A/N: This chapter here is the new chapter one, and the update for this week. The chapter that I first posted on Saturday is going to end up being chapter 3, so new readers should think of it as a "preview" of what's to come. I'll post the second chapter that builds a bit of the back story and links the two together next week.

So sorry for all of the confusion! I'm still trying to figure out how I want this story to work, but I think I've got it down now, so this shouldn't happen again.

At first, I just kept her around because I was being selfish. But by the time I realized what had happened, it was already too late to give her up.

The Wolverine had found its mate.

Which was bullshit, because I specifically thought I wouldn't have to deal with that asshole sniffing around her because she was so young. But he just had to rear his fugly old head just when I thought I had got that shit under control.

And then I was far too gone caring for a little girl that was far too young.

The worst part was that she only ever asked about it once, asked why I gave her a ride and some food, and she never questioned it again after that. Never asked why a grown ass man would tote around a little girl, never asked why I always had to know where she was, never even asked about the times she caught me looking at her in a way I shouldn't.

She only asked the once, and that was when I first picked her up.

Caught her hiding underneath a tarp in the bed of my pickup actually. Never know when you need a good tarp to wrap up a body.

I'd seen her lurking around the bar a couple nights that week. She was so little and quiet no one really paid attention to her, but I was a natural predator and it was my business to pay attention to everyone around me.

She sent little glances my way too, but I guess she had to pay attention to everyone too, but in a prey sorta way. Only natural that she noticed me most of all, the clear Alpha male of the lot.

I don't even know what made me do it. Probably because of all the little glances, because she was just always fucking there, and it was pissing me off. Maybe if I fed her just one time, I could stop thinking about her pale face and darting eyes.

Didn't even look at her when I did it, just threw the wrapped up burger at her without breaking my stride, the way you'd drop change in a homeless person's cup. She probably wouldn't have taken it if I had slowed down though, given her time to refuse.

The shadows under her eyes seemed a little less pronounced the next night I saw her, so I'm pretty sure she ate it.

That was the night I told the manager I'd be leaving just after my fight. Collect my winnings and go, before the locals got too pissed off at me for winning all the time. She must have heard, because that was also the night she tried to sneak a ride in my truck.

Not sure if she knew the truck was mine or if she just decided to move on the same time as me, but I could smell her nervousness huddled under my tarp. Probably why I wasn't paying attention, and those asshole locals I mentioned caught me off guard.

Same old shit—I won too much, I had cheated, I must be a mutie, blah blah blah. I dealt with the first two, no problem, but the third pulled a gun in the meantime and put a bullet in my back.

Not that it mattered, aside from hurting like a sonofabitch. But when I turned around, he already had the gun aimed at my face, and head shots are a bitch like no fucking other.

Except the little girl hiding beneath the tarp jumped out at him, hands that had always been covered with gloves now bare and pressing against his face, both of them making choking noises like they couldn't breathe.

I didn't know what the fuck was going on, but I knew enough to pull her off of him and not to touch her skin, that much was obvious. It wouldn't be long before the rest of the locals found their unconscious and possibly comatose friends, and that might involve law enforcement, so I threw her in the cab with me and got the hell out of dodge.

Twenty miles in and she had the nerve to sass me about my seat belt. If I didn't know better, I would have thought she cared. But I did, and she couldn't possibly.

I could smell her nervousness, but it wasn't quite fear, even when she looked at my hands. She asked if it hurt, something no one had ever cared about before, and that was where my entire world got fucked over.

I still think if she just hadn't asked that question with worry in her scent and concern in her eyes, then maybe...maybe I could have let her go when we pulled up to a shit hole motel around dawn.

But she did, so I got a room with two beds and hauled her inside, along with a pair of pliers and a bottle of whiskey. I told myself it was just because I needed someone to dig out the lead in my back so the bullet hole could heal up.

She flinched and backpedaled when I took my shirt off. I was so wrapped up in my pain, in myself, I didn't think how it would look to her, especially with me still holding the bottle.

"I ain't gonna hurtcha, kid." I growled.

Yeah, maybe growling at her hadn't been all that reassuring, but I was in pain and a shit mood. She stayed pressed against the door, but she didn't run. I think we both knew it wouldn't have helped her any if she had.

I went in the bathroom to get some towels, and she gasped at the sight of my back. I hoped she wasn't squeamish and puked or something, because I wasn't in the mood to put up with that shit.

"Ah thought he missed."

It was so quiet that only I could have heard it, although I pretended like I didn't and kept walking.

There were only two towels to pick from, both of them stained with fluids I wished I couldn't smell. I ran one under the lukewarm water from the sink and hoped it was a bit cleaner for it.

"Kid. Bring the pliers and get in here."

She edged forward in baby steps and picked up the pliers I'd thrown on one of the beds with my shirt. I watched her take the same tiny steps toward the bathroom and took a long pull from the bottle.

She flinched.

I scowled and sat sideways on the toilet, but I didn't put my bottle down. She crept up behind me and stood there smelling like fear.

"Use the wet towel to wipe the blood off."

It was several seconds before she obeyed, but she got the wet towel out of the sink and put the pliers there instead, then started dabbing at my back. Her brushes were timid at first, but they got firmer just before I could snap at her for it, although they remained oddly gentle.

She stayed still and silent behind me when she was finished.

"You see the metal pieces?" I grunted.

I could see her nod in the mirror out of the corner of my eye.

"Take 'em out."

"Ain't yah supposed to use tweezers?" She whispered.

I snorted. "Tweezers are for pussies."

There was another couple seconds of delay, but once again she obeyed just before my temper snapped. She grabbed the pliers and used the jaws to nudge aside the torn pieces of flesh in the hole in my back.

I growled but didn't raise my arm to take another swig. Bad enough to have some little kid poking around in my back with a pair of pliers without me moving around to make it worse.

The jaws clamped down on a piece of metal, the pressure making it shift ever so slightly, and I clenched my jaw in preparation.

"On three." She told me. "One, two—"

She yanked. I opened my mouth, then bit through my lip to stifle a howl.

"That was the biggest one."

She dropped a jagged metal piece soaked in blood into the sink. It did look like that was most of the bullet, and if I was lucky, the other fragments were few and large.

"There's a lot of littler ones though."

Fuck my luck and fuck my life.

She spent the next ten minutes pulling out tiny fragments of metal and cleaning the wound up when it bled too much. Finally, about a minute passed with no more yanking, although she kept searching just to be sure that was all.

"Oh, ah see another one rah-ght..."

The pliers gripped and pulled, and my body contorted in ways I didn't know it could. I would have howled then, if I had been capable of sucking air into my lungs.

When the black spots of pain left my vision, and I could think clearly again, she was kneeling in front of me.

"Mister? Mister are yah okay? Ah'm sor—"

"That was my fucking spine!" I shouted.

But even with me shouting in her face, her fear didn't get any greater, and she really did look more sorry than scared.

"Ah'm sorry. Ah didn't know." She mumbled.

I just wiped the blood off my chin and took a much needed swig of whiskey. Not that it did any damn good, with my healing factor stopping the alcohol from having any effect. Without the bullet or her pliers in the way, I could feel the muscles in my back begin to knit themselves back together, so it was too late to do anything about it if there was still a piece or two left inside.

I glanced back down at her, and she looked up at me, still kneeling between my legs on the bathroom floor. That sure got her fear going.

She practically leapt to her feet and stood straight enough to be at military attention. I snorted, stood up, and walked out of the bathroom, still drinking.

The gasp she made when she saw my newly healed back that time was smaller than the first, but it made me freeze in the doorway. I turned around and glared at her, sniffing the air because I was certain I had been mistaken.

She still smelled like nerves and fear, but for a second there, I thought I had smelled happiness. As if she was fucking glad that I was okay.

The scent was gone now, if it had ever been there, and me just standing there glaring at her wasn't helping. So I snorted again in an attempt to get her scent out of my nose and walked back out.

She started to trail after me, but I picked up the phone and gestured toward the bathroom with it.

"Take a shower and get yourself cleaned up, kid." I ordered.

She actually managed to maintain eye contact with me for a few seconds and it pissed me off. She dropped her eyes when I growled at though and retreated into the bathroom, closing the door and turning the lock.

Not like it wouldn't take me all of five seconds to kick it down if I wanted to, but if it gave her some false illusion of safety, maybe the stench of her fear wouldn't be so strong.

I ordered two pizzas with sausage and Canadian bacon and regular bacon on them because fuck yeah meat. I'd rather have a steak or just kill something myself, but neither of those were options at the moment.

The TV only showed static, but I kicked it into working and managed to get a fuzzy hockey game on screen while I waited for the pizza.

It had to be at least a half a motherfucking hour before the pizza guy showed up, and the kid was still in the bathroom, even though the water quit running ten minutes ago. Guess it was for the best though, 'cause I didn't want any questions about why I had a little girl in my room.

The pizza guy left without a tip, but with all of his limbs and fingers still attached, which I thought was tip enough.

And the kid was still in the bathroom.

I set the pizzas on the bed and pounded on the door. "Got two minutes to get out or I come in."

There was a mumbled agreement that wasn't even really a word, but it would do. I laid back on the bed closest to the door and started eating.

Exactly one minute fifty five seconds later, the kid peeked out of the door. Her hair was wet, but she'd put the same dirty clothes back on which fucking defeated the purpose of a shower. I wondered where the nearest thrift shop was before I caught myself and shut that thought process down. She was just here for the night, in exchange for patching up my back. That was it.

"Here." I grunted, pushing one of the opened boxes of pizza on the bed in her general direction.

I turned my gaze back to the TV, but I kept my senses trained on her and watched her out of my peripheral vision. She was taking tiny baby steps again, and I made sure to keep my eyes straight ahead when she finally reached the edge of my bed.

She scooped out a slice then quickly backed up to hover in between the other bed and the bathroom while she ate. After she finished, she just stood there, not moving.

I looked at her then. She was so thin she looked on the cusp of anorexia, she was biting her lower lip, and her entire body was shaking with want as she tried to keep her eyes on me and not the food.

"Get another."

I didn't bother telling her it was okay or trying to be gentle. It was easier to just give her a command and not worry about her feelings. I was giving her food and that should be enough.

I looked back at the game. She repeated the creeping closer and grabbing a slice move, and went straight back to the spot she had been at while she ate. She even did it once more without direct permission, although it made her smell more nervous.

The nervousness seemed to be growing, but at least her fear had leveled out into a somewhat tolerable and entirely familiar stink of burnt rubber.

I finished eating the rest of the pizzas and the game finished playing, so I sat up and took up my boots. She watched me without moving, but she flinched for the third time the instant I touched my belt buckle. I looked up at her and eyes locked again.

She looked away first.

"Ah, Ah uhm, don't know how...Ah'm supposed...to pay." She stuttered.

To pay.

Her, a little girl who couldn't be older than fourteen—if that—thinking she had to pay for three slices of pizza and a night at a shitty motel.

Didn't she see I had gotten two beds like a fucking gentlemen?!

"Ah've never...done...anything, so Ah don't know..." She kept stuttering in the silence.

"Well no shit."

Fuck, I hadn't meant to say that out loud.

"Just..." She took a deep breath and looked at me. "Tell me what Ah need to do."

"Get in that bed and shut the fuck up."

How dare she. I had fed her—twice now—given her a ride, a shower, a place to sleep. And she looks at me like I'm going to hurt her, and even though I know I'm shit, I just couldn't fucking stand it.

Her bottom lip only started to tremble before she bit it again and did what I told her. I finished taking off my belt as she crawled under the covers. She drew them up around herself as if they would protect her when I clicked off the TV.

I turned off the lamp and got in my own bed.

She stayed so still that I could hear her stop breathing for almost an entire minute. I stared at the water stains on the ceiling. Just when I thought I was going to have to give her permission to fucking breathe, she let it out in a slow whoosh.

I made the mistake of glancing over at her, and she looked back at me with this tiny little smile like she had known nothing bad was going to happen, because the world couldn't really be that bad, and I had just proved her right.

And somehow that was even worse than the look she had given me before. Because how dare she pin her innocent hope on me like that.

How fucking dare she.