Chapter 1
Wade was speechless. Literally.
One moment he was telling a story—one of his best, about his stint at the nunnery—and the next, blood was pouring from his throat. The pain didn't register at first, just the surprise, followed by humiliation: Logan’s claw had slashed right through his vocal cords, cutting Wade off mid-sentence and reducing him to indignant gurgling noises.
“That’s better,” Logan said, his familiar scowl framed strangely by this variant’s deep lines and salt-and-pepper hair. “Your jabbering was giving me a headache.”
Clearly this was not a Logan who was going to help. How many had it been already? Wade had lost count. In any case, it was time to head back to his universe, lick his wounds and come up with a different plan. Keeping his eyes fixed on Weird Old Fucker Logan, Wade fumbled with the TVA device he was still holding in his hands. Where was that emergency back-button again? With his throat slashed open and the gut wound from the shotgun, he was losing blood too quickly. It was getting hard to think. Finally he heard the familiar sound effect, and the door to what he hoped was his home dimension opened behind him.
God, he really hoped it was a portal home and not to yet another unhinged version of Logan. He really wasn’t in the condition to deal with more of that right now.
He wished he could say something quippy. Thanks for nothing, old fucker. Pathetic. Even his imaginary quips were suffering from the blood loss. He took a step back, felt the usual static-electricity-like thing emanating from the portal. Just one more step and he was—hopefully—safe.
Just then Logan got up from his porch chair. Considering all the damage he’d managed to do sitting down, this was not a good sign.
Wade raised his hands, as if to say, I’m leaving. No need to disembowel me any further. But for some reason he was still standing there, mute and bleeding out.
Run, a voice inside him screamed.
His legs weren’t listening.
“Drop it,” Logan said. His voice was low and cigar-smoke-rough.
That was just the blood loss talking. Or the daddy issues.
Fuck, Wade thought.
In a flash, he saw Logan grab his shotgun by its barrel and swing. His last thought before the butt of the shotgun crashed into his skull was about his universe and how it was currently running out of time while he traipsed across dimensions like an idiot. Then everything went black.