Author's Notes: Between this chapter and last chapter, Rachel died. Sorry guys. These things just happen. And apologies for another short chapter, but I had a very specific idea of where I wanted this one to end. I'll try to make the next on longer. :)
Chapter Twenty-One
It had been three days, and Zephyr hadn't spoken to anyone since the funeral. In fact, she hadn't come out of her room. She just really didn't see a reason to. Havok, the bastard who had killed the man she loved, was dead. They had found his body in the woods a little after Warren's funeral. Apparently, when Samantha had bit down on his throat, she had torn it out without knowing it. He had run off with the others, but he hadn't made it very far before he had dropped and bled out.
Zephyr had never considered herself a vengeful person, but she was actually glad. He deserved to die. He deserved a lot worse than getting his throat ripped out. It had been too good for him. The only bad thing about it was that she wasn't the one who had killed him. Of course, it was probably a good thing that it had been Samantha who had done it. Zephyr wasn't sure she would be able to kill someone else, even if it had been the person who took away the only man who had meant more than anything. She also didn't really think that Warren would have wanted her to become a killer. He probably wouldn't have wanted Samantha to, either, but Zephyr had no control over that.
She didn't have any control over what Samantha was doing right now, either. Zephyr hadn't seen Samantha in nearly two days. The first day, Samantha had been in there constantly, but now…Now it was only the other girls who showed up in her room, trying to get her to talk and making sure she ate. All the others had come in once or twice, too, and Bobby was in there a lot. They kept trying to comfort her, but….nothing worked.
Zephyr knew she was making her friends worry, and a part of her wished she could do something to make it stop. But the bigger part of her, that didn't care. She didn't care. She didn't really care about anything, right now. She wasn't allowing herself to care about anything. If she didn't, then maybe she would stop hurting so bad. It didn't work, though. She had never felt so alone in her life. She couldn't even sleep. Actually, she couldn't remember the last time she had slept.
Someone walked into her room, and she glanced up as Samantha sat down next to her.
"I'm leaving." Samantha told her quietly.
Zephyr blinked rapidly at her. "What?"
"Charm, and the white-haired guy that caused the tornado." Samantha said. "They're going to be dead."
Zephyr didn't entirely know what she was supposed to think of that. "Are you going to kill them?"
Samantha looked away. "I thought you should know."
Zephyr stared at her. "It won't bring him back."
"I know." Samantha said softly. "But it's not fair to let them live while he…" She paused. "I'm sorry. You don't need this right now."
Zephyr shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Nothing really matters any more."
Samantha hugged her tightly, then stood and started out.
"Wait." Zephyr said, climbing to her feet. "I'm going with you."
It was so easy to find Magneto's lair that it left the girls wondering why they hadn't tried it before. Samantha had just dropped her shields, sending her consciousness out exploring until she found some animals who had seen the people she was looking for coming in and out of a farm house. They took horses, because the animals could cut through the forest and take them up to the edge of the fields that the house was surrounded by.
It didn't take them too long to get there. A few birds knew where there was a secret entrance, a door stuck in a tree. It was locked, but Zephyr just solidified the air pressure inside the lock and forced it to turn, mimicking a key. The door slid open, and the two women slipped quietly inside. Samantha had her bow and a quiver of arrows, because she had taxed herself finding the place and wasn't entirely sure she'd have enough strength to change and fight. Zephyr, though, was relying entirely on her powers.
There were mice, cockroaches, and spiders enough in the underground lair to let them know where their targets were. They had already decided who they were each going to go after, so without a word they separated. Samantha headed off to find Charm, and Zephyr continued down the hall towards the white-haired boy's room.
It occurred to her, then, that she still didn't know his name. She was here with the intention of killing him, and she had no idea who he was. Only that he was at least partly responsible for Warren's death. That was all she needed to know. Her hand was on the doorknob to his room and she turned it without even realizing it. Then she was inside, closing the door behind her.
He was stretched out on the bed, lying on his stomach and flipping through a magazine. He looked so normal, just a young man relaxing in a pair of black sweats and a white tanktop. Zephyr didn't understand how he could do that, how he could just be calming lying there when Warren….
He looked up at her entrance, getting ready to say something. The comment on his lips died as he saw her there. For a very long moment, neither of the moved, just stared into each other's eyes. Then, he stood up and she lifted a hand.
The air pressure around him thickened, holding him in place. Then she concentrated, focusing on the air around his neck. Make it stronger, make it press against him harder. Make it so he couldn't breathe, the way Warren would never breathe again. And then it could be his body lying cold and dead in the ground instead of Warren's…
Abruptly, Zephyr stopped, releasing her power. The white-haired man fell to the ground, unconscious but still breathing. She couldn't do it. She couldn't kill him, no matter how much she wanted to. No matter how much she thought he deserved it. His death wouldn't make Warren come back.
Zephyr must have been there for awhile, because the next thing she knew she heard the door opening. For a moment, she panicked, but then she saw Samantha slip into the room. Her bow was still slung over her shoulder, but her quiver was empty.
"What happened to all your arrows?" Zephyr asked.
"Gone." Samantha replied. "She had this shield thing that deflected them all after I hit her the first time. But it didn't matter, because that one was more fatal than she thought." Her gaze landed on the unconscious man.
"I choked." Zephyr said softly, a few tears leaking out of her eyes. "I couldn't kill him. I'm sorry."
Samantha shook her head. "That's probably a good thing. Come on, let's go."
Zephyr started out, but before she could leave she felt a pair of strong arms grab her by the neck.
"You tried to kill me." The man whispered, sounding slightly crazy.
"And she didn't." Samantha said. "Let her go."
"No." He replied, then raised his voice. "We're under attack! Two of-"
He didn't get a chance to finish, since there was suddenly a small hawk attacking his face. Talons slashed at his throat and a beak buried itself in his eye. He shrieked and sped off, but the hawk's talons and beak dug in, clinging to him. Blood pooled over the hawk, coloring its feathers a dark red. The hawk's beak abandoned his eye and tore into his throat, yanking out flesh until the hawk's whole head could fit in the hole in his throat. By that time, he had stopped running and fallen to the floor.
The hawk hopped away and shifted. Before long, Samantha stood there in only a black bra and panties, covered entirely in glistening blood.
"I shouldn't have done that." Samantha murmured, staring distantly at the dead man on the floor.
Zephyr swallowed, her whole body shaking. She didn't know what she should be feeling. At that moment, it happened to be a mix of satisfaction, fear, and disgust. "Let's just go home."
Samantha nodded and picked up her bow, slinging her empty quiver onto her back before following Zephyr. They were almost out when Pyro came running by. His eyes stopped on Samantha and widened. She snarled at him and automatically raised her bow before remembering that it was empty. He started for her, but she ducked out the exit and ran for the horses. Zephyr had already mounted, and Samantha did so at a run before urging the two horses to take off as fast as they possibly could.
Someone had been in the women's showers for nearly two hours now. The same someone, actually. Kurt knew his female friends enjoyed their long showers, but that was pushing it a bit. He wondered if she would manage to use up even the mansion's massive supply of hot water. He was also not quite sure that being in the shower that long was very safe. Was it the same as staying too long in a hot tub?
That was why he was loitering in the hallway outside, debating whether or not to say something to whoever was in the shower, when he heard the very distinct sound of someone throwing up. It was followed by the loud thud of a body hitting tile, and Kurt rushed into the showers, not even caring that he was the wrong gender to be entering there.
The water was still running as he pushed aside the curtain and saw Samantha kneeling on the ground, her hands planted on the tile as she breathed heavily. Kurt reached over to turn the water off, but Samantha reached up and grabbed his wrist.
"Don't." She said softly. "The blood's not gone yet."
"Sam…" He started.
"I can't get it to come off." She continued. "I tried, but it just won't. I don't…." She trailed off.
Without thinking about it, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tightly against him. She buried her face into his chest and cried, her hands clutching his shoulders so hard that he could feel her nails digging into his skin.
"I don't even know what to feel." She murmured. "I killed three people, and…maybe I feel nothing."
"If you felt nothing, liebe, you wouldn't be in here." He replied, absently stroking her hair.
"I know." She whispered. "But I kind of wish I felt nothing." She paused, then shook her head. "No I don't. I don't. They deserved death. And I deserved this. Because otherwise I'd be just like them. Am I just like them?"
Kurt hesitated. "I…I don't know if what you did was right. But what you did, you did out of love. They killed out of hate, or else for nothing." He paused before quoting, "'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.'"
She looked up at him. "Do you hate me?"
"I could never hate you, liebe. Never." He replied. "Ich liebe dich."
"I don't deserve that." She murmured, then tilted her head up to kiss him. "I love you, too."
Pyro shouldn't really care that she was dead. It shouldn't bother him that he had pulled an arrow from her body just minutes after letting two X-men, one of them blood covered and bow-toting, escape. But he kept forgetting and going into her room, before he'd remember that she wasn't ever going to be in there. And every time he went into his room, he'd expect her to be sitting on his bed, smirking at him. But she wasn't. And she never would be again.
Which was why he was once again on the Institute grounds. Mouse was with him, and the two of them had dragged along Sneak, the chick who could cover them from being discovered by the computers or Xavier, and Portal, who could get them out of there in no time. This was strictly a revenge thing. Get in there, kill the two girls responsible, and get out. Mouse lowered the sound around them so they could get inside without being heard. They would have to pick the lock, though, because Charm was dead.
In the end, they climbed up the side of the mansion and entered through an open window. It didn't take too long for them to make it upstairs, where Pyro knew Bobby's room was. As long as he still had the room they had shared, anyway. Hopefully Samantha and Zephyr's rooms would be on the same floor. Luck was with them, though, because they had only walked a few steps when they ran into Samantha.
Before she could say anything, Pyro flicked on his flamethrowers. Fire leapt out from his hands and surrounded her. Samantha screamed, and Pyro increased the heat, making it as hot as he possibly could.
"Burn, bitch." Pyro hissed.
This was the second time in just over a week that Logan had been woken up by screams. This time, though, he knew it wasn't Cassandra. Mainly because she was currently lying beside him. Since Warren's death three days ago, Cassandra had been spending the night in his room. They didn't do anything more than cuddle before falling asleep, but in a way that was more intimate than sex. Logan had plenty of sex before, but he couldn't remember a time when he just slept with another woman.
But Cassandra needed him. It wasn't that hard to tell. Especially not when she started crying in the middle of the night and clung to him in her sleep. She even clung to him during the day. When she wasn't with Zephyr and the other girls, she was with him. Usually just holding his hand, leaning against him, and generally making some form of physical contact. They had never done that in public before. But if anyone noticed, which was doubtful with what these kids had just gone through, none of them said anything.
Even Xavier and Scott had remained silent, though, which was sort of odd. Logan would have thought that at least Scott would have given him some sort of comment about his conduct with the younger team members. But Scott seemed to just accept it as a normal occurrence. Maybe he had finally loosened up enough to realize that if Cassandra needed comforting, Logan was going to give it to her, regardless of what stick-up-ass had to say. Still, though. It just seemed a bit off. Logan had some kind of unsettling feeling, like something was wrong and he couldn't figure out what.
Maybe it was because he was still sitting here when some of the people who had been responsible for Warren's death were alive. Or, well, had been sitting there while they were alive. He knew they weren't any more. He knew very well where Samantha and Zephyr had been when the left that day. They had come home smelling of death and blood, and though they might have avoided being seen by anyone else, they couldn't hide their scent.
The two of them shouldn't have had to do that. Logan should have made sure that it wouldn't be necessary. But he couldn't leave Cassandra alone for as long as it would take to kill the others who were the reason that Warren wouldn't live past legal drinking age. And now, as Logan smelled Brotherhood members in the mansion, he realized that what Zephyr and Samantha had done was coming back to bite them.
He rolled out of bed, not bothering to be careful about disturbing Cassandra. While he didn't really want her out there fighting, he knew she'd probably be awakened anyway. He didn't wait for her, though, he just barreled out of the room as fast as he could.
Pyro and three female mutants were out in the hall, and a burning figure was falling to the floor. Pyro was still shooting fire at her, and it only took Logan one sniff to realize she was Samantha. Logan leapt for the fire mutant, but before he could reach him Kurt popped into existence behind Pyro. Kurt's tail darted out and wrapped around Pyro's neck, then lifted him up and flipped him over. Logan heard a faint crack as Pyro's neck snapped. No one else seemed to hear it, though, and Kurt tossed Pyro away, sending him flying to the floor a few feet away.
Rachel, Anorra, Bobby, and Cassandra had come out while Logan was preoccupied, and Bobby quickly doused the flames. Rachel lobbed a flaming tennis ball at the nearest female mutant, who ducked and ran over to Pyro's side. She grabbed his arm, then the other two female mutants joined them. A purple circle opened up underneath them, then closed with a flash as all four of them were gone.
Kurt crouched by Samantha, reaching out to lay a hand on her shoulder before he hesitated, realizing that touching her might make things worse. He spoke rapidly in German for a moment before switching to English. "Someone call Hank. Now."
Logan had that feeling again. This just wasn't the way it was supposed to be. His family didn't die. No one hurt his family. His head began to feel a bit fuzzy and he shook it, trying to clear it. He could feel fury rising inside of him, and before he knew it his vision began to fade around the edges. A roaring sounded in his ears, and then everything was completely black.
And then he caught a familiar scent that had no right being her. He turned, and saw her walking towards him. Her red hair was longer than it had been last time he saw her, and it blew in a wind that he could feel, but otherwise she looked exactly the same.
"Jeannie?" He asked, not quite believing it.
Then she smiled at him. Hey Logan.