The Wolverine & The Black Cat

19 // You Can't Punch the Past

C H A P T E R   19 :   Y O U   C A N ' T   P U N C H   T H E   P A S T

"I can see every tear you've cried
Like an ocean in your eyes
All the pain and the scars have left you cold

I can see all the fears you face
Through a storm that never goes away
Don't believe all the lies that you've been told

I'll be right here now to hold you when the sky falls down
I will always be the one that took your place
When the rain falls, I won't let go
I'll be right here"

"So I think if I had to choose a time when I felt happy, it was those years." I continued. "Yes, I still had a rough time in school, but I was changing. I was growing confident. Despite everything else, I felt happy. I was recovering from the blows life had inflicted upon me and I truly believed there was a brighter future ahead of me. And then when I was fourteen... I died and someone else was born inside me. Something else started wearing this skin. My nightmare was about that... the night I became an orphan. We were in a robbery, my father and I. Just the two of us and all the happiness in the world. And then one single bullet crushed all of that in a matter of seconds. Gosh, that's why... that's why I hate guns. I can still see the blood, I can smell its scent, I can..."

My lower lip started trembling and the tears started falling down my face uncontrollably. I couldn't stop the flood. I couldn't bring him back.

"Felicia, you don't..." Logan said, and his voice was drenched in something sad too. I felt glad that he made no motion to approach me. I needed space, and he understood. "You don't have to tell me."

"I know. But I want to." I wiped the tears away as best as I could. My voice could be shaky, but as long as I had one, I'd keep talking. I needed to banish this from myself. I needed to send my pain into exile. "I watched powerlessly as my father collapsed to the floor and died in front of me. There was nothing I could do to help him. I was completely powerless again, and this time it hurt so much more because it was so unexpected. There had been no warnings, no time to prepare myself for the blow. At first I thought they were cops and that we had been caught, but when the men approached us... I knew they weren't. I'd never seen so much cruelty in somebody's faces. I didn't know yet monsters could be found in human bodies. But as soon as I discovered, I never forgot."

I closed my eyes, my fingers clasping my arms as if to protect myself. I was shaking from anger now. I wondered if one could die from its overload.

"God, Felicia..." Logan muttered, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose in a gesture of despair. I saw how he felt helpless at that moment as well. How he wished he could do something to take the pain away from me. I was glad he didn't ask me the identity of the men. Perhaps he already knew; perhaps he already knew a lot of this. But hearing the story in the first person was always more devastating.

"Those are two words that don't match." I said bitterly. "The men grabbed me, pulled me away from my father and threw me inside a car, blindfolded. I was so terrified, but at the same time that feeling was numb. All I could really distinguish was rage. Rage that never left me from that day on. I tried to fight them, but they drugged me with something so I wouldn't move or struggle during the trip. When I... when I woke up, I was in some kind of lab. Trapped in a stretcher, where I would remain for so long. I was simply in another kind of prison, and I wondered if it was punishment for my flaws, errors and crimes. I wondered if I was such a bad person, if I deserved it."

"No." Logan interrupted me, absolutely furious. I had seen many sides to his fury, but never this one. It was like he would smash the world in his hands if he could. "Don't you dare think that. You didn't deserve it."