It´s a beautiful day, the sun is shining and in her good mood Victoria put on a dress with pink and lilac flowers on it. She feels like dancing after Charles kissed her and nearly can´t hold up a normal pace down the hall, for she would rather be running to see him again as soon as possible.
She passes Ravens room. The door is wide open and Victoria finds a shattered plate on the floor with what used to be a sandwich scattered around.
Assuming Raven went to the kitchen to get some supplies for clean-up, Victoria continues her way to find Raven and Charles downstairs. Halfway down the stairs she stops in her tracks. She has a by now very familiar feeling of two invisible hands holding her head. Smiling she closes her eyes and lets Charles into her mind again.
Run.
Victoria opens her eyes again. Nothing else, just this one word. He sounded serious. Victoria starts to get worried.
She descends the staircase skipping every other step. Standing in the hallway she listens. Nothing. She looks around to the front door. She can´t just leave them behind. Should she call the police? What help will they be when this is another mutant?
She decides to call them anyway and to tell them to hurry up for there is "some kind of" intruder in their home possibly threatening two of the inhabitants.
After she hangs up she hears something behind the door to the library. She approaches cautiously, putting her ear to the door to listen, but she can´t hear anything else. She takes a deep breath and opens the door to enter.
Charles is standing opposite from her and looking at her in shock. While searching the room for a potential threat Victoria spots a man sitting in the chair by the fire place.
"Do come in, dear," He says to her with a slick voice. "Why would you lie to me, Professor? I asked if there was anyone else."
"She is none of your business."
"But she is all yours, am I right?"
Victoria enters slowly and walks over to Charles. When she looks past him she finds Raven in her blue form laying behind the sofa, obviously passed out.
Charles gives her a reassuring look, telling her not to worry.
"Who are you?" she asks the stranger with a firm voice, stepping closer to him. But Charles grabs her wrist to hold her back. The man starts to laugh.
"My name is Sebastian Shaw, at your service pretty lady." He stands up and comes closer.
Don´t use your powers on him. She hears Charles in her head. She didn´t even noticed him entering her mind.
Shaw is now standing right in front of her. "Rumour has it that you, my darling, are very special. I hear that your powers are extraordinary and that we would complement each other superbly."
"I don´t know what you are talking about." Victoria simply lies.
"Oh. You know exactly what I´m talking about." He puts a hand to her throat and pushes her back against the bookcase. Charles just stands there. Victoria looks for him to help but he didn´t even turn around. Looking on the floor she sees a circle around his feet, like someone drew it on the floor with ashes from the fireplace.
Victoria couldn´t breathe, Shaw´s hand around her neck was too tight. She nearly lost consciousness when Shaw suddenly pulled his hand back letting her slide to the floor.
Looking up through heavily lidded eyes she saw Shaw looking down onto his hand. It was red and bubbly, Victoria burned him badly.
He pulls her up with his good hand and pushes her to sit in the chair he was sitting in at the beginning.
"I knew it. You are a liar, same as your little boyfriend here."
She looks over to Charles. He gives her an apologetic look and her eyes wander down to the ash circle again.
"Want to see a magic trick?" Shaw must have followed her look.
He steps over to Charles and pushes him out of the circle. Suddenly a figure appears out of nowhere looking like the devil himself, wearing an evil grin.
"I was just demonstrating something, Azazel. I´ll call you if I need you." Shaw says, and the creature called Azazel vanished as quickly as it came. Charles steps back into the circle looking at Victoria. That´s why he didn´t help her.
"Now, listen. You and I, we can be great together. Our powers combined will win us the earth."
"I won´t help you."
"Look, there is two ways we can do this: One: We help each other, we win together, rule together. Two: I´ll just take what I need from you."
"Just go and try it!"
An evil grin spreads on Shaw´s face.
"Vic. Please…" Charles whispers.
A deafening bang in the hallway announces the arrival of the police. Victoria feels like it´s all happening in slow motion: A woman entering the library with her gun drawn. Shaw calling for Azazel. Charles trying to reach out to Victoria before Azazel took Shaw and her by their arms and vanishes with them in thin air.