Marie looked down and saw Logan's body lying off to her right. Frantically, she turned him on his back. His breathing was ragged and sounded wet, but he had a strong pulse. As she watched, blood bubbled and blossomed on his lips. He was wounded!

She knew she'd been shot, and she remembered seeing him jump in front of her right when it happened. Unzipping his jacket, she saw the blood. He had a wound to the right side of his chest. Rolling him on his side, she saw the blood pouring from his back. Pulling up his jacket and shirts, she found a palm-sized exit wound just to the left of his spine.

'This is bad. This is real bad.' she thought, as she pulled off his jacket and outer flannel shirt. She ripped the shirt in half, using one bunched up piece to cover his chest wound and the other to cover his back wound, then she tied them tight to his body using the jacket.

~Marie, run!~ the Logan in her mind commanded.

"No!" she said aloud. Then thought quietly. 'I can't leave you. I won't leave you.'

~You can't carry me. If you don't leave, we'll both be caught.~

He was right. Her shirt was soaked with blood, and they'd left a trail as he'd carried her. Now with Logan injured as he was, there was no way to drag him far without attracting attention. She needed a car.

~The cops are back by our car already,~ Logan told her.

That settled it. She needed to steal a car, but how? It was a quiet Saturday morning, but people were already out in their yards. How could she take a car without detection? She'd never done anything close to that.

Going through the memories of the people in her mind, she became more and more hopeless. David had naive ideas, based on bad TV cop shows, but nothing that she could use. Erik had never stolen a car, and although the idea seemed familiar to Logan he had no concrete memories of how to do it. Then, she felt John's memories: John Price, police lieutenant, husband, father of three. His wife called him Johnny. They'd been high school sweethearts. He knew how criminals stole cars.

He was furious at her. He was human, and she knew that he would never recover from her touch. He would end up like David. He screamed and railed against her, but Logan helped her keep him down and under control. She forced herself past his hatred to search through his memories.

~Find an apartment complex or a parking lot with a lot of cars.~

She was in a residential neighborhood, about 10 blocks away from her house. There was a grocery store one block away. She could go there and come back for Logan, but she was afraid there wouldn't be time. The police were probably already looking for them.

She dragged Logan behind a rubbish heap from someone's Fall pruning hoping that he would stay hidden until her return. After kissing the top of his head, she turned and ran the block to the Smith's store.

~Check inside the cars. The easiest way to steal a car is to take one with the keys already inside.~

She ran from car to truck to mini-van looking for keys in the ignition, on the seat, or hidden behind the driver's side sun visor.

'What's the matter with these people? Aren't there any trusting souls out there anymore?' she thought as she came across locked cars or cars with no keys.

Finally, she found a '76 Buick station wagon with the keys under the sun visor. The owner probably thought that no one would bother to steal this behemoth. Under normal circumstances, he would probably be right, but she was desperate.

Speeding back to the house where Logan was hiding, she jumped out of the car and dragged him to the passenger seat. As she shut the door, she heard the screams.

"Stop right there!"

"Halt!"

"You're under arrest."

Instead of stopping, she ran around the huge car, jumped in the driver's seat, and gunned the engine.

She heard the helicopter overhead, and felt John laughing inside her. ~They've got you now. They'll follow you with the chopper and set up a roadblock wherever you go. You might as well give up now.~

Logan growled in her head at the police officer. ~I've escaped from tougher places than this. We'll make it, Marie.~

For her part, Marie just drove and worried. The makeshift bandages weren't doing much to stop the real Logan's bleeding. Blood was already puddling on the vinyl seat beneath his body. He coughed and blood dribbled from his lips. The bullet must've hit a lung. It could've even hit both of them, judging from the way the entrance wound was on his right side and the exit wound was on his left. She had to get him help. She wished Jean was here.

Soon she was distracted by the sirens behind her, closing fast. She'd gotten on the freeway, but the old Buick was rattling at 75 mph and she felt if she went any faster, the rusted out, old heap would fall apart. What was she thinking when she picked this car? Oh yeah, she was thinking that she didn't have a choice.

As she came over the next hill, she saw the cars in front of her put on their breaks. A road block covering all three lanes lay about five miles ahead.

Slowing down, she tried to cross the divider between the North and South-bound lanes, but the Buick bottomed out at the deepest part of the divider and wouldn't move another inch.

Swear words flooded her mind like water as both her and Logan fumed at their failure to escape. Erik even threw in some Polish curses for good measure.

~Surrender now, and they might not kill you.~ John warned, a touch of satisfaction in his mental voice.

Logan growled, but agreed that she should follow the cop's advice. He didn't want her hurt.

A voice boomed through a megaphone. "Get out of the car with your hands up."

Marie complied, slowly opening the door and keeping her hands in the air at all times in the universal sign of surrender.

"Where is your accomplice?" the disembodied voice asked.

"He's hurt! He's unconscious!" Marie yelled back.

"Walk away from the car."

Marie complied, even though it hurt her to leave Logan, injured and bleeding, behind. If either of them were to have a chance, she had to do exactly what she was told. John's voice in her head kept reminding her that she'd hurt a cop, and they didn't look kindly on those kind of criminals.

"Get down on the ground."

Marie lay face down on the ground. Her arms above her head.

She could hear them now, feet running through the tall grass of the freeway divider. They broke into two groups: one heading for the car and one for her.

"I'm a mutant. Don't touch my skin," she warned in a loud, clear voice, not wanting a repeat of the earlier, aborted arrest.

They were prepared for her, though. A large man straddled her body, and she felt strong, gloved hands grab her left wrist and wrench her arm behind her back. The handcuffs, still clamped around her wrist from this morning, jangled. The man atop her used the cuffs, yanking her right hand down to join the left and fastening it there.

Then she felt herself being pulled to her feet. Turning around, she could see Logan's body being pulled from the vehicle by the other group of officers. His face was a gray shade of pale, and he hung limply from their arms. She felt her heart stop for a second in fear for him.

"Please, you have to help him," she begged the cops on either side of her, who were leading her up to the road.

"We don't have to do anything. Now shut your trap, or we'll shut it for you," one of the officers said, emphasizing his point by strengthening his grip on her arm.