Chapter Text
The air sucked the warmth out of her as swiftly as a suckerpunch to the gut. She’d been travelling north, further north always, as swiftly as truckers could take her - she’d expected cold, but nothing like this. A part of her distantly wondered whether it was so cold because of the temperature, or if it was cold because of the ice in her soul.
You killed me, came a quiet whisper in the back of her mind, as far as you or I know, anyway. I’d say hell is frozen for good reason, wouldn’t you? Seems right that you’re in the thick of it now.
It was an accident, came her tired response, before she wearily raised the barrier in her mind again - one she had constructed slowly over the time since she’d hurt him.
You’ve forgotten my name, Marie, he accused, ever quieter as she bricked him up behind the wall in her mind.
Never, she murmured, but I can’t afford to remember you, either. Thereafter, he was silent.
Perhaps it was stupid of her, this town, to go to a bar - what had compelled her, she wasn’t sure, but something had drawn her to it. The warmth, the lights - the sound of people enjoying themselves, either of them could be the reason. Regardless, she soon found herself inside and feeling as though she was thawing out; the man in the cage was paying an odd amount of attention to her with his gaze, initially, and then he was deep into the fight again. So, she’d found a fighting kind of bar; it was suitable enough, seedy and shady to make people not want to admit to being there on a night like this. Worst case scenario, nobody would recount having seen her. She made her way to the bar and asked for water; thankfully the bartender agreed and gave her some (warm, which suited her better than he might imagine, and she did her best to ignore the way the bartender moved the tip jar away from her).
She stayed for the fight, eyed the room as a whole, and tried not to imagine how easily she could steal someone’s life, here, maybe without even being noticed. Their abilities, their memories. Deep down, though she hated it and hated herself for it, she could still feel what it had been like to kill him. The sensual way that energy, life, passion had skittered across her skin and into her. It was subtle at first, then heady and dizzying until she recognized what she had become. It wasn’t addictive, wasn’t even that pleasant, accompanied as it was with a sucking sparking snap that felt almost as though she was breaking open to accommodate what she was stealing. Even so, like a bad habit formed of one part despair and two parts self-destruction, a part of her still felt the urge to do it again.. A part of her felt as though she needed more, to do it again - maybe not to the same level, but to put her hands on someone. Maybe it was the touch deprivation - humans needed touch, she remembered. It had been discussed when her parents had been arguing over her following the accident.
“People go insane without physical contact,” her mother had yelled. “You think she’s going to be able to stay here and never once beg for a hug from us? She’s dangerous - and we won’t be able to avoid it forever - she could kill us without meaning to.”
“She’s a mutant,” her father had agreed, “she’s our daughter, and I don’t want to do this - but she can’t stay here.”
It hadn’t been long without contact, comparatively - she’d been on the road for a couple months, now, and it had been a year since the accident happened. She’d never been much for hugs, or anything, before that, so in a way she had been used to it… but this was still all too much to handle, sometimes, the rawness of it. She craved touch and she craved the rush. Yet again, she buried her feelings, along with the self-loathing, and refocused on the bar. It had gotten oddly quiet and empty over the time she’d been distracted - and the man from the cage was back, collecting his winnings.
She saw the two men approaching, and rose without thinking. Marie felt almost on autopilot as she glided over, smiling at the two men, doing her best to imitate the cage bunnies she’d seen before - the women that were practically panting over the fighters. “Hey, there,” she started, only to be shoved aside. She saw a knife in the hands of one of the men, and she reached out and grabbed his wrist. The man at the bar turned, then, and a very quiet growl began building in his chest, she could just barely hear it.
The man with the knife grabbed her by the neck, the one place she didn’t have clothing covering, and she gasped, pupils dilating, as he shuddered and struggled against her. She quickly brought her hands up to try to pull his hand off of her - the flood of dirty, perverse, disgusting thoughts breaking through her defenses. On the plus side, with it came borrowed strength and muscle memory, and she hit his arm hard enough to break his grip and step back before he could die. She wasn’t, however, fast enough to keep him from passing out, and she grabbed the man’s knife before his buddy could.
“Stay back,” she said, harsh, and oddly duo-toned. The second aggressor backed off as the bartender grabbed a shotgun and cocked it - she glanced behind her, and realized that the man from the barstools, the man she’d been aiming to protect, had spoken at the same time as her, and had claws slipping free of his skin, dripping blood from his knuckles. Oh.
“No mutants. Get out,” the bartender threatened. The man with claws reached back and fucked up the guy’s shotgun with a single swipe of his claws, before grabbing Marie by the arm and leading her out.
“C’mon, kid,” he huffed, and she swallowed and watched him even as he dragged her out of the bar, wondering just what she had unleashed, what she had done, and what he was planning to do, why he was taking her with him.
Most of all, she wondered why he wasn’t afraid of her.