In Fear of Three Little Words

Chapter 19


Logan glanced at his watch once more. The others’d had time to get into position and start taking down security and systems. Everything seemed to be going well, no alarms going off or military types running around looking ready to shoot on sight.

He nodded to Kurt and Kitty and took hold of both of them. A split second later they were in a small white room and there above them hung chains and more shackles embedded in the floor. Kurt stared at the chains then shuddered and looked away.

“I take it this is the cell they held you in,” Logan said.

Kurt gave a nod and Kitty looked spooked, feeling the oppressiveness of the place as much as they did.

“This is where they chained you up?” Kitty asked, taking a step away from the shackles.

Kurt gave another nod and blew out a held breath. “Okay,” Kurt said, “next stop, the hallway outside the laboratories. That’s as close as I think I can come to Trask’s office.”

Logan reached for them again and said, “do it.”

A guard stood at the door of the laboratory and gave a start when they “popped” in. He brought his rifle up, but Logan cleared the space between them and slammed the man hard against the wall and let him slide down to sit, already unconscious.

No alarm went up, the laboratory techs going about their business as if nothing was about to happen to screw up their world.

“Office first,” Logan said in a low voice, feeling in his bones that the ugly stuff was stashed there, not in the public domain for anyone to view.

Off in the distance, the first sounds of destruction met their ears. Logan smiled. It did a heart good to hear Cyclops and Berzerker blowing the hell out of everything.

He motioned with a hand for them to go forward and they crept down the hall. He motioned again, pointing to a door and gave a thumbs up.

“Hold it right there!” a male voice said and from one end of the hallway soldiers appeared.

Kurt disappeared then reappeared beside a soldier. “I’ll take that,” he said and grabbed the rifle from the stunned soldier’s hand. Kurt slammed the gun butt into the man’s stomach and side stepped a swing from another gun.

Logan’s heart lurched, but Kurt had it under control. He let out a snarl and shot forward, claws snicking out. Wading in, Logan forced the soldiers onto the defensive, backing them up and keeping them from getting off a shot. He knew these guns, the immobilizing technology. Logan roared and sliced through rifle after rifle, the soldiers turning tail and running.

Logan turned in time to see another soldier coming up behind Kurt. “Elf! Watch your back!” he yelled, but Kitty rose up out of the floor and tripped the man. Kurt gave the soldier a kick in the face and watched him go limp.

They had cleared the hallway, unconscious men lying here and there.

Behind a door, Logan heard a familiar voice that made his blood run hot and cold simultaneously.

“What the hell is going on?” Trask was saying. “There’s a commotion outside my----are you there? What the hell is going on?” The slam of the receiver into the cradle was Logan’s cue.

The sound of metal slicing metal screamed in the air. Logan gave a shove and the door collapsed.

Kurt came up beside him and said, “knock. Knock.”

Trask was half out of his chair, eyes wild, but the sneer never left the man’s face, a permanent manifestation of malevolent obsession.

“You!” Trask yelled and shoved up out of his chair. He backed up against a bookcase and stared at them.

“Yeah, us,” Logan replied. “We’re here to do a little...housecleaning. Shadowcat, do your thing.”

Kitty came forward and glared at Trask and without looking away, she drew her hand through his computer. Sparks flew and she did it again for good measure.

“No!” Trask yelled and sprang at her, but Kurt “ported” between Trask and Kitty and shoved Trask backwards. “You don’t understand. There was important data on that computer!”

“Oh, we understand very well,” Kurt said in an ominous tone and shoved Trask again. “I should take you to hell with me and drop you off there.”

“No, no please.” Trask flinched away and backed up till his back met the bookcase again.

Logan moved forward, his claws still out. He had Trask right here, right in front of him and his blood boiled in his veins, his mind fogging up with his rage. Bringing his claws up to Trask’s throat, Logan flexed just enough to draw blood, a trickle that ran down Trask’s neck and into his collar.

“I should kill you right now,” Logan snarled. “Cut you into little pieces and scatter you from one end of this earth to the other. In fact, I just might do that.” He flexed his claws again and another trickle of blood oozed from Trask’s neck.

“Logan,” Kurt said beside him, a restraining hand on his arm. “Don’t. We both know he deserves it, but we do not sink to his level.”

“Listen to the boy, Logan,” Trask gasped out.

“Shut up,” Kurt snapped in Trask’s face. “To you I am nothing but a lab animal. I shouldn’t care what he does to you, but I do. Not for you, but for him.”

Trask’s eyes narrowed. “After what he did to you, you still defend him?”

“You did that, not Logan!” Kurt hissed back.

Trask looked like he was about to retaliate and Logan brought up his other set of claws, showing them to Trask.

“It’s time for you to shut up,” Logan said. His claws snicked back into place and with a fist Logan punched Trask in the face. The man went down, sliding into a heap on the floor.

“What is he talking about?” Kitty asked.

“Nothin’,” Logan said. “We’ve got a job to finish.”

They pulled out disc after disc and Logan destroyed them, slicing them into pieces. Kitty roamed through the woodwork and ceiling tiles, the floor and walls searching for hidden spaces.

“I’ve found a safe,” she yelled and pulled out a stack of discs and some files and dropped them on Trask’s desk. “This should be everything in his office.”

From down the hall, the sound of glass shattering and concussive blasts echoed, the building shuddering. Still no alarms went off. The teams had been successful.

Logan pulled out his headset and put it on. “Time to wrap this up,” he said into the microphone. “We’ve got what we came for.” He glanced down at Trask and suppressed a snarl. “Mostly.”

Voices came back to him, Rogue and Cyclops affirming the success of their missions and an all clear from Storm.

“Everyone out then pronto.”

****************

Kurt woke with a start, his breath thick in his throat.

Had he screamed?

No, but the dream he’d awakened from still lingered in vivid images behind his closed eyelids. The ordeal danced in his mind’s eye, the tortures and his torturers so real it was as if they were in the room with him now.

Just this night, they had succeeded in destroying Trask’s data, had trashed Trask’s facility to the point of useless, but somehow Kurt knew it wasn’t over. The torturer would wait only so long before trying to get his hands on them again...any one of them.

That hopelessness Kurt had been plagued with during his captivity overwhelmed him, washing over him in wave after wave of futility. He bent his head to his raised knees and fought back tears.

Seeing that room again, where he’d been held prisoner, chained and beaten must have dredged up his fears again, buried not as deeply as he’d wanted to believe. Only weeks had passed and he tried to pretend he was fine...that nothing terrible had been done to him...at least, nothing he couldn’t deal with.

Maybe the Professor was right. Maybe he wasn’t dealing with any of it very well. But, his feelings for Logan were real. That he was certain of. He only hoped Logan was as certain as he.

Kurt climbed from bed and crossed to the balcony. A brisk autumn wind blew in when he opened the doors. He tilted his face up to the moonlight and let the breeze blow away the lingering cobwebs of his nightmare.

With a leap, he balanced on the rail, hunkering down. Kurt scanned the quiet landscape and all seemed at peace. All but what stirred inside of him, a restlessness...skittish and fearful of the future. He didn’t want to be that way, frightened of what was around the corner, what was yet to come, the unknown world before him.

Yet, at this moment, the future seemed shrouded in fog, a mist of his own uncertainty about himself...about everything.

A noise caught Kurt’s ear, a balcony door opening a few rooms down. He turned and saw Logan standing, leaning on the railing. Kurt’s heart rate spiked upward and he swallowed hard.

“Logan,” Kurt said, not loud.

But Logan heard and turned towards him, his face obscured by shadow. Kurt caught a hand motion and he teleported over.

“Hullo,” Kurt said, trying to distance himself from the melancholy enshrouding him. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Yeah,” Logan said, hand reaching out to stroke Kurt’s hair and draw him closer.

Kurt came, wrapping his arms around Logan, needing this man’s touch to ground him in this world again.

“You okay, elf? You’re shivering.”

“It’s cold,” he said, his voice shaking.

“It’s not that cold,” Logan replied and with a finger, tilted Kurt’s face up to the pale light. “Somethin’ else is botherin’ you.”

Kurt closed his eyes and turned away.

Logan’s hands moved over him, comforting and warm. “Nightmare?”

Kurt nodded against Logan’s shoulder.

“Aw, elf. I knew it was bad news lettin’ you go back there.”

“Don’t you ever dream, Logan? Don’t you have nightmares about...about that place?”

Logan didn’t answer right away, just held him close and kissed Kurt’s temple. “Yeah, just did, in fact.”

Kurt pulled back enough to meet Logan’s gaze. “What did you dream?”

Logan shook his head. “Don’t wanna go there, elf.”

Kurt dropped his gaze and moved back into the fold of Logan’s arm. If Logan didn’t want to talk about it, there was no use pushing.

“What did you dream?” Logan asked, his voice low and husky.

Kurt swallowed down a wash of emotion. “I was chained. I couldn’t move. And the pain came...over and over again. I couldn’t escape it. And I was....” His throat closed up around the words.

“What?”

Kurt cleared his throat. “I was being raped...not by you...by Trask and others.”

Logan’s arm around him gathered him closer as if Logan wanted to absorb his pain.

“I’m not gonna let him touch you.” Logan’s voice in his ear held determination. “I should have killed him tonight.”

“Perhaps I should have let you,” Kurt replied in a hushed tone.

Logan let out a sigh. “No. You were right. We don’t stoop to his level. But dammit if I don’t feel like we left the job unfinished. And I’m afraid we just might pay for it sometime in the future.”

They stood in silence, the breeze rustling the leaves, announcing the coming winter.

“The Doc wants you to go to counseling,” Logan said, breaking the silence. “He says you don’t wanna go.”

Kurt pulled out of Logan’s embrace and leaned on the railing. “Is there no such thing as privacy around here?”

Logan leaned beside him. “He thought maybe I could talk you into goin’.”

“And does he say the same to you? That you should go? Or am I the only one too fragile to deal with this on his own?”

Logan let out a harsh breath. “We only talked about you, but ya got a point. I’m not much for this counseling stuff. If you wanna go, go, but I’m not gonna try to strong-arm you into it.”

“I don’t want to talk to a stranger about what happened. I don’t want to talk to anyone...accept maybe you.”

“And I’m too close to it to be of much help. But can I make a suggestion?”

Kurt turned to Logan. “What?”

“If...and I mean if you need to talk to someone, you might talk to Hank. He’s a good listener and he won’t judge. And he’s not a stranger.”

Turning back to gaze out over the grounds, Kurt pondered Logan’s suggestion. His dream images came back to him in a rush of vivid flashes. He flinched from them then nodded. “Hank’s a good suggestion. I’ll...maybe I will. I don’t know right now.”

An arm slid around Kurt’s shoulders and fingers smoothed his hair, tickled his ear. He turned a glance to Logan who gazed at him with unreadable eyes.

“I think it’s about time we started makin’ plans to spend some time alone together, don’t you?” Logan asked.

Kurt’s breath caught. “Yes, but where?”

Logan smiled at him. “I know just the place.”