Maybe thinking about something else will help. Then again, maybe not.

I don't know how long I've been running before the stitch in my side makes me stop. When I look up, I'm deep in the forest, surrounded by trees. I lean against one while trying to get my breath back. As I stand there, I realize that Logan will never understand. He's never done the things I've done, felt what I'm feeling, seen what I've seen, what I see every time I close my eyes.

Suddenly it's all too much, and I slide down the tree as heart-breaking sobs erupt from my mouth. I curl up on myself and begin to think of that song again. I can't remember who sang it, but it touches me at this moment like no other song ever has. I remember the words as if I had written them myself.

I tried to kill the pain
But only brought more
I lay dying

I pull out a knife and begin to untie my shoes and remove my socks. I have no feeling in my arms, due to my mutation, so I cut my ankles. My healing power does not allow for scars, but the pain of the cuts remind me I'm alive and she isn't. Because of me. I killed her. So what if I had cried the whole time, I still pulled that trigger.

And I'm pouring crimson regret and betrayal
I'm dying praying bleeding and screaming

As the blood wells up, I remember the look of pure hatred on his face as he made me pull that trigger. He betrayed me…us. I had begged like never before.

The second cut goes deeper than the first and suddenly I am 9 again and standing in the observation room with a gun in my hand.



"Do it!" he yells, spittle hitting me in the face.

"NO!" I yell right back.

We yell and argue for what feels like forever, but is really only a few minutes. He finally has had enough and takes my hand with the gun in it, and points it at the one person on this planet that truly knows me. My twin sister.

"Do it now or I'll kill you both, slowly and painfully."

"Please. Don't do this."

"She has to die. You know this. You were told that only one of you would survive. Now do it!"

"Then kill me! Don't kill her. She's never done anything wrong! Please!" I am sobbing in earnest now, but I don't care. All I care about is saving my twin, Ashira. "Please! Don't!" I clutch his arm with my free hand so hard I draw blood.

"Get off me!" He flings me away like I'm a fly. "If she does not die, they will not be happy. You don't want them to be unhappy do you?" he asks referring to the people who are in charge, the scientists who created me and my sister, and the people who come here from all over to see me in action. To see me kill and maim and destroy. For that is why I had been created, to find and destroy any and all mutants who refuse to become part of their 'team'. What a joke that is. Calling their twisted experiments a team project. Logan is one of those experiments. I am to find him first.

After what seems like another eternity, he picks up my hand again and places his finger over mine.

"Say good-bye." he laughs over his own sick joke.

"Please." I have to try one last time.

"I love you, Melissa." Ashira says. She has stood where he told her to stand the whole time I am trying to save her life. Never saying a word in her own defense. That's just like her, to not want to rock the boat. I am the troublemaker; she is the peacemaker. Often taking my punishments for things she has tried to talk me out of. I do not deserve a sister like her; she does not deserve a sister like me. She definitely doesn't deserve to die by my hand. A hand that is shaking so badly, I'm afraid that I'll only wound her and have to shoot again. But of course, that's why his hand is there, over mine. To keep it steady. As we whisper our love for each other and I beg for, and receive her forgiveness, he squeezes my finger on the trigger and the rapport of the Sig, and the kick it gives, bring me back to what is going on. As she falls to the floor, a gaping hole in the back of her head, I pass out.



Am I too lost to be saved
Am I too lost?

How do you forgive yourself for killing an innocent person? How do you find yourself again? I have been lost for so long. I can forget the smell of her blood, the smell of the gunpowder and the smell of bodily waste, but I can never forget the sight of the hole in her forehead. A hole I put there.

The Adams' are church going people. They took me to church and I came to accept their God as my own. I ask him for forgiveness every second of every day. When I'd been with the Adams' less than a month, Lucy caught me cutting myself. I started cutting while with Logan. It was damned hard trying to hide it from his nose, but I did. She demanded to know why. I refused to tell, so she told Mom. Mom made me tell. And she was not disgusted, like I'd thought she would be. She said that if Ashira could forgive me then I should forgive myself. But I can't.

My God my tourniquet
Return to me salvation
My God my tourniquet
Return to me salvation
Do you remember me
Lost for so long
Will you be on the other side
Or will you forget me

I once asked the pastor of our church if my sister would be waiting for me in heaven. He said that since she'd died before she could learn about the bad things in life then she would be. I felt bad twisting the question to get the answer I wanted, but I need to see her again. I want to die! I need my sister!

My soul cries for deliverance
Will I be denied Christ
Tourniquet
My wounds cry for the grave
My suicide

As I make the final cut, I hear a noise to my right. I'm too weak from loss of blood to move. I just hope that my death is as quick as Ashira's was.

"Mon Dieu!" Remy exclaims as he approaches where I'm still sitting at the foot of the tree. "What have you done?" he asks in French

"I need to…" I'm too weak to continue in French. It hurts to think. "I need to die." I say in English.

"Why?

"I killed her. I deserve to die. She didn't."

"Who?"

"My sister."

"Lucy? She's not…"

"Not Lucy." I interrupt. "Ashira."

"Ashira? Pretty name. What happened?" he asks as he settles himself next to me where he can apply pressure to my wounds.

I shake my head refusing, as always, to speak of my sin aloud.

"Melissé? Please tell me. Let me help."

"No one can help." The pain is fading. I feel so light. Like I can fly.

"I understand why you feel the need to hurt yourself."

"No you don't. No one can understand."

"I also used to cut myself to get rid of the pain."

"What?" I am losing focus. I couldn't have heard him right, could I?

"I also am a cutter. It only adds to your pain. Nothing can take it away, unless you talk about it."

The world starts to spin as he picks me up to return me to the manor and Hank's medical assistance.

"NO!" I can't let him take me back. Logan will never understand. He'll hate me for this, if not for lying about Ashira's death.

"Yes. You need medical attention and Logan is worried about you. You ran out of the house like a bat out of hell."

"Or like the Devil himself was after me." He stops and looks down at me like he can't believe I just tried to make a joke. "It's no joke. The Devil haunts my every moment. Even when I'm asleep."

"Okay, I need to know what's going on."

So I tell him everything. Everything I cannot bring myself to tell Logan. He reacts the same way my mom did. He cries with me, for Ashira, and for the little girl who was used as a weapon.

"You must tell Logan." I knew he was going to say that.

"No, I can't, he'll hate me."

"No he won't. He loves you."

"I know. But he's never said it."

"Have you?"

"Only once."

"Then say it again." comes Logan's voice from behind us. "I'll thank you for putting her down now, Gumbo."

As Remy puts me on my feet, I steal a look at Logan's face. He looks worried. And for the first time in all the years I've known him, he looks old.

"How much did you hear?" I ask, even though I already know the answer.

"All of it. I love you despite what some monster made you do. You were just a child. You can't hold yourself responsible for what they made you do."

"I can if I want." The child in me says. I have never really been a child, even while with him. I was forced to grow up way too soon. "I've seen and done things that would make most grown men sick."

"So have I," he replies. "Say it again, Doll face."

"I love you." I don't even pretend to not know what he wants from me.

"Good. Come here." His voice betrays his need.

As I slip into his arms, I realize that Remy has disappeared. Sometimes being a thief comes in handy, I suppose.

"It was just one tiny little fib....Okay a lie....a big fat lie, but ....."

"No buts. You know how I feel about liars." Logan snapped. We've just returned to his room after he found me in the woods with Remy.

"What do you want from me?" I ask. "I was only a little girl."

"You were fourteen when we parted. You could have told me before you let me walk out. Or..."

"Let you walk out!?" I screech. "I could no more stop you from leaving that day than I can stop the sun from rising tomorrow."

"Or..." Logan continues as if I hadn't just interrupted him. "you could have told me at Harry's last month."

"Yeah, like I'm stupid or something. I didn't know if I could trust your friends or not. Logan, I really think that this is pointless."

"I agree." He says as he reaches for me.

"No! I meant asking you and the X-men to help. There's just no way it can work. Jerintex and his men will be expecting you. I can't allow anyone to get hurt."

"We know the risks. Let us decide if it's worth it or not, why don'tcha?"

"No. I can't allow it."

"Sorry Doll face. Summers has already decided his plan of action. You're in charge. All the X-men will follow your lead."

"Then I want them to stay away."

"Not gonna happen. Are you done yelling at me yet?" Logan asks with a smile. A very evil looking smile.

"I... I... guess so." I stammer.

"Good then come here. I need to have you in my arms again."

This time when Logan reaches for me, I go willingly and happily.

"Damn, but you're addictive." Logan says with a growl as his lips claim mine for a very hungry kiss.