At first, I just stuck with him because I was scared. He had fed me, and he was another mutant, and I needed to cling to something so badly that I just chose him. By the time I realized what a serious choice I'd made, I was already in too deep to get back out.

And I didn't want to.

I'd seen him fighting in the cage at the bar. I only came inside the bar to get out of the cold and ask for a glass of water, but then I'd seen him. He was...

Lordy, I don't want to say he was the most gorgeous thing I'd ever seen, except he was. I cowered in the corner and avoided eye contact, and he took on men twice his size in a cage with no shirt on and a belt buckle bigger'n Texas.

I never really wanted to touch anyone before that. Even Cody had just been a nervous curiosity. But I wanted to touch this man. Not sexually, not like that, not yet. I just wanted to touch him, the way normal people want to touch movie stars, hoping their beauty would rub off on them.

But I knew touching him would be far more dangerous than that, and I still wanted it anyway. It was a selfish desire, wanting a piece of all that confidence and strength for myself.

So I stared at him. At the time, the only thing I could think to compare him to was chocolate cake. It wasn't sexual yet, and that simple sort of longing was all I had to compare my feelings to. I didn't know what it was like to want a man then, so I just sent him desperate little looks like I was starving.

He must have picked up on it because he gave me a burger. As if I was hungry for the stupid food. Why would I need to eat when I could stare at him instead? But he didn't look at me or even slow down, and he disappeared into his truck before I could finish looking at him. I never got tired of looking at him.

It wasn't until he was gone that I realized I really did need to eat something, and he had fed me without asking for anything in return. I wondered if he had mistaken me for one of the dogs that hung around the alley. Guys like him didn't waste their time with little girls like me, and when they did, they always wanted something in return.

Then I overheard him tell the manager he planned to leave after his next fight, and I panicked. I only wanted to look at him a little bit longer, figure out what made him so special. I had hitched rides before anyway, and I tried to tell myself that this wouldn't be any different just because it was him.

He didn't even have to know I was there, I could just hide in the back of his truck. I might be fascinated with him, and he may not have asked for anything for the burger, but I had learned the hard way not to get in trucks with older men who seemed nice. He even had a tarp I could hide under. It was the perfect plan.

Until those damn Canadian rednecks followed him back to his truck. I just knew he had to be a mutant from the way he fought and never seemed to get hurt, and they must have guessed the same. I didn't plan on doing anything but staying hidden at first. He could obviously handle himself, and I wasn't about to put myself in the middle of a drunken brawl.

But when I heard that first gunshot, I forgot all about that plan. He couldn't die, not in a parking lot. It just seemed so wrong that the first person to show me kindness after my parents kicked me out would get himself killed over being a mutie. A mutant like me.

I had never been in a real fight before, the kind that involved fists rather than drunken gropes. I took my gloves off because it was the only way I could think of that someone as small as me could stop a man with a gun. Then I just sorta threw myself at him. His voice screamed into my mind, and I tried to scream back, but I couldn't even breathe.

The next thing I knew, I was in the cab of a truck and the man was driving. I must have been out of it for a while, trying to get the voices back under control, because we were nowhere near Laughlin City. I hoped he hadn't heard me muttering.

"Yah should put yah seatbelt on." I said, just to say something.

And it was true. I didn't save his life just for him to die in a car accident. He scowled at me, and I only managed to keep eye contact because I couldn't stop staring at his face. It was the first time I had ever been so close to him. He turned his gaze back to the road, giving me a great view of his profile. My fingers twitched with the urge to sketch him.

A few miles later, he reached over and put his seatbelt on like it had been his idea all along, still not talking to me. His sudden movement reminded me that I was staring, and that was rude, so I looked out the window instead.

Canada is really boring to look at, especially when there was a large, hairy man sitting next to me with mutton chops that couldn't possibly be true. Thank the good Lord he was wearing a shirt again or I would have spent the entire ride with my jaw in my lap. When Canada got too boring, I stared at the dashboard, my boots, my hands, anything but him.

He shifted gears, and I looked. So much for not being rude, because I couldn't help staring at his hands. I had seen just a flash of metal spiking out through them before I touched that man and passed out. I didn't know what they were, but they had looked wicked and painful.

"Does it hurt?"

He scowled at me again, and I wished for the thousandth time in my life that I could just learn to keep my big mouth shut. But I had already started, so I might as well finish.

"When those things come out. Does it hurt yah?" I asked again.

Claws shot out of his knuckles with an odd sound, and I jumped.

"Every time." He growled.

They slid back in as fast as they'd popped out, and he looked back at the road. Talking time must be over now. Probably shouldn't have even begun. I was dying to know where we were going and why he had taken me with him and if he was going to let me out at the next town. But there wasn't much I could do about any of that, so I might as well shut up and try not to piss him off.

He pulled into a hotel and went inside. I considered getting out of the truck half a dozen times. He hadn't locked it or anything, hadn't even said anything to me. But I didn't know where I was, and it was cold outside, and my head hurt like it had been kicked by a horse.

And I was curious. I was a stupid, curious little girl who didn't know what she was getting herself into. He came back before I could really gather my courage and commit to a decision, stay or go, and he took that decision from me when he yanked the door open and yanked me out.

He practically dragged me into the room after him, but he let go of my arm when he took his shirt off, careful not to spill anything from the bottle he held. I stumbled backwards, and he growled that he wouldn't hurt me, but I had heard that before. I thought about just turning around and taking off, out the door. I doubted I would get far if he chased me though, and it wasn't like I had anywhere else to go.

When he turned around, I gasped at the bloody mess on his wife beater. I thought the redneck missed. The man paused just a half second, and I realized I had said something like that out loud. He didn't reply though, just ordered me to get the pliers he had thrown on the bed and come into the bathroom.

I was nervous, and I didn't know what he wanted me to do. Seeing him sitting there, drinking like the sort of men my mother used to warn me about when she still cared made me flinch. He told me what to do though, and I cleaned the blood off his back.

Then he told me to dig out the pieces of what must have been the bullet with the pliers. Apparently, tweezers are for pussies. I was glad he couldn't see me blush when he said that word.

I had to use the pliers to cut into his back to get to the bullet pieces, but at least I wasn't squeamish. I got the biggest one out alright, but it took a while to get the smaller pieces. I saw one last bigger piece of metal and pulled on it, and everything went to hell.

His back arched like he was in The Exorcism, and his skin touched the bare patch of my skin between my gloves and my sleeve. His voice came roaring into my head, two of them in one night. I tried to pull away, shove him off of me, but we were both frozen with pain.

Finally, he slumped forward and broke the contact. I worried that I had hurt him, the way I always hurt people, there was so much pain in his voice. I hadn't given the redneck with a gun a second thought, but I moved around until I could see this man, to make sure he was okay.

He screamed in my face, but the voice in my head wasn't angry, just hurt. I deserved to be yelled at anyway, and I pulled my hand back away from his face. I was sure the last thing he wanted right now was to be touched by me.

I looked back up at him and realized I was kneeling between his legs on the dirty bathroom floor in a motel. I didn't know much, but I had seen enough movies and stolen memories to have a vague idea of where this could be heading, so I jumped to my feet. He stood up, but I didn't have time to back up any further before he turned and walked out.

His back was completely healed. I was just glad he was okay and not on lifesupport, even if I couldn't quite believe he was really okay.

He told me to take a shower, and I took my sweet time about it. I didn't even really shower, just turned the water on and curled up in the bathtub. My head hurt so badly, and the voices were all screaming in their rooms. His new voice was prowling around in there too.

That was the only word I could think of to describe it: prowling. I tried to make him go in a locked up room the way I had forced the other one to do. I had gotten good enough at it that I could literally do it in my sleep, although that might have something to do with the way a person's subconscious was closer to the surface in a dreaming state. But this voice refused to be locked up, roaring so loudly I whimpered and thrashed my head back and forth.

Water. Drowning. Breathe, can't breathe!

I collected myself enough to turn my face out of the spray of the water and the voice calmed down a bit. I thought I could make him be quiet then, but he just started fighting back again. The other voices seemed to sense that I was weakening, and the redneck started shouting and pounding on the door of his room too. His voice was loudest because it was newest, and I hadn't been dealing with him as long.

For one horrifying moment, I thought they would finally take over completely. But then there was another angry roar, and his voice was fighting the voices with me. I couldn't quite understand what he was screaming back at the other voices. Sometimes it was words and sometimes just feelings. I thought I would see him as a man in my mind, Logan, but it seemed totally natural that I was imagining a wolf instead.

My territory! I am Alpha! SUBMIT!

When the mental onslaught finally stopped, it was just me and him, in the long corridor of rooms where I stored the voices. I could feel him circling around in my mind, and he really did look like a wolf. I wanted him quiet like the others, and I knew I couldn't afford to give up control, but I also knew he would never agree to be locked up. And he was such a beautiful animal, it almost seemed wrong to do it.

Hey there...good doggy...?

I usually refused to talk to the voices in my head just on general principle, and I had no idea how to address a wolf. But if wolves could smirk in amusement, this one did.

Wolverine. Submit.

No, this is MAH mind.

Submit!

No, Ah—

His roar cut me off and made my teeth chatter. I decided to change tactics because I clearly couldn't just overpower him. If I wasn't careful, he could end up overpowering me.

And then what? Yah really want tah run around as a thirteen year old girl?

Sulky silence.

Jus'...calm down. Ah won't try tah put yah in a room if yah help me, Ah promise. An' yah were doing such a good job at it...

A little bit of flattery never hurt a man...wolf. Man-wolf. Wolverine, I guess.

Protect ya?

Wolverine prowled around my mental image of myself, nose raised up high. He looked like he was smelling me, and I tried not to project the nerves that I felt.

Yes...?

Ya fought fer us. Cleaned us. Took care of us.

Each circle that Wolverine made around me brought him closer. It should have scared me even more, but I was too curious about the word "us."

Me and my human.

I never got used to the voices knowing exactly what I was thinking. That's why I liked the rooms. They were the only way for me to get any sort of privacy. But I was still really curious, so I imagined a quick glimpse of the man version of him. The wolf snuffed like he had just smelled something particularly bad and was personally offended by it.

Stupid human. Ya got me. I fight fer him.

Will yah fight for me?

No cages!

I winced. No cages or rooms, but yah can't jus' keep yellin' at me all the time.

The wolf finally nuzzled his nose against my hand, but before I could pet him, he turned and trotted away. I followed him down to the end of the corridor, where the rooms suddenly ended and it was just the blank space of my mind. I could feel him thinking about trees and snow and open spaces, so I tried hard to imagine what little I had seen of Canada from out the window.

I managed to make something that might pass for a forest and decided this would be Wolverine's space. It wasn't the neat, boxed up room I wanted to keep his voice in, but he had helped me, and I had made a promise. The voices were quiet, and the forest suddenly seemed peaceful, almost beautiful with all the fresh snow drifting down.

Just call if ya need me, kit.

Mah name is Rogue!

I didn't even feel cold. In fact, I felt warm.

Nah, yah ain't even a kit. Yer jest a kitling. A doe.

Oh yeah, well yeh jus' a mangy mu—

And wet. And—

The shower spray sputtered and suddenly turned cold. I bit back a yelp at the sudden temperature change and rushed to turn the water off.

The rest of the night pretty much passed in a blur. I sat in the bathtub in a daze until the man demanded I came out, then I had pizza. Three whole slices! I was still pretty shell shocked from the new voice running wild in my head. But I still knew that nothing ever came for free.

I asked him how I needed to pay. If I played along, I could drop him the second he touched my skin. I already had his voice in my head, and the wolf didn't act like he would quiet down and be tamed the way all the others eventually had. One more touch wouldn't hurt...

...me.

The man told me to shut up—actually, he said it worse than that—and get in the bed. The wolf in my head growled that he wouldn't hurt a little kitling like me, that I wasn't worth his time. And that I would never be able to hurt him anyway, although he seemed almost impressed that I would try. It wasn't exactly reassuring, but he was right. The man laid down in his own bed and never tried to get into mine.

I slept peacefully for the first time in months.

A/N: If you haven't read my other story from Logan's POV, The Big Bad Wolf, just know that this story is the companion fic to it. They're basically the same story, but from two different POVs. There will be some "new content" in this story though. A few things that I glossed over in The Big Bad Wolf will be explained in more detail here, like the first time Marie sees Logan have a nightmare.

You don't have to read both fics, but of course I encourage you to do so and to review for both of them! The Big Bad Wolf updates every Monday, and I want to update this story at least every Wednesday. Until I get caught up with BBW though, I'll post extra updates on Friday. Once the two stories are caught up, BBW will update on Monday, with this story giving Marie's POV of what just happened on Wednesday.

So that's how this is going to work. Let me know if you like this story, if you like hearing from Marie, or if you're confused about something!