HEY GUYS! I'm back, thank God for that. School's coming up in here so update might be impossible for the next months but I will try my best to bring in some updates. I'm in my junior year in high school! OH YEAH! And now, I'm stuck with a question inside my head. DC or Marvel? It's kinda hard to choose. Anyway, please enjoy! ^^

By the way, I want to thank all of those who reviewed this story and put it in their alerts or favorites.

P.S: I should have updated sooner but I accidentally deleted this chapter three or five times (I've lost count already) so I had to rewrite it again and again. Thus, it sucks because I'm in a very bad mood while typing this.

Disclaimer: I do not own these guys. I only own Elijah.

Part Twenty-One: HOME

I woke up, feeling a little nervous. At first, I didn't move nor did I open my eyes. I just lied down on bed, letting my mind wander off. I took this opportunity to evaluate my life so far. I had been kidnapped three times in a row. I had met a homicidal maniac who had chased me down last night. A little mutant girl had prophesied that I would bear a son who would destroy the Earth, not to mention the father would be another homicidal maniac named Victor Creed. Now, bad guys were coming after me and probably all the people I knew because of that stupid prophecy.

I was so going to blame the kid for this.

I cracked an eye open, noticing that the entire room was still a quite dark. After a few seconds of staring at the ceiling with one eye open, I opened the other one. It was still too early for the sun to be up yet. I tried to sit up but Victor's arm was sprawled on top of me, refraining me from doing so. I turned to look at him, expecting him to be awake but I was quite surprised when I saw his eyes closed. His breathing was even and quite heavy, as if he was having a little difficulty in breathing. His eyebrows were almost knitted together, as if he was troubled by something. It seemed like he wasn't getting a good night sleep.

But hey, at least he wasn't talking.

I looked around the room again, noticing the windows at the left side of the bed. The curtains were drawn but it was obvious that the sun wasn't up yet. I looked around some more until something shiny caught my attention. My eyes fell on the sword Daken had used on Victor. It looked threatening as it just leaned on the wall near the door. I studied the sword, determinedly. What was so special about it? How could it inflict so much damage on Victor even though he had a healing ability? I tried recalling the fight between the two men. Both of them were quite talkative while they were fighting. Almost as if they were used to trying to cut somebody's throat. That made me shudder.

I could recall them saying that Daken had gotten it from his father. Who was his father again? I raked my brain for the name. I was certain that I heard them say his name - or should I say names. Victor mentioned a lot of Daken's aliases that I could barely remember one of them. A name popped out of my mind. Jimmy. That was the only name I could remember. Now, I wondered who Jimmy was? Did I know him? Was he a mutant like Victor? Daken had truly despised his father. Whenever Victor mentioned his father during their fight, Daken would go into a frenzy.

I took another look at the sword. It looked as nobody had used it before. The blade was still so shiny and sharp. It was almost as if last night's fight never occurred. It scared me to think of how many lives it had taken. But its beauty had kept me drawn to it. There was something about it that tempted anyone to touch it and feel its blade. The sword just looked so perfect.

And perfection was what everyone wanted.

"What are you thinking?"

Victor's voice startled me, stopping my train of thoughts. I dared not to look at him because I felt quite embarrassed. I couldn't explain why but I didn't want him to find out what I was thinking. It would make me feel so exposed to him and vulnerable. "Nothing," I lied.

He laughed, his breath brushing along my ear. It made me stiffen at the realization that his lips were almost touching my ear. "Lie," he said, making me shudder. He was acting a bit creepy, but now that I thought of it, he had been acting creepy ever since I met him. Without looking at him, I knew that he was smiling although his voice was really threatening.

I forced out a laugh. I was failing. "Can you prove that?" I asked, pathetically. Subconsciously, I groaned. I felt so stupid. I hated it how he seemed to know when I was lying or not. But I remembered Nick telling me that I was never a good liar.

"Do I need to prove it or should I just force the answer out of you?" Victor whispered to my ear.

Acting on pure instincts, I jumped out of the bed and backed away from him. "P-prove it first!" I stammered, finding it hard to get a good grasp on my voice. I glared at him. It irked me how he could manipulate me so easily. Was I that readable to him?

Victor only smirked. He rolled over to his side and placed his head on his hand. His eyes were roaming my entire body. "First, you clench your fists when you lie." He looked pointedly at my fists. He was correct.

"Second, you get all pump up whenever you lie," he said. "And third, your nose grows longer whenever you lie."

I narrowed my eyes on him. "My nose doesn't grow longer." But unconsciously, I touched my nose to check if Victor was telling the truth. Fortunately, he was only lying. But all the things he said made sense to me. As they said, I wasn't a good liar.

Victor laughed once again. "Now, how about telling me what you're actually thinking?" he mused.

I stuck out my tongue at him. "We're fighting over something that didn't make sense while knowing that outside this room, everyone I know isn't safe," I snapped at him, feeling the same dreary feeling settle inside my chest. Seeing the look that fell on Victor's face made me regret the words that stumbled out of my mouth. Stupid Elijah. Sometimes, my mouth would get the better of me as if it had a mind of its own.

The smile on Victor's face disappeared. "There's nothing much you can do about it," he said, seriously. It seemed like my words had set him to a bad mood. He rolled to his back and closed his eyes, telling me that our conversation was going to be over as soon as it just started.

I glared at him, biting my tongue to prevent myself from saying something foolish again. Obviously, I could do nothing about it but he had the ability to save those people I loved. But now that I thought of it, it wouldn't be that easy.

I walked towards the couch at the other side of the room. It didn't feel right to lie down beside Victor right now. There was something about the thing he said that had cut through me really deeply. He had a point. I was too weak to protect anyone. My enemies would probably as powerful as Daken or even more powerful. I had no powers or whatsoever to stop them.

I sat on the couch as I thought of everything that had happened to me the passed few days. I had been kidnapped by a group of mutants called X-men. And then, I was dragged by Victor to unknown places twice in a row. Next, I learned that I was to have a child with Victor Creed who would was destined to destroy the world. Finally, I was informed that all kinds of villains would hunt me down along with all the people I knew.

So far, life was good.

A sigh escaped my lips. It was then that I realized how tiring my life was. Before, it was so boring. I did the same routine everyday but ever since I met Victor, everything had changed. I watched the rise and fall of Victor's chest as he breathed steadily. It seemed like he had already fallen asleep. His wounds still didn't look good but it was in a much better condition than it were last night.

Suddenly, an image of the kiss we shared last night popped out of my head. I had to admit that when he kissed me, it felt so surreal. Whenever his lips touched mine, I would forget all my anger and all my problems. My mind would go blank and the next thing I knew, I would feel like I was transported to another world. It was always like that. Even though I would hate to admit it to myself, I couldn't deny that I enjoyed our kiss.

But what if we went beyond that?

...

I wouldn't even want to think of it.

Heat crept to my cheeks as an idea penetrated through my thick skull. Quickly, my hands flew to cover my reddening cheeks and willed myself to think of another subject. I couldn't let myself get too lose around Victor. The thought of fulfilling the prophecy because I was too careless would weigh down on me. It was a burden too much for me to carry. I couldn't live the rest of my life knowing that.

"Just go to sleep, Eli," Victor suddenly said, interrupting me with the silent rambling going on inside my head. I narrowed my eyes on him. I thought that he had fallen asleep. Why wasn't he sleeping?

I cleared my throat as I tried to regain my composure. "Yeah. Sure. I'm going to sleep on the couch," I told him, leaning back and moved about until I found a comfortable spot. I didn't even bother getting a blanket or a pillow. I was contented with that cramped position.

I closed my eyes and willed myself to sleep. I had a nagging feeling that Victor would strongly disagree to my choice of place to sleep but it was my right to choose where I would sleep. When my whole body had started to relax, I felt like I was floating along with the clouds. I knew that it was the first step to entering dreamland. I few more minutes and I would be snoring.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

I dreamed of Victor holding my hand as we ran through an endless black tunnel. He kept on shouting at me not to look back and I was fighting the strong urge to turn around and check out what or who was following us. We just kept running towards the light with his hand gripping mine so tightly. My sides were burning and my lungs felt like they were about to burst. I couldn't go on anymore. No matter how near the light looked like, I knew that it was still out of our reach.

"You can do it," Victor urged me. "Run faster." He pulled me with me but my hand felt like slipping from his grasp. I couldn't take it any longer. Who was following us anyway? Ignoring Victor's warning, I turned to look back and realized that there was no one there behind us.

Victor suddenly stopped running and faced me. He had a smirk on his face, almost as if he was mocking me. In fact, he had been mocking me, making me run for my life when in fact no one was chasing me.

"I trusted you," I yelled at him, accusingly as I tried to get away from him. Unluckily, his grip on my hand was too tight for me to make him let go of me.

"If you trusted me, you shouldn't have looked back," Victor said, still smirking. "You should trust me more."

Before I could say anything else, I was jerked back to reality.

The dream ended leaving me clueless and confused.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

I opened my eyes and looked around. My mind was still filled with the residue from my recent dream. It wasn't really disturbing but it was puzzling. It was telling me something but I just couldn't get it. Was it telling me to trust Victor more? I sighed. Even in my dreams, Victor was still a very hard man to understand.

Speaking of the devil…..

Where was he?

The bed was empty but disarranged. The door was slightly open and the whole room was so quiet and still. Could it be that he left me here in this alien place all alone with no one to defend me if ever a bad guy entered the room? He didn't even bother locking the door when he left. He should have known better than leave the door open when I was alone in the room—asleep.

As the fog of drowsiness was lifted, I stood up and walked towards the door to close it. My body felt quite stiff from sleeping in a very cramp position but as I took one step forward, I feel my muscles relaxing. When I reached the door, I decided to look around. I opened the door a little wider and poked my head out. Outside was a poorly lit corridor. There were more doors lined on the walls and the white walls weren't so white anymore. It was deserted, making it safe for me to snoop around. Well, I couldn't blame people if they didn't want to stay here. It wasn't exactly the best place to check in.

I stepped out of the room, deciding to search for Victor. The thought of being left alone in the room scared me, especially since there were people hot on my trail. Victor should have known better than leave me alone. But now that I thought of it, he never really cared about safety. He was the daring and reckless type. It was hard to understand how his mind worked.

In fact, I never really understood him.

Passing by several doors, I realized that the whole place was so quiet. There were no signs of people staying over. I turned right, seeing a staircase that went down. I didn't know where it lead but it was the only way I could go to because in front of me was a dead end. Shrugging, I headed downstairs. As I was making my way downstairs, I was greeted with hushed voices. Quickly, the voices registered inside my head. It was Victor's voice. I could recognize his smooth, low voice anywhere. The next voice was a little familiar but I couldn't quite grasp whose voice it was. It was a bit husky with a thick accent- a Cajun.

"You! The old homme may have forgotten to mention that it is you who I'm going to work with!" the man with the thick accent exclaimed.

Someone chuckled. I instantly knew that it was Victor. His laugh was always like that. "Surprise?" he sneered.

"Of course I am."

I hurried my pace until I finally reached the bottom of the stairs. There I saw a very plain looking lobby. There was a counter in the middle of the room and a bored looking man sat behind it. There were couches and chairs arranged at very corner of the room for visitors to sit on. There were lame looking vases with plastic flowers in it. There wasn't anything special in it, but it looked better than the actual rooms.

In one of the chairs at the corner of the room, I spotted Victor sitting across a man whose back was turned on me. I decided that it wasn't the right time yet to reveal myself so I didn't move and just listened to their conversation.

"So?" Victor asked, leaning back a bit. An amused expression fleeted on his face.

The man shrugged. "Nous n'y pouvons rien."

Victor raised an eyebrow. "Say one more French word and I'm gonna pull your goddamn head off. I don't speak French!"

This time, it was the man who laughed. "Oui, mon ami. I know," he said, raising both his hands up as if he was surrendering. "But business is business. Here you go." The man threw a backpack to Victor who immediately caught it with only one hand.

Victor grinned. "You've got everything in here?"

"Yeah. The old ho-"

Before the man could utter another French word, Victor bared his teeth at him. The man paused.

"I think I didn't catch your words quite correctly," Victor said, dangerously. He used his index finger to pretend that he was cleaning his ear. "You were saying?"

The man chuckled. "The old man made sure that I get everything packed for her. Her clothes, underwear-"

Victor suddenly sat up straight. A look of profound interest made its way to his face. "What does it look like?" he asked, slyly. His eyes abruptly darted towards the direction to where I was hiding. For a moment, it seemed like our eyes met for a brief second before I stepped back and hid myself behind the wall. Was it possible that he knew that I was there or was it just coincidence.

"Well, I had to admit. You should buy your girlfriend a new set of underwear. She's like an old lady," the man said, shaking his head in a disapproving manner. Heat crept to my cheeks when I realized who they were talking about. It was me. Whoever this man was, he had broken into my apartment and had taken my stuff! How dare he did that?

Victor chuckled. "Not surprise at all," he mused.

A wave of annoyance came over me. Stupid Victor. Was he insulting me? I wasn't like an old lady. It was called conservative and anyway, I was living in a tight budget! In the first place, who cared what underwear I wear. It was not like they could see it.

"Well then, until next time," the man said, standing up and heading out of the place. As he turned around, I finally get to see his face. My mouth dropped open when I recognized him. It was the guy who stole my wallet. What was his name again? Rambo? Remus? Red? Remy?

The man was wearing the same long coat he wore when I first met him as well as the hat and the sunglasses. I wondered what was he hiding behind those sunglasses. It gave him a mysterious atmosphere.

That was definitely him! The man called Gambit. If I wasn't mistaken, he was the guy who asked me and Rogue who Magneto was. But why was he here? Was he working with Victor?

No. The two of them were surprised to see each other so they weren't expecting to be working together. Although, that meant they had known each other before and their first meeting wasn't exactly friendly. This was Victor Creed we were talking about anyway, so I knew that they weren't exactly the best of friends.

Gambit was already gone and the bored man behind the counter didn't even seem to notice. He was too absorbed staring at the air. Victor was still seated on the couch with a very huge and devious smile on his face. He was looking straight at me. Without looking away from the wall in which I was hiding, he placed the bag beside him and motioned for me to come forward and give myself in. I let out a frustrated sigh knowing that I had no choice but to obliged to his order. Mustering the deadliest glare I could, I stomped my way towards him. I wasn't afraid of him anymore. Why was I hiding in the first place?

I stood in front of him with my arms crossed. My eyebrows furrowed as I narrowed my eyes on him. "What was he doing here? I thought no one should know where we are?" I asked, angrily.

Victor tutted. "Eavesdropping is bad," he cooed, ignoring my question. He was completely indignant with the fact that I was quite annoyed. Especially since I already knew that Gambit was a very slippery and cunning guy. Working with him might end us up in a very bad situation.

"I know that you won't mind since you always do that yourself," I snapped at him.

Victor just chuckled. "Sit down," he ordered, patting the place beside him. The bag was at his other side. I stood firmly on the ground. No way would I sit down beside him. I wouldn't even want to be caught dead sitting with him on a loveseat. The grin on Victor's face widened. "Fine," he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me down to sit beside him. I didn't have much choice but land on the couch. Once again, he earned another glare from me.

"Here," he said, handing me the bag.

I raised an eyebrow. So my speculations were correct. I felt the heat rising to my cheeks again. Quickly, I zipped the bag open and peered inside. It was filled with my clothes. I glanced at Victor who was also sneaking a peek at the contents of the bag. I closed the bag before Victor could get his eyes on something very personal. "I hoped he didn't steal anything from my house," I said, stiffly trying to cover up my embarrassment. I couldn't bear to think of a stranger getting to see my underwear and even get to lay his hands on them.

Victor laughed. "There's nothing interesting enough to be stolen at your apartment," he stated. Once again, I glared at him. But it was the truth. All my savings were safely put in the bank but it wasn't much anyway. And I never leave behind my money in the apartment.

"How did he get these?" I asked.

Victor shrugged. "I'm not a thief. He's the expert on this. You ask him."

I rolled my eyes at him. "Too bad the other guys didn't catch up on him," I mumbled. "Who asked him to get my things anyway?"

"Magneto."

My eyes widened and I looked up at him. "Him? But why?"

Victor suddenly looked grave. "That's because we won't be coming back to New York for a long time."

I was confused. Why was this Magneto guy helping us? I thought he wasn't a nice guy to bump into. Victor must have noted the question on my face so he simply smirked at me. "How about we pay a visit to your parents?"

A smile lit up on my face. This must have been the first good news I had heard in the last few months.

I was coming home...

Oooookay. I'm not satisfied with my work...so that means I have to update NOW. Anyway, please review. ^^

Current Songs: Darkness and Things I Never Said by Before The Curtain. (They're new and I haven't heard their full songs but one thing is for sure. I WANT MORE.) :3