Chapter IV
Of course it has to be on this miserable, cold day that I can't find her anywhere. Once I finish combing through the mansion I'm going to have to search for her outside in the rain and I can't imagine that it will improve my mood in any way.
In truth, she's not missing missing, I just can't find her. And for some reason that makes me even angrier.
I wonder if this is the day in which this thing, whatever it is, is finally the end of her. Of everything. I've been asking myself that question quite often in the past week.
It shouldn't have taken me so long to find her, but lately it's been hard to trace her scent. She doesn't smell like a human should anymore. But she looks as human as can be, huddling in a corner of the same room where she found me the last time we spoke.
"Red. What are you doing here? It's freezing."
I take a few steps towards her, but she doesn't look at me.
"I looked everywhere for you. What are you doing?"
"Thinking."
"Are you alright?"
"I just need to focus. It's hard to focus with everyone swarming around me. I need to... concentrate."
I can't deny that I'm relieved to see her in one piece, but something about the way she's talking is just wrong. She doesn't look at me and she doesn't move an inch when I sit beside her on the floor.
"Jean."
Say something, damn it. Ask me to take you away from here. Ask me to kill everyone and burn this place to ashes. Anything.
"Hey. What's wrong? Are you hurt?"
"I just need to focus."
She's not even listening to me.
"Jean. What's going on?
I lean closer to her and I have this stupid feeling of release, like nothing is going to happen to her now that I've found her. Which is laughable because I've been here all along and I don't seem to have made much of a difference in anything.
She shifts and turns to me.
"Show me."
"Show you what, darlin'?"
"Let me see them." She touches my hand, her fingers between mine.
"Why?"
"Please. I want to show you something."
Something tells me this isn't a good idea but I can't help it. I don't know if it's her messing with my mind or if I've truly come to the point where I can't bring mself to say no to her. I'm not sure I care. I take my hand away from hers and do what she asks.
She runs one fingertip carefully along one of the blades. Then, before I can pull away, she wraps her hand around it, pressing, letting the edge sink into her flesh. It doesn't take more than I second for me to pull back, but I can already see blood.
"Don't do that again. Ever."
I'm growling at her and I don't even care. I want to punch a hole into something because somehow I knew this was going to happen and I didn't think to stop it. She shrinks away from me, cradling her hand against her chest.
"I'm sorry."
"What the hell, Jean."
"Look."
She holds out her hand. A deep cut runs diagonally on her palm, but it's rapidly fading. The skin is closing, mending itself before my eyes. It's nothing that I haven't seen before in my own flesh, but I can't look away. I can't say that I remember the first time I saw it happen to me, but I doubt I felt this degree of morbid fascination.
I take her hand and run my fingers through the palm. The blood's still there, but the skin is unbroken - unscarred.
"How?"
"Not like you. I'm just... learning. To change things."
Her voice is not faltering anymore, but there's something in her eyes, like she's begging me to understand something and I'm failing. I can't take my eyes away from her hand.
"But how do you...?"
"It's just rearranging molecules around. It's nothing."
She puts her hand back in her lap, hiding it from me.
"Logan, this is nothing. I can do a lot more than this now. I'm learning."
She turns her head to look in my eyes. It's the first time she's done it since I returned.
"I'm changing."
end