The helicopter had gotten us to New York. After that, everything got harder.
I crouched in shadow forty yards from the Xavier Institute's gates, muscles coiled with predatory stillness. Beside me, Adrian stood with binoculars pressed to his eyes, his breathing barely audible even to my enhanced hearing.
Twenty-three days of surveillance. He'd mapped every pattern, catalogued every security rotation, compiled threat assessments with the same methodical precision he applied to everything.
And one target: Logan. Wolverine. The man whose DNA I shared.
My genetic template. The closest thing to a parent I had left, now that Dr. Kinney—now that my mother was dead.
"He's leaving," I murmured.
Adrian shifted focus. Through the gate, a stocky figure in worn jeans and a leather jacket strode toward a motorcycle, keys jangling. Even from this distance, I could see the predatory economy of movement, the combat-ready posture disguised as casual swagger.
Dangerous. Extremely dangerous.
But then, so was I. So was Adrian.
"We follow," I said.
Adrian nodded once, already moving.
The motorcycle headed north. We stole a car—third one in three weeks—and maintained distance. Adrian drove while I monitored, my enhanced senses tracking what his eyes couldn't.
I watched him as he drove. Pale silver eyes focused, hands relaxed on the wheel, white hair catching the passing streetlights. There was something... grounding about being near him. Like the world made more sense when he was beside me. Like I didn't have to carry everything alone.
We'd survived the facility together. Fought together. Escaped together.
Now we were hunting together.
"He's not trying to lose us," I noted after the first hour.
Adrian said nothing, but I saw the slight tightening around his eyes. He'd noticed too. No evasive maneuvers. No sudden turns. Just steady progress toward the Canadian border.
He knows we're here, I thought. Of course he does. Those enhanced senses weren't just mine.
The bike pulled off the highway near a wooded area. Remote. No witnesses.
"Tactical choice," Adrian said.
"Good place for a confrontation." I continued.
"Should we—"
"Continue." I cut him off. He nodded in response.
We parked a quarter-mile back and approached on foot. The sun had set an hour ago. Darkness settled between the trees like black water.
I moved silent as death itself, the way the Facility had trained me. Adrian controlled his breathing, footfalls landing on mapped terrain—avoiding dry leaves, stepping on moss, distributing weight evenly.
Different training. Same result.
The scent of cigar smoke reached me first. Tobacco, leather, and something underneath—a scent that was disturbingly, impossibly familiar. Like looking in a mirror but smelling instead of seeing.
Then his voice, gravel-rough and utterly calm: "Caught your scent about an hour ago. You two gonna skulk around all night, or we gonna talk?"
Adrian stopped immediately. I could practically see him calculating escape routes, attack vectors, threat levels. Always thinking. Always planning.
It was why I felt safe with him. Even now, facing the unknown, I knew he was already three steps ahead.
I tensed, claws still retracted but muscles coiled. Ready.
Wolverine sat on a fallen log twenty feet ahead, cigar glowing orange in the darkness. He didn't look at us. Just stared into the trees, relaxed but ready. A predator in his element.
Like me.
"Come on out," he said. "Ain't gonna bite. Not unless you give me a reason to."
I glanced at Adrian. His jaw was tight, pale eyes fixed on Wolverine with that analytical intensity that meant he was already running scenarios.
He met my gaze. Didn't say anything—he rarely did—but I read the question there anyway.
Your call.
Always my call, when it came to Wolverine. This was my mission he was just following my lead.
I took one step forward.
Then another.
Adrian followed, maintaining tactical spacing, hands loose at his sides. I didn't need to see them to know he'd already positioned strings throughout the clearing—invisible, positioned at throat height, wrist level, strategic chokepoints.
Protecting me. Like always.
Wolverine finally turned his head. His eyes—eerily similar to mine, I realized with a jolt—scanned us both with the kind of assessment I recognized. Combat veteran. Survivor. Someone who'd seen too much and lived anyway.
His gaze lingered on me. Something flickered across his weathered features. Recognition? Confusion?
My heart hammered against my ribs. This was it. The moment I'd been planning for, hunting toward, since Dr. Kinney had told me about him.
"Well," he said slowly, taking a long drag from his cigar. "Ain't you two a surprise."
I turned back to face Wolverine. I didn't think. Didn't plan. Just moved.
My claws erupted from my knuckles with the familiar snikt that had soundtracked my entire existence. Three strides closed the distance. Wolverine was already rising, his own claws sliding free—six gleaming adamantium blades catching moonlight.
Our first clash sent sparks showering into the darkness.
Fast. He was impossibly fast for someone his age, his build. Every move economical, brutal, refined by decades of combat. But I'd been made from him. Designed to be what he was, only better.
I ducked under his right cross, drove my claws toward his ribs. He twisted, caught my wrist with his free hand, threw me sideways into a tree. Bark exploded against my spine.
Pain registered. Irrelevant.
I bounced off, launched myself low, went for his legs. He vaulted over me—showed off—and I spun mid-recovery, slashing at his back. Connected. Three parallel cuts, deep, dark blood soaking his shirt.
"Kid, I don't know what—"
I didn't let him finish. As I continued to press the attack.