Unchained Instinct ( Complete)

Sorry I've been so long posting again. The weekends are about the only time I have to work on this. Thanks so much for all the reviews. I really appreciate your comments and encouragement.


Chapter 41

“Damn it, Gambit,” Rogue said, running her hands back through her hair, uncaring how it looked anymore, uncaring if Gambit thought her attractive. “Night’s comin’ and we’ve got nothin’. Absolutely nothin’. A whole day lost.”

Gambit held open the door to his Roadster for her and Rogue sank into the leather seat and let him shut the door without protest or argument. He came around to the driver side and slid in behind the wheel. The engine hummed to life and Gambit slipped the five speed into gear.

“Ah’m frustrated too, chere,” Gambit finally replied. “Us mutants not used to bein’ thwarted. Not even by the likes of Mystique. Ya know...any one a those doors we’ve knocked on could be the one. She can look like anybody or just about any animal she wants. And, ya know, that’s how she took Wolverine. Ah been thinkin’ on this and that be the only way she’d take ‘im out of commission.”

“Ah know that,” she snapped back at him. “Ah just don’t see how that’s important right now.”

Gambit sat silent for a long time and Rogue finally looked over at her companion. A troubled expression played on his face and Rogue thought perhaps Gambit had gotten a taste of what it was like to care about somebody. Not that she thought he particularly cared about Logan, but even if he was doing this just for her, that was enough for now.

Rogue reached out and put a gloved hand on Gambit’s arm. He turned his scarlet gaze to her with a questioning expression.

“Ah’m sorry I snapped. Ah’m just tired and feelin’ stupid and angry and like you said, frustrated.”

A smile smoothed away Gambit’s troubled look and he turned his eyes back to the road “It okay, mon ami. Gambit understand. Wolverine your friend, your teacher and the way Ah see it, your self-imposed protector. He real protective of you, Rogue. But that okay. There be worse people than Logan protectin’ your back.”

Rogue smiled in return. “Yer catchin’ on quick, Cajun.” She settled back to face the road, letting her hand drop away from his arm. “Ah like that in a man.”

The long day rolled out in Rogue’s mind, the futility of searching for someone the hard way making her teeth grit together. They’d gotten comfortable with Cerebro and The Professor’s and Jean’s ability to speak telepathically. But now that Mystique had shut down those capabilities, that same fear and frustration they’d felt when Kurt and Logan had been taken by Trask came rushing back in on them.

These new technologies the government and other private organizations were developing were for the sole purpose of controlling mutants. These directed activities by people who hated and feared mutants made Rogue feel vulnerable and she didn’t like the feeling in the least bit.

“Back to the mansion, chere?”

Gambit’s question startled Rogue up out of her musings. “Not yet. Let’s do one more section.”

Gambit glanced up and around at the falling darkness, but ultimately shrugged his shoulders. “Rogue got the map. Just tell this Cajun which way to go and we’ll be there in a flash.”

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

Jean hovered over the abandoned homestead, dilapidated barn on the verge of falling in. Small trees and vines and thick tangled brush had grown up around the property and the setting sun gave the place an eerie feeling.

Ghosts of long gone dreams seemed to dwell here, a sadness of loss and failure.

Such was a feeling Jean understood too well. She was feeling like a failure at the moment and the loss of her ability to touch Logan’s mind ate at her as if she’d lost an arm.

Kurt had entered the homestead and her concern for Kurt fought against her knowledge that Kurt was a capable young man with talents of his own. His agility far outranked hers, but her fear for him wasn’t about his physical abilities, it was about this growing recklessness she saw in him, an abandonment of caution. His goal was to find Logan and nothing, not rotted flooring nor dense underbrush was going to keep him from searching every nook and cranny of this property, hoping to find some secret place Mystique had built to contain Logan and keep him prisoner.

She heard a crack of wood and spiraled down into the house to hover over a gaping hole that fell into darkness. Probably a cellar once.

“Kurt!!”

“I’m up here,” he said, hanging from the rafters. “The floor gave way. I don’t think they’re here, Jean. I don’t feel Logan here...or Mystique.”

The exhaustion and near despair in Kurt’s voice echoed Jean’s own. Silently, she cursed Mystique for putting them in this dangerous position. Jean cursed Mystique’s darkness and cruelty and even her cunning.

“It’s getting dark, Kurt. We’d better head back. These woods can get confusing at night.”

Jean felt Kurt’s tail wrapped around her waist and before she could speak, they were on the roadside, only feet from her SUV.

“Give a gal a little warning, will you?” Jean said, staggering out of Kurt’s grip.

“Sorry,” Kurt said, but sounded distracted.

Jean watched him glance around and Kurt’s face reflected calculation and distance as if he was mentally mapping where they’d searched and how many miles they had to go to cover their section of the map.

“We ought to head back, Kurt,” Jean offered gently. “Night’s already on us and we can’t keep going like this. We’re both exhausted and I have to admit, I’m starving. We haven’t eaten all day.”

“Logan wouldn’t stop looking for us,” Kurt replied, but his words held no vehemence, no anger in their tone. Just conviction and Jean knew Kurt was right. Logan wouldn’t stop. He wouldn’t rest. But Logan had reserves none of them had, a body that healed and replenished itself even in the harshest conditions.

Jean leaned against the SUV and rubbed her face. “I know. But we don’t have Logan’s strength, Kurt. If we don’t eat and rest, one of us is going to collapse and the other will be stuck with trying to get the other home. Do you think Logan would want that?”

Kurt shook his head, but his eyes didn’t meet her gaze. His fur gathered the darkness, his uniform all that kept Kurt from turning invisible out here in the middle of nowhere. He turned his gaze back to her and his eyes were beacons in the night, glowing like a cats and fed by an inner fire.

“Why don’t you go on home, Jean? I can get home on my own. I know the way. I’ll just be another hour or so.”

Jean crossed her arms. Time to get stubborn and if she had to put him out, she’d do so. “No way. We’re partners in this search and we do this together.”

Kurt got stubborn too, crossing his own arms against his chest and gazing up at her. “I’m not ready to quit. I...I can’t quit.” Emotion had crept back into Kurt’s voice, the hidden anger rising to confront Jean. “She still has him, Jean. Mystique is hurting Logan and every moment he’s in her control she’s hurting him more. Don’t you understand that?”

“Of course I understand that!” Jean’s own anger gripped her by the throat, tightening around her vocal cords and reaching down to squeeze her heart. “I just don’t know what else we can do tonight! We’ll be stumbling around in the dark woods with nothing but a flashlight, waiting for one of us to break out neck for no good use! Logan would tell us to go home and come back in the morning when we can see what the heck we’re doing and where we’re going!”

Kurt’s eyes glowed and brightened and Jean could no longer distinguish his features or his stance. She had no idea if her words, spoken with her own anger and futility had done harm or good.

Kurt turned away and for a moment, Jean lost track of him. Fear rose up inside her that he’d teleported, disappearing into the night. But she smelled no sulphur nor heard the sound of displaced air popping in the quiet.

“Kurt?” Jean’s voice sounded small and fearful in the darkness.

“I’m here. Come on. We’ll go home. I suppose 14 hours of searching will have to do right now.”

Jean opened the door to her SUV with her remote and climbed in with a sigh of relief. Kurt hadn’t yet moved. He still stood, staring into the dark, dense woods and for a moment Jean again feared Kurt would disappear on her.

“I’m sorry, Logan,” she heard Kurt whisper to the night, the despair in his voice heart wrenching. “I love you. I’ll find you. Please hold on.”

Jean bowed her head and let the tears she’d suppressed for Kurt’s sake, fall from her eyes.