The stone step was cold beneath him, and he wished either John or his son had shoes in his size, but no, of course not; that had been asking too much. He was lucky to have found some clothes that fit him.

He wanted to pass out. The raw rage and adrenaline that had been fueling him had dwindled; everything in his body was screaming for rest, and he had to fight it, and the fight was draining. Logan had a feeling if he let his body have its way, he might not be conscious for a long time, and he wanted to finish this. Maybe if he had truly known how pathetic Hayes was, he could have let himself rest.

He knew he had to get up and go before he just collapsed here, and he forced himself to move, to stand up, when he heard a single gunshot inside the house.

John had finally found the wherewithal to kill himself. Two days late and a dollar fucking short, the dickhead.

Logan made his way across the dewy grass, soothing to his newly healed feet, to the front gate. He heard  the dog - what did Hayes call him? Duke? What an awful name - still whimpering, hiding beneath a privet hedge. He hadn't meant to scare it so badly, but he was in a fucking world of hurt and rage and had no time to fuck around with it. As he opened the gate, he decided to leave it open, so Duke could escape. He was probably better off with the neighbors or animal control than a dead owner, and if he was really freaked when the cops finally came around, they might have to shoot him. It was the only kindness he could offer the beast, who had no decision in who came to own it.

Logan only had to walk up the road, as he had parked his truck at the head of the street, off to one side. He hadn't wanted Hayes to hear him coming, but he doubted now he was that observant. Still, when he intended to get the drop on someone, he didn't take chances.

He couldn't believe he was able to drive in his condition - there was blood all over the front seat. His blood, which always smelled extra metallic to him, like the adamantium was somehow leeching into it, trying to take over the very cellular structure of his plasma. He still got into the driver's seat, ignoring the squelch of blood, and just drove. He had no direction in mind, no destination - like always, he just wanted to be away.

He drove until his vision became blurry, until headlights became smears of light on the windshield, and he was sorry Calgary seemed to have no forests at all. Even in a car, forests were a good place to hide, get lost. He was an expert at finding places where nobody cared.

He drove past a stadium that, according to its neon signboard, seemed mainly to exist as a venue for rodeos and country western concerts. Well, yeehaw, because it was surrounded by large parking lots.

He found what seemed to be a relatively secure spot, hard to see from the road, and parked his truck. He had just finished locking the doors when he collapsed onto the bloody cab seat. He pulled down the flannel shirt he had taken off earlier and used it as a sort of paltry blanket, covering his chest, trapping the heat of his fevered healing close to his aching body.

It was the last thing he remembered doing before he lost consciousness, finally giving in to the dark tide of exhaustion swamping him, and he wondered if it would ever make all the pain go away.

16

No pain this time, no violence, so it seemed immediately wrong. He was in a soft bed, covered by cotton sheets so sleek they were almost silk, and he felt half asleep but remarkably good. He could tell by smell it was a woman's bed, a woman he would swear he didn't know, and yet her scent seemed to make his stomach clench, turn to stone, ramp his heartbeat up double time. Suddenly he could feel her pressed against his back, her face nuzzling the nape of his neck, her breath warm against his skin.

Of course it felt good, but he knew - in the part of himself that should be conscious and awake - that this was bad. In the dream (?) he was fine, relaxed, but his other self was panicking; it felt like there was a coal ember lodged beneath his breastbone. He did not want to be here - this was bad, this was pain beyond all other pain - he should not be here.

It didn't matter that it made no sense at all - why the memory (?) of a woman who seemed to want him would scare him so much - he woke up with a jolt all the same. He didn't have long to puzzle over it, though, because as soon as he was conscious his kidneys began to ache fiercely; his bladder had absolutely hit critical mass.

It was a struggle to get out of the truck, and he took a monster piss behind the stadium, marveling that the sky was a delicate shade of deep violet, giving way to pink at the edges of the horizon - sunrise? He felt a lot more logy - and restored - than if he'd just slept a few hours. Had he slept an entire day away? No wonder his bladder was about to explode. He should have guessed this would happen - when his body had major healing to do, sometimes it just like to shut down. A little death, he supposed, just not permanent. He must have died a thousand times.

He was starving too, and his tongue felt like a dead thing in his mouth - he seemed to have no saliva at all. Once he got back in his truck, he noticed that his blood had dried to a crust on the seat and on his clothes, and made the whole cab smell metallic. Man, he was going to have to spend a day cleaning up, wasn't he?

He went to a fast food drive in and ordered twenty bucks worth of food, and about a quart of orange juice. He really didn't care that the food was barely edible, and the orange juice had the tinny aftertaste of a concentrate; he was ravenous, and felt dehydrated.

He knew why as he listened to the news on the radio. He hadn't slept one day - he'd slept two. Shit. He didn't know he could do that. Well, he did blow himself up - what did he expect?

There was a continuing investigation into the explosion, and some controversy had sprung up around it, but he had no real interest in it, and tuned it out. He had shut them down - his part in this was done. What the rest of Purity did was up to them, but considering how easily they were laid low by a single mutant, he bet they'd reconsider their next moves.

He was able to sneak into a store before they noticed he was barefoot, and buy some new boots before they  realized he hadn't come in with his own. He bought some new clothes, and when the counter girl asked his about all the "rust stains", he dismissed it as paint. People were willing to believe anything as long as you were casual about it.

Logan drove to the seedy side of town, and found a sleazy motel that rented out rooms by the hour. He bought himself an hour and had a nice, long shower, getting rid of the dried blood that coated him like some horrific outbreak of eczema. It didn't matter that the room was so filthy he felt he needed a shower after his shower - it'd have to do.

Once he'd changed into his new clothes, he almost felt like a sentient being again, and headed out to find a self-service car wash. That took longer than he thought, but finally he found one, and cleaned out the front seat as best he could, at least until he got rid of most of the blood smell. He supposed it would always linger a bit, but hell, he could live with it. He'd lived with worse.

Later on, when he was sitting in the newly cleaned cab in a supermarket parking lot, gulping down the six pack of beer he'd just bought for himself, he went over what he had. Not a lot. His funds were almost tapped out, but he figured he'd be okay until he got to the Yukon. Oh, maybe he could get in a "pick up" fight or two along the way in B.C. - he was going to take the longer route, through British Columbia, because there was no way in hell he was fucking around with the mountain pass towns right now - but just for gas money and beer. The big money was in the Yukon, and he might as well waste his time where it earned him the most.

Sitting there, staring out at the every day people doing their mundane tasks, buying groceries and corralling their kids, he wondered if a grudge - if the consumptive desire for revenge - left everyone as pathetic and hollowed out as Hayes in the end. If hate could consume you like a corrosive poison, and taint your entire life.

Was it possible he knew Hayes so well because a part of him was like him? That there was some resonance, no matter how small? Maybe he just wore it better because, in the end, it was helpless to permanently mar him, just like everything else.

No, that couldn't be true; he wasn't like Hayes. This hadn't been about revenge or hate - this had been about stopping these dickheads in their tracks, and about getting some measly kind of justice for Fidget. Shit, he'd almost forgotten about Fidget. How ironic - he wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for him.

Did it matter? Purity was finished, and the man that had probably ordered his death had stuck a gun barrel in his empty eye socket and painted the den with his brains. If that wasn't exactly justice, it was the next best thing, wasn't it?

He reached for the keys in the ignition and then stopped. Shit shit shit! No, he was not going to do that! He had no obligations - what he decided to do he had done; he was through, out, over.

Oh, goddamn it. He hated himself sometimes - he really, really did.

17

It was an unseasonably chilly day, but sunny, and birdsong filled the air as she shuffled through the usual dreary assortment of bills, notices, and junk mail.For a long time she had checked the mailbox eagerly, hoping for some kind of letter or postcard from Gordon - wherever he was - but after ten months of nothing but crushed hopes, she had given up. He was never writing, he was never coming home. She supposed she had come to accept that now, but it was no less defeating. Maybe they weren't a perfect family, and maybe Mitch could be too hard on him, but was that any reason to drop out of school and abandon your family entirely? He was stubborn, just like his father. Perhaps she should have expected this all along.

It was when she was closing the door of the little metal mailbox - Kean stenciled on its side in black block letters - that a folded square of paper fell from the stack of bills and drifted to the cement driveway.

She looked at it curiously before bending down to pick it up, glancing up and down the street in case someone had just thrown it in their box. But there was no one out on the sidewalks now, just Mr. Montand walking his Scottish terrier, and they were on the opposite side of the street and rather far away.

A note from the mailman? There was no writing on the outside at all; obviously it hadn't been mailed. It was just a square of torn off notepad paper, nothing special, although she could see black ink shadows through the thin paper.

She unfolded it warily, and found there was little written on the page, and all of it was at the top. In writing that was surprisingly angular and very unfamiliar, it read, in its entirety: "Gordon was a good kid. Don't let anyone tell you different." The note was unsigned.

Deborah stared at it for the longest time, as if trying to read between the two terse sentences, until her eyes grew blurry with tears. Was - past tense. Did they just mean he was before he ran away, or did they mean ... no, they couldn't mean that. Could they?

But didn't she suspect that? Didn't something in her tell her he was dead?

This could be some horrible joke, a prank, a cruel trick ... but why? And why now?

She sat down on the cold driveway and cried, clutching the note in her hand, and not really caring how foolish she looked. Maybe this note was proof of something, proof that maybe he had a friend out there who had never abandoned him.

The best thing she could hope for was that her Gordon hadn't died alone.

****

THE  END