I had written this chapter as a different version earlier but I saw that it didn't fit very well so I made this one. I hope you like it! Please review, I want to know what I need to improve on!

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Chapter two

Where to go

Amanda woke up in the middle of the night. It was damp and cold and her arms felt like lead weights. She moved but she was so stiff her back cracked about three times before sitting completely up. That night when she had fallen asleep in the woods She had put her head on her book-bag as some sort of pillow. It was now wet on the bottom. Wonderful, she thought, we clothing.

She brushed the leaves off of her clothes and hair and stood up looking around. She didn't think her mother had noticed she was gone yet. She would find out in the morning and call the cops casually not thinking much of it. When Amanda's mother was a child she herself had run away from home many times, but had always come back. But Amanda was different. Her mother had left home because she didn't get the shoes she wanted or she didn't get to go to the mall, she was never classified as a freak.

Amanda started walking slowly not knowing exactly were she was going. She knew she was going away from the town, getting closer to the highway. Maybe she would get a ride. She thought about it, but after a while she figured it wasn't that smart to go hitchhiking when she was running away.

When she got to the road she walked in the woods beside it, so no would be able to see her. She walked until her legs hurt and they were screamed to stop, she walked until her mouth was parched and asked for water, she waked until her whole body collapsed and told her that it was too much. By this time she had no idea where she was. She was somewhere out of the town she knew that. She had seen a sign back farther but didn't pay much attention to it. All that was around her was field. There was no wood to hide in anymore. She had reached the end of that when she had left the town. Amanda had been walking on the road next to the damp ground around it. There were only a few cars that had passed her; one even stopped to ask her if she needed a lift, but she told them that she was just walking to the next house. They had nodded and drove off.

She looked up into the blue sky now lit by the bright sun. For sure her mother had woken up now and was calling the police telling them that if they saw her just to take her home. Not telling them that her baby had run away and was probably never coming back.

Amanda closed her eyes and lay in the grass for a long time thinking about when she was little, when her father was there. The time when he would whorl her around until they were both dizzy and then fell to the ground. She remembered watch the clouds, telling a story about each one that looked remotely like something. Then he had just gone. He never said good bye to her. Amanda's mother had told her that he had been in a car crash and was never coming back. She had been furious with her father. Why had he had to be in a car crash? Couldn't he just have avoided it and come home? At that time she didn't know what death was so she felt abandoned and alone.

She got up slowly and looked around her. What was she going to do now? She had no where to go. Maybe she should go to New York. That was were her Aunt was. She looked down as the realization that her Aunt would rush her back to her mother as quickly as she could came to her. Amanda stood and started walking again, almost not felling her legs at all. She was so numb to everything around her. Why had this happened to her? Why couldn't another kid who was friends with a mutant become one? And how did she become one? She hadn't ever touched or even talked to one. She stopped dead. Maybe she had. Maybe some of her friends in New York were mutants, maybe they did this to her. She shook her head. No matter what did this or why she was one now and there was no reversing it.

After about an hour of walking she came up to a gas station. She shifted her bag on her shoulder and walked to it opening the glass door with a clang of a bell. The lady at the counter looked up and smiled pleasantly.

"Good monin', we sure are buissy today. Do'n know wa. We usually have customers comin' through durin' the fourth." She seemed to tell her life story in one sentience, but Amanda hadn't been listening. She was eyeing the water bottles in the back. She just nodded and sauntered over, opening one of the cases.

"Ow! Stop that! You're really getting on my nerves. Maybe I should just bite you!" A girl with sort red hair and two men were standing close to Amanda.

"Go ahead I'm not stopping you. But I worn you, you may get cold feet if you do." A pail boy with brown hair and blue eyes smiled happily back at her.

"Does anyone remember what we came in here for!? You all have jobs to do. So get to work!" A tall man with odd brown hair walked back to the two who started giving him looks of 'you don't scar me,' but immediately started walking to separate corners of the small shop.

Amanda pulled out the bottle and walked up to the front. There was a long line. A dark skinned boy with odd yellow hair had an arm full of candy bars. The man who had been in the back gave him stares but didn't make him put them back. There was a boy at the counter with enormous sunglasses, whom Amanda had to smile at; his face didn't fit them. A gothic girl near the counter had dark brown hair and two white streaks for bangs who was carrying assorted boxes that looked like microwave-able meals, a girl who was carrying bananas was eyeing them. When she finally got to the counter the kids were checking off what must have been a grocery list.

"Jubilee!?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you get the fruit?"

"The only kind I'll eat. Anyway we're on road trip, whose ganna eat healthy foods any way?"

The man with funny hair looked at her with his face down sighed and checked something off on the paper. He continued calling off names and the group seemed to become more restless as the seconds went on.

"Here you go, hunny, hope you have a great day!" The grouser smiled and put the water bottle and chips on the counter.

"You too." Amanda half smiled. She started walking out the door when someone yelled,

"Bobby you freak!" There was a large growl, a spray of mist, ew I don't want to know what that was, and she was toppled over by the Goth girl. After a second Amanda felt as if her life was being sucked out of her. Her body became rigged and it was hard to breathe. Her head felt as if it were going to implode and all she could do was sit and watch as the room around her become fuzzy and hard to understand.

When she felt the girl pull away, it was as if her life had been given back but for only a moment. She felt week and her temples aced.

"Are you… Okay?"

"Rogue, what did you do?"

"I don't know! My skin must have touched hers."

She felt someone touch her arm and pull away again.

"Are you okay?"

She heard screaming from the back and a man saying something.

"It's okay, We aren't going to hurt you, I promise."

"Oh, nice thing to say. Oh! We won't hurt you!" The screaming became louder and the voices tried to comfort her again.

Amanda finally could see and there was a crowd around her looking at her. She quickly stood up.

"I'm…. I'll be fine. I have to go now." She started walking quickly to the door opening it. When she got outside she ran as fast as she could. They were mutants too, and they scared her half to death.