𝖆𝖓𝖎𝖒𝖆 𝖎𝖒𝖒𝖔𝖗𝖙𝖆𝖑𝖊 ━ 𝖑𝖔𝖌𝖆𝖓 𝖍𝖔𝖜𝖑𝖊𝖙𝖙

𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 1

American Civil War, Somewhere in the North - 1862

"What's your name, girl?"

"Verena De Luca," she felt small in this room, crowded by large men in uniforms.

"How old are you?"

"I'm 22, sir."

"You don't look it. You from the North?"

"Yes, sir."

"Alright, you'll be stationed here as a nurse in the medical tent. One of the nurses there will help you. Welcome to the Union, young lady."

Verena's first week was stressful, to say the least. Treating wounds of injured soldiers, bandaging, stitching, just to send them back out again. She had seen so much blood in so little time, she was beginning to grow tired of it. Until a soldier, who was hit by a cannon, came into the med tent on a stretcher. He was assigned to her, as no one thought he would make it.

She was tending to him, wrapping his chest with a bandage in hopes of securing his ribs, which she couldn't tell were broken or not. She had just finished wrapping when he woke up with a deep gasp of breath and sat up, his hand shooting for her wrist, and three long claws came out of his hand.

At the sight, she took a sharp breath. His claws, exactly like hers—three claws, made of bone, that shot out of his knuckles. They stared at each other for a moment. His eyes narrowed slightly, a flicker of suspicion crossing his face as he looked down at his hand latched onto her wrist. After a tense beat, he retracted his claws.

"Did I hurt you?" he said, his voice low and gravelly.

Verena just stood there, staring in shock.

"Hey," he said, snapping his fingers in her face. "I asked if you're okay."

She blinked, pulled out of her trance. None of the nurses saw the interaction, the pair hidden behind a white-stained curtain.

"You're just like me," she said, an accent spilling from her lips, almost as if a melody was played on the tip of her tongue.

He chuckled, but there was a cautious edge to it, like he was testing the waters. "Ain't no one like me, kid."

Instead of responding, Verena let her claws pierce through her knuckles. She hissed at the sensation, blood slowly dripping from the spots. The soldiers's eyes darkened with a mix of curiosity and wariness. He'd never met anyone like him before, not even his brother.

For a moment, he didn't move. Then, slowly, he raised a finger and slid it along the bone protruding from her knuckles. A breathy chuckle escaped him, though his eyes remained sharp. "Guess you're exactly like me, after all."

Verena noticed his gaze drop momentarily to the small silver cross resting against her collarbone, just visible beneath the edge of her dress. It was an old, tarnished thing, a relic from her past that she couldn't quite bring herself to abandon, even as she faced this strange new reality. The weight of it seemed to anchor her to something she could barely remember believing in.

"I'm not a kid by the way. I'm 22," she said, more firmly now.

"Could've fooled me."

"The healing thing, it slows the aging process a little."

Logan nodded, but the weight of this new knowledge settled heavily on him. He had spent years believing he was a freak, an outlier in the world. Meeting someone who shared his mutation—someone who could be just as dangerous—set off every alarm bell in his mind. Trust wasn't something he gave easily, especially not to someone he'd just met. And yet, there was something about her, something familiar. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that getting too close to her might complicate things in ways he wasn't prepared for.