So here is chapter 10. I know, I was supposed to update sooner, but I wanted to wait for reviews.

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Chapter 10:


Logan stood near his bedroom window, looking outside at the grounds of the school. It was nigh time, and it was literally raining cats and dogs, lightening occasionally illuminating the whole room, a flash of light in the total darkness that surrounded everything. It was mostly Ororo's fault since she had got an awful cold, and had made all the snow disappear in less than an hour. It was about fifteen degrees outside, and it was getting colder by the hour too. Now, Ororo was sleeping calmly in her room, but Mother Nature had decided to finish her work, and now there they were, stuck inside while a gigantic thunderstorm took place outside. Logan sighed.
His arms crossed in front of him, he looked back at his bed where Shany was sleeping, unaware that he was up. The sound of thunder was heard outside again and he looked back at the window. So many questions were rushing through his head and he was surprised that he hadn't thought of them before. Most of these questions were about Shania. He didn't know much about her, and he was starting to get curious.
She turned under the covers as thunder was heard again.
Who was she?
The wind blew, making the branches in the trees outside shake violently.
Logan kept his eyes locked on her as she turned again, as if looking for him in her sleep. He walked slowly to the side of the bed, taking her hand in his.
She was so gorgeous, it was almost outrageous. Was it the only reason he felt attracted to her? At first, he had wondered about that, but deep down he knew the answer: no. It wasn't at all. It was her personality, her laugh, how she answered him, how she looked at him, the fact that she loved him, that she cared for him, that she wanted to be with him.
Logan smiled before slipping back under the covers, passing a protective arm around her shoulders.
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Thunder illuminated the room again, this time joined by a terrific blow that woke Shania up immediately. Her reflex was to get into an upward position, but she was stopped by Logan's arm. She turned in his direction, giving him a sweet look before pushing his arm away very slowly, for him to not wake up.
She swung her legs to the side of the bed, and got up. She quickly slipped on a pair of blue silk pyjamas, pants and long-sleeved top with buttons. She abandoned her slippers where they were, and walked out of the room, careful not to wake up Logan with the door.
In the hallway, she stopped, taken aback by the deep silence lying there. She made no noise on the carpeted floor, walking, or rather running, on the tip of her feet. She stopped near the stairs, listening it she was being followed, before continuing again, jumping to the first floor before having reached the fifth stair. She turned around, a satisfied look on her face as she glared happily at the large amount of stairs she had just jumped. Smiling mischievously to herself, she turned around, continuing towards the kitchen. She found no one there, and frowned to that. In the common room, she didn't find anyone too.
She jumped to the sofa and sat down a wide smile on her face. For some reason, she would have loved to go dancing tonight, but Logan didn't know yet that she was a party animal. Her smile faded away and her face was impregnated by a dreamy wonder. Logan didn't know much about her, and she felt the questions were coming *very* soon. If it there was one thing she wanted to avoid, it was questions; but she knew she would have to face them one day or another.
She turned her head, looking towards one of the windows of the room, against which the rain was tapping hard. A sparkle illuminated her eyes as she jumped back to her feet, this time running towards the door. She carefully flicked the lock, and opened it without making it squeak. Stepping outside, she shivered to the contact of the cold and wet pavement. She jumped on place, maybe to adjust to the chilly temperature, or maybe to prepare herself to sprint across the wet lawn, since it was the next thing she did. She crossed the basketball court in less time the eye needs to blink, and had reached the line of trees in a matter of seconds.
Her favourite sport was running, and it often came in handy. She leaned against one of the pine trees, not at all covered by its thin branches, and so letting the rain fall onto her.
She waited in that position for quite a while, wondering about what was going on in her life. Before she knew it, she was running around again, doing cartwheels and desperately trying to get all that adrenaline out of her body.
After three other summersaults, she stopped, her smiled fading away from her face. Someone was standing not too far away, leaning on one of the trees, arms crossed, looking at her with amusement. Well, at least, it was the only way she would have imagined his or her face, since it was hidden under the hood of a cloak.
"Devil's got you again, Darling?" the person said, the voice belonging to a man.
Shania must have recognized him since a menacing look appeared on her usually radiant face. She seemed almost ready to attack.
"Don't call me that!" she spat. "What the hell are you doing here, you fucking bastard?"
"Oh please, a lady with such beauty shouldn't use those words," the man said mockingly. "And I was just watching your little spectacle . . . of course, you know what it means, don't you?"
Shania stayed silent.
"You weren't thinking that you would be able to hide it all your life, now were you?" the man continued. "Sooner or later, you'll be forced to use your mutation. It's in your blood . . . you can't stop it. I was just wondering if you were going to use it. I mean, it's quite a show when you do. I wouldn't want to miss it. And plus, your on a school property with children, so it would have been entertaining."
Now Shany was almost ready to run back to the mansion.
"Oh, don't go now, pretty face," the stranger continued. "I'm not finished. You thought you could just run off like that, didn't you? There coming back, you and I know it. All you can do is decide how you are going to go back: with me, ore with them. Think about it, angel face. With me you have a chance. Not with them."
"Shit, you really didn't get is, heh?" Shania said, making a single step back. "I'd rather die of torture than to go back with you, to go back to the life you forced me to have."
The man, now standing a few metres away didn't look happy about that remark.
"And by the way, I have someone in my life," Shania said, vaguely showing the mansion. "He-"
"Ah yes . . . I saw him," the man said. "Logan . . . isn't it?"
Shania turned white, and it took her a while to clearly get the facts.
"For . . . for how long have you been watching me?" she said, desperately trying to kept her calm.
The man smiled evilly.
"Ever since you left your hideaway, back in Alberta, where you were hiding from your past," he said. "But they'll get the information they want from you."
"Well, over my dead body," Shania said.
"No," the man objected. "Over your friends'."
A second later, the man had disappeared as tears of anger started to form in Shany's eyes.
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Scott opened his eyes, woken by the tempest going on outside. He turned sideways, looking at the form, Jean, not too far away in the bed. She was sleeping like a baby, totally ignoring what was going on outside. Scott waited a few minutes, in silence, listening to the tapping of the rain on his window. Some people liked the sound, saying that it was soothing, but he found it VERY annoying. Not being able to shut out the noise and get back to sleep, he got up, walking to the window. His eyes widened seeing a blue silhouette jumping around on the grounds. He grinned, recognizing the person as Shania. Well she was a wild card, he thought, looking at her go for a while. She stopped, sitting down on the grass, looking up at the rain and thunder.
Scott waited, just looking at her when he suddenly decided to go down an join her. He wasn't the type to go outside in that storm, but he could wait for her near the door. They could have a cup of hot chocolate to warm themselves up and talk, since both of them seemed to not be able to sleep. He turned around, ready to walk out, when his eyes stopped on Jean, making him come back to the fact that if Shania was outside, Logan couldn't be too far.
He waited a moment, thinking.
No. Logan would be sleeping too, like Jean. The coast was clear. He could approach her.
Walking to the door, he made sure he didn't do any noise, walking down the hallway and down the stairs, slowly and quietly.
He waited about twenty minutes, in the kitchen and by the door, before realizing that maybe he should do best to go and get her. He took his coat and walked outside. She wasn't near the basketball court, and the tree line wasn' the best place to be and so he supposed she was on the lawn somewhere.
His deduction had been right and Shania was sitting in the middle of a part of the grounds, where there were no trees or obstacles. She was looking to the sky, when suddenly, she let herself fall backwards.
Scott accelerated his pace and arrived to Shania hoping she wasn't hurt or anything.
"Shania?" he said, aware of the rain falling on both of them.
Looking at her, he noticed that her pyjamas were completely soaked and stuck to her body, showing off her curves. It was silk, and so was cold, and the temperature and rain didn't help anything. In fact, she seemed to be freezing.
"Shan?" Scott repeated, getting closer and kneeling down.
This time she turned her head sideways, looking at Scott as if she couldn't recognize him. Her eyes seemed to gaze off into the unknown, as she stayed silent for a moment, until she blinked.
"I'm cold and I can't move," she said, recognizing Scott.
"At least you can talk," Scott said, giving her his hand to help her up.
She took it and it was then Scott noticed how cold she was. He helped her up, and she held onto him as they walked back to the mansion. Scott took her to the common room where a fire was lit up in the chimney, thanks to Pyro. He pushed one of the sofas in front of it and installed Shania there, almost scared by the way she fell limply onto it, her head falling backwards. He ran to one of the cupboards, pulling out a few thick blankets that he wrapped around her. She took them without a word, looking at the flames.
He prepared some coffee, bringing two cups back to the common room. He pushed an armchair close to the sofa in which Shania was sitting. She took the cup and drank it by little sips.
After a few minutes, she turned to Scott, smiling.
"Well, thank you," she said. "I don't think I would have been able to get back in without your help."
"Yeah, I saw you running around from my room window," Scott said.
Shany chuckled, but her laugh faded away.
"You saw . . . only me?" she asked cautiously.
"Yep," Scott answered innocently, sipping some of his coffee. "Why? Some one else was running around in the rain?"
"No," Shania said rather quickly. "No."
There was a moment of awkward silence as they both drank their coffee.
"So, how is it going with Logan?" Scott finally dared to ask.
Shania was a bit surprised by the question.
"Oh, everything is fine," she said quickly. "How about you?"
"Ah . . . yeah," Scott said vaguely, knowing that he wasn't giving an answer. Luckily, Shania accepted his reply without other questions.
"Well, I better go up and change before I catch my death," Shany said after a long while of silence, getting up from her seat and feeling that her pyjamas were still very wet. "So I'll see you tomorrow, then. And . . . I was wondering if you could . . . avoid saying that I almost fell unconscious out there . . . I wouldn't want Logan or anyone else to worry . . . I don't care about you saying that I was outside even with that sort of temperature, since everyone is going to know: I'll probably have a nice cold tomorrow . . . Well, goodnight Scott, and thank you again."
Scott listened in a kind of hypnotic gaze, secretly admiring the physical beauty of the woman.
"G-goodnight," he mumbled looking at her go.
Long after her departure, her image was still stuck in his mind.

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