's not my mutation.
"Where are you from?" Audrey asks me fifteen minutes later. I look at her in the rearview mirror.
"What?" I ask, surprised. I had not been paying attention to anything other than the road and her question catches my off guard.
"You said that you're not from here. And you have a strong accent. So where are you from?" I don't answer her for a while. I'm not sure if I should tell them. But then again, what will it hurt? It's not like I'm telling them that I'm from the future. A future where they're most likely dead.
"Mexico," I tell them, keeping my eyes on the road.
"So, you're, what, an illegal immigrant?" Logan asks me. I frown to myself as I keep driving.
"Logan!" Audrey hisses.
"What?!" her brother exclaims. "It's a logical question!" She frowns deeply at him.
"No, it's not! She was nice enough to give us a ride all the way to the school. And she's a mutant. With the amount of shit that mutants are going through right now, we have to stick together." Logan scowls.
"I just wanted to know," he mumbles.
"You could say that," I tell them, answering his question. This statement quiets them down as they digest them. God, it's like being an illegal immigrant is the worst possible thing in the world. "I was born in Mexico City to a Mexican mother and a Canadian father."
"Speaking of which, where are they?" Audrey asks. "You look pretty young to be out here by yourself."
"It doesn't matter where they are. Anyway, I can take care of myself. I've done it for years now. That's all I'm willing to say about it."
"But-" I cut her off by turning on the radio and turning the volume up so high that neither of them would be able to hear themselves think. The song that plays is horrible, some rapper that is so obviously bad at his job that it's a miracle that he was able to get a record deal. But then again, that's only my opinion.
After about an hour and a half the fact that I haven't slept in over twenty-four hours along with the jet lag catches up with me. I'd been hoping that if I kept on driving nonstop that I'd be able to get to my destination faster but now I know that it wasn't such a good idea.
My eyes drift closed for a second and then I jerk them open. Come on, Laura. You can do this. Just a few more miles and you'll be there. But then my eyes drift shut again, and this time I have a hell of a hard time opening them again. And when I finally do a few seconds later, I can see that I've started to drift off the road a little. I swerve back onto the road, barely missing the guardrail.
"Are you okay?" Audrey asks me. "I can drive, if you want." I almost laugh in her face.
"Absolutely not," I almost hiss at her. I drive a couple more minutes, and then it happens again.
My eyes drift closed and the world starts fading out as I start to fall asleep. I hear screams as I feel the car drift off the road. I feel Audrey reaching over me to try to grab the wheel, but it's too late. We slam into something hard and I feel myself being thrown from the car as I don't have a seat belt on. The last thing that I'm aware of is landing on the road, and the pain from the cuts that I got from smashing through the windshield, before I black out.
I wake up on a thin mattress with a feeling that I've been asleep for a while. Where the hell am I? What happened? At that moment, it all comes back to me. My having traveled back in time to save my father. Audrey and Logan. The car crash. I take deep breaths through my nose and smell rubbing alcohol, blood, and vomit. Maybe I'm in a hospital? But why would I be in a hospital? I heal fast and I've never been sick a day in my life so there'd be no reason as to why I'd need to be in a hospital.
I open my eyes and find myself, not in a hospital, but in some sort of infirmary. I see that I have a needle in my arm that leads to a metal stand that hangs a plastic bag with clear liquid in it. I sit up in the bed and look around. The room is too white for my taste, and makes my heart race because it kind of reminds me of Transigen. It brings back some terrible memories that I've been trying so hard to forget. I try to steady my breathing in an effort to make my heart stop pounding against my chest.
I rip the needle out of my arm, swing my legs over the side of the bed, and stand up. Thankfully I'm still in the clothes that I was wearing when I got in the crash so that means that nobody took my clothes off me while I was out. I fast walk over to the wooden door and throw it open to reveal a large corridor. I quickly leave the room and walk down the corridor looking around myself.
Am I at the X-mansion? I have to be because this place doesn't look like a museum but then again it seems too big to be somebody's home. I pass by a group of people who are talking excitedly amongst themselves. When I walk by them, they stop their conversation for a moment to look at me. I ignore them and follow my instincts and find myself in a large kitchen.
My stomach growls as soon as my eyes land on the fridge. I run over to it and am about to rip open the door when I hear voices coming from the other room.
"Does anybody know who she is?" a man's voice asks. My ears perk up at that. Are they talking about me? I quietly walk so that I'm leaning against the wall that separates us and listen.
"No, nobody knows. Not even Audrey or Logan. They said that they asked for her name, but she wouldn't give it to them," says a woman. No, not just any woman. I know that voice. Jean. The younger version of her. I wonder if her hair is less gray and if she doesn't have as many wrinkles as before.
"And she's still asleep?" a different person asks.
"Yeah, she is. Which is completely understandable considering she was in a car accident and was thrown through the windshield."
"Why was she driving in the first place?" a woman wonders out loud. "She can't be older than fifteen. And where are her parents?"
"Audrey said that the girl is a mutant," a man's voice muses. "She probably either ran away from home or was kicked out by her parents when they found out."
"She came a long way, then," Jean states. "Audrey told me that the girl said that she was born in Mexico. And observed that she had a strong accent."
"She must have heard about this place and thought that it'd be a safe haven for her." I almost choke on my own saliva. That last voice belongs to Charles. Charles is still alive right now. He's not sick. He doesn't have those seizures and doesn't have to take that medication yet. Hearing his voice calms me down a bit.
"Can't you see into her head and find out who she is?" a man asks. It's quiet for a moment and I hear Charles sigh.
"No. It's like she doesn't exist because I can't hear her and I can't find her through the Cerebro. I'm not sure if maybe it's her mutation that's causing it but-"
"Actually, that's what I want to talk to you about," Jean interrupts. "Yesterday I put her through a CAT scan and I found something interesting." Oh shit.
A/N: What did you guys think? Please review!
~Gina