Oh, people actually like this story! I got some lovely reviews, and I was so happy that I typed up this chapter extra quickly :) I'd have had it up yesterday, but it was my 19th birthday, so i went out with some friends instead (can't hold it against me, i work 30 hour weeks; i need fun and sunshine!). So it's chapter 5 for your reading pleasure: please enjoy, and please review! Think of it as a belated birthday gift!
Chapter Five: Things that go "Snikt!" in the night
Send her away. Send her away to save the others. Only she can do it; only she can help you save the children. Send her.
"Ow! What the-" Scott mumbled incoherently, rubbing his forehead where he had cracked it painfully on his bedside table. Momentarily he wondered what on earth had jarred from his sleep, besides a possible brain injury, but quickly forgot the pain as he remembered the terrified shriek. Clumsily untangling himself from the sheets, he quickly scrambled out of bed and ran out into the hall—and missed impaling himself on Logan's outstretched claws by inches. "Logan!" he gasped, weakly clutching the doorframe, "Don't do that!" Logan ignored him, sniffing the air. "Somethin' ain't right, Cyke," he growled, taking measure of the hall around him with his enhanced senses. "That crash came from up here."
Scott nodded breathlessly. "One of the girl's rooms. I heard a scream," he told the older man, who turned back to face him so quickly that Scott had to leap backwards to avoid being hit by the unsheathed blades. "What scream?" Logan asked, seemingly unaware that he had nearly gutted Scott twice in ten seconds. Scott frowned. He knew he had heard a scream, a girl's scream. But that was impossible, there was no way that he would have heard it if Logan had not. Unless, of course, he hadn't heard it at all….Scott instantly understood what had happened and looked back at Logan, the blood draining from his face. "Jean," he whispered. The two men tore down the hall and ripped open Jean's door. Hitting the light switch, Scott froze, taking in the sight with horror.
Everything in the room was in shambles, ripped apart by an unseen hand. The large dresser that took up a big portion of the far wall had been overturned, the obvious source of the crash that Logan had heard. Clothes and books were strewn in far too many pieces, shelves broken, the mirror shattered. And sitting with her knees tucked into her chest, long red hair cascading wildly over her shoulders, was Jean, who was staring transfixed at her outstretched hands. Hands that were covered in—
"Blood?" Scott's voice caught in his throat as he and Logan rushed to her side. Jean didn't flinch as Logan took her hands in his; her eyes, Logan was unnerved to discover as he looked up from examining her gashed palms, were strangely blank and unseeing. "Jeannie," Logan murmured softly, trying to find a glimpse of something—anything—resembling Jean in those empty sockets, "Red, talk to me. You're safe, Jeannie, it's just me and Slim. What happened?" He took her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him, and watched as ever so slowly, like a diver swimming up from the bottom of the ocean, Jean slowly came to the surface and emerged. "Logan?" She whispered hoarsely. "Scott."
Scott knelt on the carpet beside her bed and gently stroked her hair, concentrating hard on suppressing the fear and panic coursing through him so as not to inadvertently broadcast it to her. "We're here, Jean," he assured her, taking trouble to keep his voice as soothing as possible. He watched her eyes widen as she looked around the ruins of her bedroom, felt the shock she felt inside his head.
"Jeannie, your hands are full of glass. We have to get you downstairs," Logan told the girl gently. She looked at her hands, noticing for the first time that they were dripping with crimson. What? But—she glanced down at her comforter, where there were two bloody smears in addition to the dozens of shimmering shards of glass. Jean's gaze turned to the window, or rather, the twisted screen and splintered ledge where her window had previously been. Unable to look at the remains of the room, or at the two men inside it, she looked down at her lap. The two smears were distinctly shaped, shaped like—Jean paled. Like whomever had made them had been holding a glass covered blanket in a death grip. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, fighting the urge to vomit.
Logan felt Jean's skin cool rapidly under his hands. "Slim!" he barked, "Get Hank and meet us in the med lab. Go!" he growled when Scott hesitated, clearly not wanting to leave Jean's side. "C'mon Jeannie," he whispered, "Let's get you outta here." Carefully, he gathered her in his arms, being especially cautious of her still bleeding hands. Resisting the urge to run as fast as his legs could carry him to the infirmary, he went slowly, trying not to jar her. "What happened in there, Red?" he asked her, noticing with alarm that she seemed to be fading on him. "Dunno," she answered. "My head hurts," she added quietly, eyes closing.
Logan cradled her closer to his chest and quickened his pace. It had been years since he had carried Jean anywhere; once she had hit puberty it had seemed, inappropriate somehow. But a large part of him still thought of her as the little girl who had arrived at the mansion a shy, frail ghost of a child; the little girl with milk-pale skin and torrents of red hair that had grown unchecked during her hospital stay. And he'd be damned if he let anything happen to her on his watch.
Reaching the infirmary, Logan placed her tenderly on the closest bed and gave her over to a worried Hank and a somewhat-less-composed-than-usual Cyclops. Standing in the shadows of the room, his eyes saw but didn't comprehend as Hank began running tests and hooking Jean up to various machines. He didn't hear the running commentary the doctor provided, though it was intended for his and Scott's benefit. His mind was back upstairs, back when he had held Jean's face in his hands, waiting for her mind to recover. In those seemingly eternal seconds, he had sensed something was terribly wrong, and he had just realized what it was: there was a scent in the room, the scent of a man, that didn't belong there. It had been ever so faint and had faded quickly, probably because of the breeze from the window, he reasoned. But it was a scent that was unwelcome. He didn't know who had been in that room, or when, or why. But Chuck was going to hear about it first thing in the morning.