Chapter 8
British Columbia, Canada, February 1979
The low-slung snarl rumbled from Logan's tightly compacted thoughts as he stalked closer to the cornered intruder and her misguided courage. Three threatening and jagged bone claws tapped against her neck, coming to a standstill against the jugular vein. The only telltale sign she seemed concerned was a barely visible gulp and the slightly skewered stance as she leaned lethargically against the door.
He searched her cool and collected expression, the unfamiliarity failing to strip away their budding connection. Suspiciously sniffing her scent, he tracked the traces of pine trees, earthiness, and something he failed to round up and fully identify. Whatever it was, it kicked his useless ass into the field of shame and dialled his temper down a notch or ten.
Sifting through further vital clues, he shifted his observant gaze to her outfit. She missed a pair of shoes, but her socks seemed dry despite several feet of snow surrounding the house. Her flannel pyjamas failed to make the grade of winter clothing, and there were no footprints outside and a distinct lack of scent that snaked down to the nearest town. That led to only one conclusion: she arrived without the aid of the outdoors.
He sheathed his claws, never once looking away from the calm and composed face of the lone intruder. "You're nothing but a reckless kid."
That comment coaxed a hint of headstrong fury across her ashen face. Lips pursed and arms crossed, she played out the perfect impression of a damsel in distress, with her southern lilt padding out the performance of a lifetime.
"I've never been reckless a day in my life," she answered softly, nose wrinkled at the gruffness of his tone. "Listen to me, Mistah. I don't know where I am. I don't know how I popped inside this rickety house during a snowstorm. I can't even remember my name."
Logan studied every inch of her face again, eyes narrowing the longer he considered whether she deliberately mocked the seriousness of the situation. Her lies were easy to detect, but that peculiar scent, coupled with her lack of fearful reaction toward his claws, spelt a mystery wrapped up in flannel pyjamas and salmon-coloured socks. "That's one hell of a performance. You waiting to hear my feedback?"
Her disappointed gaze dropped to the grazed floorboards for a moment as a carousel of biting, sulky, sullen, and taunting remarks teased her tongue. Shifting her stance, she leaned against the door again, her feet tired and the exhaustion of travelling through time weighing heavily on her drooping shoulders. She wanted to go home to the daddy who recognised her. "I'm only listening because I have little choice."
He would bet his last dollar that the girl knew his identity inside out. "Don't give up the day job, huh? And how about you drop the attitude because right about now, things aren't looking rosy for you. Breaking into somebody's home isn't a game, and if I don't start hearing the truth, you're headed for a quick exit into the nearest snowbank."
Even when he didn't fully comprehend their relationship, Logan could still battle through an ocean of words to become a disappointed daddy. It almost tickled her until she reminded herself that he was still waiting for a carefully crafted response knitted and crocheted into the pattern of a confession. As she casually wondered what year the watch abandoned her in, her eyes roamed the space behind him. He cleared his throat impatiently, and she sighed gently. "You wouldn't do that to me. You're too nice."
He raised a scrutinising eyebrow at the self-confidence and stupidity on display. "And how would you know?"
Glancing down at her socked feet, she suddenly realised this case of the lies would be more battle-strewn than when she pretended to be responsible for wrecking Logan's motorcycle. Even then, as joint newcomers to Xavier's, he sniffed out the falsehoods with a grumble because she covered for a boy. "You look kind," she offered as a plucked-from-the-air reason. "Maybe it's the blow-dried hair."
Logan snorted in amusement at the sassy show of attitude. "I don't blow dry my hair, kid, and I'm not kind. You've got me mixed up with your father. How about we work out a deal, huh? You give me his number, and I'll have a chat with him. Then we can get to the bottom of why you're snooping around my home."
Chewing on her bottom lip anxiously, Rogue's eyes widened to the size of the full moon for a cluttered and disorderly panic-stricken moment. He wanted a conversation with his future self. Digging herself out of a burrow of burden and strife, she focused on his bouncing locks again. He definitely blow-dried his hair. "I don't have a daddy."
He noted the widespread worry in her gaze. Good. At least somebody at home clipped her wings when she got out of line. "That's a lie."
She clung to the hair talk, desperate to steer the conversation away from the identity of her disastrous daddy, who was busy snoring into the broken back of a couch in the winter of 2001. "Are you sure you don't own a hairdryer?" she questioned coyly, a sneaking smile breaking free.
A firm frown engulfed his brooding gaze. Their conversation struck every brick wall in the country and strayed far from a fitting conclusion. "What's your name?"
Rogue answered instantly with a half-truth technically scrawled across a birth certificate that her birth mama completed, drunk on tequila and high on a life of crime-ridden dishonesty. "Anna."
Logan sniffed the girl's strange scent again. It wasn't a full-blown lie. There had to be some truth in that answer somewhere. Grunting, he folded his brawny arms across his broad chest and continued the line of gruff questioning. "And where do you call home, Anna?"
"It's complicated," she admitted gently, avoiding his hardened gaze for the hundredth time. "Have you ever considered becoming a cop? They always like to talk and ask questions at the same time."
Growing tired of the backchat and relentless sidestepping of the crux of the matter, he scowled like there was no tomorrow. If she kept this up, there wouldn't be because he would carry through with the threat to evict her into the storm. "Look, how many more times? This isn't a game. Spill the beans, or I'm tossing you out of that door, and you can make your own way home in a blizzard."
"Logan, stop threatening the girl," Kayla called from a hidden spot on the staircase, peering over the handrail and dressed in a chunky knitted sweater, flared jeans, and thick socks.
"This isn't one of the rugrats you deal with on a daily basis. Head on upstairs and let me handle it," he groused with the heaviest sigh yet. "I want to know who sent her."
Rogue eased herself off the panelled door, straightening her aching body and wandering closer to the kitchenette, searching for water to chase away the blossoming migraine. Maybe losing herself in the past was a meaningful method to break every inch of a hostile mind. She felt sluggish, too humid, overly flustered, strange, and a little sensitive to the brightness beaming down from the light fixtures overhead.
She shuffled past Logan, and he stalked after her, a suspicious scowl pinned to every movement she made. "I'm not a criminal mastermind. I'm just a lost girl in PJs who wandered too far from my bed," she complained softly, opening the cupboard door and gazing up at a tall tumbler out of reach.
"Who said you could leave that goddamn corner?" he demanded to know before swinging around to confront Kayla. "And I told you to go back upstairs."
Kayla shook her head in light amusement. "She almost looks old enough to drive. You don't give teens old enough to operate a moving vehicle corner time."
Sure of himself and the way he handled the interrogation so far, Logan looked back at the intruder. Most people weren't fans of being loomed over in a darkened corner of an unfamiliar space. He learned that over the years, skipping from one calamity to the next with his unstable bastard of a brother.
"Hey, I know what I'm doing…" His voice trailed off when he spotted the girl stagger on her tiptoes.
Her face paled, almost ghost-like, as the glass slipped from her gloved fingers. The colour drained dramatically from her suddenly clammy skin, and he lunged forward, catching her collapsing body before it landed in the shattered glass littering the floor. Two padded brown envelopes fluttered from her listless hand and dropped at his feet.
"That was unexpected," Kayla admitted with quiet composure, adapting to the ever-changing situation with the skills she possessed as a tutor, teacher, and full-time fraud. She collected a warm blanket from the back of the couch and instructed him to lay their unexpected guest down. "I think she needs to see a doctor. She's burning up." Pressing the back of her hand to the girl's damp brow, she watched with concern as she used her free hand to throw the blanket onto the nearby chair.
"Yeah, well, breaking and entering is a real tough gig. Not everybody's cut out for it. And you know full well there's no way a doctor's making it up that track. There's at least eight feet of snow lining that road." He frowned as he lowered the kid onto the couch and turned to focus on Kayla's haunted stare. "What's wrong?"
Dreams of endless Californian coastal sands, the radiant sun beating down, a golden-haired younger sister, and two doting parents plagued the muddled mind of the ailing Rogue. Ice cream dripped from a cone, and her momma disappeared into the ocean as her father bleakly watched from the craggy rocks. The lifeless body floated in the crashing waves, deadened eyes staring into the cloudless sky as sea birds soared in the breeze. "It's just the three of us now," her father said afterwards. "You can't tell anyone what happened today. Concentrate on looking after your younger sister. She needs you more than ever." Fights happen, he had later explained. Sometimes, people die, but secrets must always be kept within the boundaries of their little family unit.
Rogue woke with a breathless gasp that fled the dryness of her throat. Those stolen memories didn't belong to a Southern lost soul stuck in the past. As soon as she heard the familiar and firm footsteps creaking down the staircase, distraught tears glistened in her exhausted gaze. She lifted her woozy head, picking apart a mangled mass of messy memories. Kayla wasn't as she seemed. Someone manufactured those declarations of love for her.
Logan stalked to the couch, contemplating knocking the lid off his frayed and frazzled temper. He loomed over the girl, eyes narrowed, jaw tense, brow creased with furious lines of contempt. He didn't speak. No words were needed to share the hornets' nest she had stirred tonight.
She gazed at him cautiously, visibly flinching at the hateful scowl he cast her way. Her playful thoughts died a death, much like Kayla's mama. "Please don't look at me like that, Daddy," she whispered, tears streaming down her ashy cheeks.
Rooted to the spot, his gaze flickered with scattered emotions, lunging from surprise and stumbling into sudden understanding. Now, her scent made perfect sense. As did the runaway mouth, knowledge of the contents of the kitchen cupboards, and the calm response to him brandishing a set of dangerous claws. She hadn't gotten him mixed up. He was her goddamn father. The reckless kid belonged to him.
The stony confusion hen-hopped through Rogue's soaring mind. Honesties spilt freely, spiralling from her shadowed memories and clogging the distance between father and daughter. Kayla's trauma thumped forward, diluting her host's own daddy issues and swamping them. "You killed my momma. You–you stabbed her on the beach. Cast her adrift like jetsam. Our first family vacation on the Californian coast. You ruined her. You ruined our relationship. You ruined everything."
Logan's concern pounced on the sound of her voice, not the words attached to them. Her accent had faded, replaced by a generic, muted, emotionless tone. Suddenly, she stopped talking, battling an untold war with whatever had overtaken her head. His tensing jaw betrayed the unease coursing through his veins, but he remained detached, motionless, and soundless.
Rogue's soft Mississippi rhythm returned, and she buried her tearful face against her trembling gloved hands. "None of this belongs to me. I'll explain everything. This is me explaining everything. I–I'm not from here. Wherever I am, whatever the year, I shouldn't be here. I promise it's an accident. The watch took me too far again."
He heaved a sigh. Every time the kid opened her mouth, the situation developed another knotty issue fit to be hauled over hot coals and tossed into the snowstorm.
Turning away from the crying couch dweller, he headed to the kitchen cabinet that housed a dozen bottles of barely touched booze. After pouring a shot of cheap whisky into a diamond-patterned tumbler, he eyed the padded brown envelopes on the floor and stooped to scoop them into his steady palm.
Reading the scruffily scrawled names, he eyed the girl. "This one's addressed to me." Shaking a slither of the contents onto the countertop, a crumpled white sheet of paper fell out. He turned the note over and read the four words with a furrowing brow. Your daughter's a whore.
She sat up too quickly, the dull ache in her head swimming with promises to fall into another unconscious heap. "Don't! I'm being blackmailed because I've got a billion twisted problems and keep having sex in a field with a silly boy who's old enough to be my daddy!"
The tears tumbled down her face at a rapid and regretful pace. "A lousy someone took secret photos and wants lots of money from me. Then there's a strangling killer I've got to find after I tear off the mask of the blackmailer. And I might care about my mama even though she kidnaps me all the time. Everything wrong with the world is my fault. I borrowed a dumb watch that breaks all the time, and I don't know why I did it! I mean, oh my God, I'm grounded. I shouldn't even be here! All I wanted was a book. I wanted my book back because you flung it out of a moving car. And I'm still sorry about the accidental party and the broken couch. I don't even like field trips. Why a flower meadow? It doesn't make sense. But I like him. Maybe even love him. He's sweet. He's a thief, but he's sweeter than anything I've said and dumbly done tonight."
"I need one hell of a drink." Logan grabbed the whisky bottle again and filled the glass to the overflowing brim. He downed the contents before refilling the tumbler and gulping down a second serving of the full-bodied oak-like amber liquid. After a while, he turned to face her with a disappointed sigh. No wonder he had never wanted kids. "I'm not sure what you want from me, kid. I'm not your father. At least, not yet."
Collecting her thundering, tattered and broken heart, she shrugged away the hurt. "What year is it?" she asked sadly, disappointed in him too. Even with his bouncy blow-dried hair, they still failed to connect at a first meeting.
"What year are you from?" he countered before shaking his head curtly. "Forget I asked that. Keep your answer to yourself, huh?" Gathering the shoddy brown envelopes, he carried them to the roaring fireplace and tossed them into the flames. "Here's a little advice from the past: Don't go carrying around incriminating evidence of your indiscretions."
Rogue watched the photos wither and burn in the heat of the flickering flames. Her only evidence linked to the blackmailer died an even quicker death than Kayla's mama at the hands of Kayla's daddy. "Why aren't you angry?"
"It's not my place to read you the riot act, and this house isn't a confession box. You have to go back to where you came from. I don't care what you've done, but it's time you faced the consequences. Once you're over the fainting spell, you pack up your tears and get out of here. You understand? This can't happen again."
She nodded, glancing glumly down at her gloved hands. It was easier to change the subject than answer him as the tears tumbled again. "Is Kayla okay?"
Logan had moved his partner upstairs to rest after she spectacularly collapsed from one touch to the kid's forehead. Troubled with worry, he could only focus on one crisis at a time. "I don't know. You tell me. She's passed out on the bed upstairs after limited contact with you."
"It's my skin. It hurts people," she admitted softly, picking at a loose thread hanging from the glove.
He grunted because unexpected fatherhood continued to bust his balls with an out-of-control baseball bat. Not only did his kid run through the past with a stolen time-travelling device, causing chaos with a fugitive tongue and sleeping about in fields, but she also carted around a dangerous mutation. There was a mismatch between her behaviour and body language. The shyness and reluctance to look him in the eye clashed with the adventurous nature she had snatched from under his future nose. How the hell had he allowed this to unravel under his care?
Rogue peeled her plaid sleeve back, relief butting in to become a best friend. The watch emitted a gentle green glow. No longer throttled by the ruby reddish and pretty pink flags, she glanced at Past Logan, none the wiser about the date, until she tapped the tiny screen fastened to her tender wrist. It was February 1979, and she had only greeted one set of flared pants, thanks to Kayla's fashion sense.
Her fingers brushed against the two buttons, ready to press them at any second. Despite continuing to feel weak, wobbly, and woozy, she understood he didn't want her under the same roof as him. This wasn't her birth daddy, just a stranger with commitment issues who felt protective of a lady who didn't deserve it. With a throwaway comment, she applied a pinch of pressure to the buttons. "There's nothing to be ashamed of just because you blow dry your hair in 1979."
Logan's eyes narrowed as the girl disappeared in a violent wave of energy that half blinded his sight for several seconds. He grumbled at the sassy words and shook his head. "I don't blow dry my goddamn hair!" he bellowed into the void and watched it slam closed.
With a knitted brow and strained shoulders, his gaze travelled to the fireplace. Thankfully, no sign of the envelopes or photos remained. Thoughts turned to the knowledge he had learned about the future, and a scowl slowly crept onto his rugged face. She slept with a thief old enough to be her father. Somebody had taken photos of the misdeeds and blackmailed her for cash. Then she mentioned confronting a murderer who probably strangled young girls just like her for fun.
His claws unsheathed, and he fixed a disturbed frown on the empty couch as he realised what he had done. He sent her into the path of danger without clipping those wild wings. The kid had left with a mouthful of sass, and he sure as hell hoped she would see sense before she bit off more than those gloved hands of hers could handle.