Okay, okay okay. People are screaming at me. I walked in and they were like "WRITE MORE NOW!"

Hey, who am I to argue with that kinda pressure?

Redangles – Yeah, I want Bobby to find her too. Don't you think Mr Drew is a sweetie though? After all, Mattie is his only child. I'd be pretty protective too if I were him.

GothikStrawberry – Thanks for the long review, I had fun reading it. And I know what you mean about love triangles. Poor Davis, if only he wasn't so nice. Then we could hate him. But then we wouldn't care what happened to him.

Matt – I don't know why fathers don't like boyfriends. Maybe they remember what they were like as boyfriends and they don't want any of that going on with their daughter! ;o) But I agree, Bobby should get bonus points for being Bobby.

Agent G – As introductions go. 'Hi, Mr Drew I've lost your daughter' is not one of the best! Poor Bobby. And thanks for the idea by the way.

Sands – I'm writing I'm writing! Stop shouting at me. From blank paper there springs a story. Here's the next chapter.

The Ice Man Cometh

Bobby crawled along the street in his car. He'd gone back to the town where Mattie was meant to be on holiday. He'd left Mr Drew, or Hal, as he had insisted that he call him, to search Mattie's home town.

He'd phoned the Institute and talked to the Professor. Xavier was going to use Cerebro to try and get a pin point on Mattie.

So for now all he could do was wait. Or failing that, he could search the streets.

X

Mattie and the Masters had finished their dinner and the twins were already deep into the fight over what film to watch. Bill and Mel had both rolled their eyes and headed to the kitchen; Mattie had been dragged in as referee.

"Mattie." Bekki said. "Would you kindly tell Davis that his choice is lame?"

Mattie turned to Davis, but he was glaring at Bekki. "You don't even know what film I've chosen yet!"

"I don't have to know." Bekki told him. "I know you, oh brother dearest. And thus I therefore I know it will be lame."

Mattie was wondering who seriously managed to get thus and therefore into their arguments.

"And your choice is superior?" Davis asked.

Bekki nodded. "Just like me!"

Davis glared at her. "Inferiority complex." He muttered.

Bekki's eyes turned dangerous. "Say that again."

Mattie failed to bite back on a giggle and both twins turned their glares on her.

With a shattering crash a brick came soaring through the window. A spray of glass showered the room.

Mattie threw herself back against the wall, while Bekki dragged Davis behind the couch.

Mel and Bill appeared in the door way.

"Is everyone okay?" Mel asked, moving to the twins and checking them over for cuts.

"Alright?" Bill asked Mattie.

She nodded.

The sound of raucous cheering could be heard from outside.

"Little mutie, little mutie, let me in." One of the voices sang out.

The laughter increased.

"Yeah! Or we'll blow the place down." Another voice shouted

"Or up." Another joined in.

This was greeted with even more laughter.

"I've had enough to this." Bill strode to the front door and wrenched it open.

The headlamps of three cars were pointing towards the front door, bathing it in light. The boys sitting in and on the cars giggled as Bill faced them down.

"I've had enough of this." Bill told them. "Get off my property or I'm calling the police."

"Come and move us." One of the boys invited.

Squinting past the glare of the lights, Mattie could see that it was Ben. Shit! She'd obviously wounded more that just his face. His pride had come to make a house call.

"Come on." Ben beckoned. "Mutie lover!"

Bill made a noise deep in his throat and stepped out the house.

Mattie dashed after him. "No don't…"

Bill turned to tell her to be quiet; so he didn't see the brick that Ben lobbed at his head.

Mattie threw herself at Bill and knocked him to the ground. The brick smashed against the door frame, showering them with shrapnel.

"Bill!"

"Dad!"

Mel and the twins were with them in seconds.

"What the fuck are they playing at?" Bill roared from where he lay sprawled on the ground.

"They're not playing." Mattie told him as she got up.

And they now had three more targets.

"Get back in the house." She ordered them.

Mel nodded, shepherding the twins inside.

Mattie kept pace with Bill, backing towards the house, keeping a watchful eye on the boys. They seemed content to sit it out for the moment. Or most likely they had just run out of missiles.

"We need to call the police." She heard Mel say.

"Mom, we can't." Bekki protested. "Mattie…"

Mattie never took her eyes of the boys, they were getting restless, and they were going to try something else. And she couldn't take them like this. She might know how to defend herself, but the Masters were easy targets.

"Call the police." She told them.

"Mattie!" Bekki cried.

"Call them." Mattie repeated. She bit her lip, eyeing up the cars. How fast did one of those things go anyway?

"Mattie?"

Davis. She could tell by his voice that he knew what she was planning. He'd try to stop her.

She clenched her fists. It was now or never. She pulled her eyes away from the cars for an instant. She locked her eyes on Davis. "Call the police. Stay safe."

"No." He reached out for her, but she was already gone slamming the door after her. She trusted Mel and Bill to stop him following her.

In a second she was in front of the cars, the headlamps almost blinding. She saw the boys jump as she stopped in front of them.

Ben leaned forward to stare at her. "I knew it."

Mattie gave him a brilliant false smile. "I hope so. Cause I'd hate for you to go to all this trouble for nothing."

"Harbouring a mutant." Ben shrugged. "They got what they deserved."

Mattie cocked her head to one side. "Really."

"And you'll get yours." Ben told her.

Mattie's grin widened. "You'll have to catch me first."

In a blink she was gone. She came to a stop in the middle of the deserted road. "Huh. Three cars. One of me. I like those odds."

She raced down the road and stopped again several meters away. "Catch me if you can, boys!"

"Get her!" Ben screamed and the boys revved their engines, whooping with delight as they took off after Mattie, who was already streaking ahead of them.

The front door flew open and Davis threw himself out the house. "Mattie!"

X

Bobby thumped the steering wheel in frustration. He was never going to find her. She could be anywhere. Any state! Any country!

A localised wind whistled past his car. Or she could run straight past me!

He stared after the disappearing figure that he would know anywhere.

Three cars roared past him, their drivers and passengers calling and shouting to each other.

"Mats." Bobby shook his head. "I can't leave you alone for two seconds."

Now, to sort out those boys harassing his girlfriend.

X

Great! Running for your life in a place you don't know! Good plan, Mattie!

Cursing herself Mattie kept going. The cars were fast, and she didn't know how long she could keep this up. What if she could only run at speed for a short time? Not to mention the fact that she was in fact, lost.

But she'd had to get them away from the Masters. As tough as this was, it would have been worse with innocents in the line of fire. At least this way she only had to worry about herself. And her freaky powers that she knew nothing about and may or may not control.

She risked a glance over her shoulder. Ben's car was in the lead, she caught a glimpse of him leaning low over the steering wheel.

Getting caught was not an option. She was going to out run them, or she was going to have to turn and fight.

Take on all of them? She asked herself. Could she do that?

She cut left and raced down another road. Too late she spotted the dead end.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck!

Whirling she raced back the way she'd come. She had to get there before they did; she had to get there before they did.

Bursting out of the road she was blinded by headlamps.

Trapped!

Ben stood up to lean over the top of the windshield. "Well, well, well."

Mattie stared back at him. Could she take them? Not all of them. Not all together. She scanned the area, looking for a weak spot. Somewhere, someone she could break through.

A warm hand grabbed hold of hers. She found herself staring into a pair of brilliant blue eyes.

"Run!"

The boy took off down the road and Mattie dashed after him.

Ben roared as he saw his prey getting away. "After them!"

The boy's grip on her hand never faltered as he sprinted down the road.

"We can't get out this way." She shouted to him. "It's a dead end."

The boy looked back and grinned at her. "Not for us."

Mattie's eyes widened as she saw a layer of ice envelop his head and then the rest of his body. She found herself holding onto a hand of ice.

"Would all passengers please board now?" The boy said, continuing to grin at her as he stepped onto a pillar of ice that became a slide that soared over the houses.

Mattie wrapped both hands around the boys arm. She did not want to fall from this height. She looked back at Ben who was watching them angrily.

She knew he wasn't going to give up this easily.

The ice slide descended and Mattie let go of the boy's arm and leapt of the slide.

The boys made the slide curl round to face her and then he swept her a low bow.

"At your service milady."

Mattie backed up a step, she wasn't sure that she trusted him. He'd helped her, but he was a mutant. What if he was one of the terrorist ones that were always on the news?

He looked up with a grin that faded as he saw her expression. "Mats? What's wrong?"

Mattie eyed him steadily.

He stepped towards her the ice that covered him, disappearing, revealing his human body underneath it. "Mats? What is it?"

"You know me. Don't you?" Mattie said carefully.

He frowned in confusion. "Know you? Of course I know you!"

Mattie stared at him; her memory was fluttering in her brain, desperate to be let out. But she didn't have the key. But this boy was part of it, she could feel it.

The boy closed the gap between them. "Mats, you have no idea--"

The blaring of a horn cut him off. They both spun, battle stances.

He did it too. Mattie noticed. The boy was ready to fight like she was.

"Mattie!" Davis leapt out the car.

Mattie gave a sigh of relief and dropped her guard, she started towards Davis.

"Are you alright?" Davis cupped her face then hugged her to him, glaring at the boy.

The boy glared back.

"What the hell do you think your doing?" Davis asked.

"I was about to ask you the same thing." The boy replied his voice as icy as he himself had been just a few moments before. "Take your hands off my girlfriend."

Davis stared at him.

Mattie tried to take a breath and couldn't. His what?

"Your what?" She got out at last.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Davis asked him, stepping forward so he was between the boy and Mattie.

"I'm Bobby Drake and you are stopping me from getting to my girlfriend."

"Mattie, do you know this guy?" Davis demanded.

"Of course she knows me." Bobby snapped at him. "I'm not going to say it again. Take your hands off her."

The horn blared again. "Guys!" Bekki shouted. "Get in!"

Shaking her head Mattie dashed to the car, anything to get away from this moment. She slipped into the front seat; Bekki leaned over to give her a hug. Then shouted at her brother again.

Davis headed over to the car.

"Are you coming?" Bekki asked Bobby.

"No!" Davis said

"Yes." Mattie contradicted him. "Davis, he knows who I am." Mattie cut off Davis' protests.

Davis shifted along the backseat as Bobby got in.

"I'm confused." He said as Bekki pulled away with a squeal of tyres. "Don't you know who you are?"

"She has amnesia." Davis grunted.

"Amnesia." Bobby breathed. "Well that explains that then."

"Explains what?" Mattie asked, turning to face him.

"Why you haven't called. Mats, we've all been worried sick about you. Your dad, the Professor, Paige, everybody."

"Oh yeah." Davis scoffed. "So worried that it's taken you over two weeks to look for her."

Mattie watched Bobby's reaction. Davis had a point.

"We didn't know you were missing." Bobby spoke solely to her, acting as though Davis didn't exist. "You were meant to be staying with some friends for the holiday. We figured you were with them."

Mattie nodded. His explanation sounded plausible. Obviously not to Davis, if his snort was anything to go by.

She looked back at Bobby; he'd pulled a cell phone out his pocket.

"Hal? Yeah, I got her. She's safe."

The voice on the other end was talking really fast. Bobby was nodding along to what was being said.

"Will do. Ran into a little bit of trouble here."

The voice rose in volume.

"Nothing we can't handle. I'll bring her just as soon as I can."

Bobby hung up the phone.

Davis was practically spitting with fury. "You'll bring her?" He asked Bobby furiously. "You're not going to 'bring her' anywhere."

Bobby turned to look at him for the first time since they'd got in the car.

"I've had just about enough to you. You have no idea what's going on here. So sit down. Shut up."

"She's not your property, you know. You can't just swoop in here and take her away from…"

"Away from what?" Bobby sneered at him. "Away from you?" He gave a laugh a Davis said nothing.

"What you thought you could put the moves on my girl?" Bobby was getting angrier.

"I wasn't like that." Davis replied hotly. "I would never… She… I…"

"What!" Bobby whirred round to face Mattie. "Mattie?"

The pain in his eyes was genuine. Whatever, whoever, else he was. Mattie could tell that he truly cared about her.

"No." She shook her head. "Nothing happened."

Bobby looked back at Davis before staring at her again.

"I swear." She told him, meeting his gaze unflinching. "It could of."

She saw the flames leap in Bobby's eyes.

"But it felt wrong. I couldn't"

Bobby stared at her, then suddenly leant forward and planted a kiss on her lips. It was over in an instant and Mattie felt her body cry out for more. Her body defiantly remembered him.

"Sorry." Bobby said, obviously reading the expression on her face as one of shock. "But I've been wanting to do that all night."

"It doesn't change the facts." Davis told him. "We don't know you. We can't let you just take Mattie away."

"I know her." Bobby told him.

"It's not going to happen." Davis roared

"Davis." Mattie glared at him. Protecting her was one thing, but now he was just being irrational

"Mattie, you can't be serious? You trust this guy?"

"Guys?" Bekki cut in. "You know what you were saying about being able to handle this."

All three of them stared out the windshield. Ben and his mates were forming an effective road block.

"Well, do you think you could start handling?" Bekki asked.

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Another cliff hanger. Sorry gang. Just HAD to end it there. Will write more soon I promise.