Chapter 3

Sigh. Nothing's going well anymore. Not that it ever has, really, but still.

She had it almost once every week now.

It bothered her, that no matter how much she pinched herself, or slammed herself, or yelled at herself to wake up, she couldn't escape it.

The dream that was so so real every time she had it, it must've been actually been real.

Her hands chained down to the cold metal table and the woman's scared face.

And then, the woman spoke, "Not the girl. Don't take the girl! Please! Please!"

And the woman shrieked, and then she shrieked, and then she found she couldn't speak.

Couldn't see, couldn't hear.

Just the screaming of the woman, and then the man yelling something.

The man yelling the words.

The man yelling the very words, no, word.

The one word.

"ON."

And then it was over.

He was bothered. Very bothered.

He shoved the greasy, oversalted eggs into his mouth and wished he didn't use oil in the pan and that he hadn't salted the eggs and that his life wasn't... such a drag to go through. "Someone's in a bad mood."

Scott.

"Shud'dup," was his only response as he continued to shove the greasy eggs into his mouth.

"Bad for your cholestorol, you know. You should really start eating healthier, Logan."

He fwapped* his head around to look at Scott and said, "I don't give a f*** to your healthy campaign, so f*** off." Logan earned himself a look of disapproval.

"Don't cuss."

"What if I feel like it?"

"Why have you been so grouchy anyways?" Scott said smartly, smiling just to make Logan angrier. But instead of his expected response, Logan stopped to think.

Why you so angry anyways?

Rogue.

Her name POPPED up in his mind as soon as the question was asked. Like a search engine that was very sure of its results, Rogue was all it said because it was Rogue. It knew it was Rogue, Rogue who was angry and sad which made him angry and sad, and knowing he was angry and sad because she was angry and sad made him feel like it was a bad thing which made it angrier and sadder and... Well, he didn't wanna' know that it was Rogue, that just made too many complications pop up that he had to sort through.

It's just stress. That's all. Let's not get all Dr. Phil here.

If Dr. Phil was here, he couldn't do much. The most he could do would be to give Scott some advice about becoming bald, because with a trench coat and hood-thingy as tight as Scott's was at the time, Scott wasn't too far from it.

~ o-O-o ~

I don't want to tell you what happened that day, when Odelia summed up the courage to talk to her father.

I don't really want to tell you, but I will.

It didn't go spectacular.

I would like to tell you that her father was thrilled and immediately enrolled the girl into Xavier's Academy for Gifted Students, that they had some father-daughter bonding and that her father was sad to see her go, that tears were shed and that it turned out to be a heartfelt plot, but that would be like saying E. T. didn't have to go home, Leslie never fell off the rope, Winn Dixie didn't get lost, and that the Pheonix Force never got to Jean, it stayed up in space flapping around and feeding rainbow unicorns magic pixie dust that granted them wishes and let their dreams come true.

If you'd like to believe that pile of rainbow colored sugar junk, go right ahead and press the little red X at the top of the page. It'll do you good, really.

Anyways, for those of you refusing the pile of rainbow colored sugar junk, her father wasn't thrilled. He was infuriated that she would ever think of talking to him in that... happy go lucky fashion, as if she had a great day without him around to supervise and make sure she didn't do anything... over his limits. Limits that limited , anything, everything. She was sent to her room and he immediately decided just to cut that dumb tree down and to power-staple 3 layers of black curtains to her window so she couldn't look out, or get out.

Odelia had waited too long. She couldn't escape, and nobody could save her.

However, nobody literally means no body. And fate doesn't have a definite body, really, as some people have found.

~ o-O-o ~

But that little Asian-American girl was Odelia. Odelia.

That means something.

Which is why she did escape, through the front door at 3:00 AM. The very front door, not the back door. With the folded pamphlet, given by Ororo, at hand, she looked through the shiny brochure-like thing which said "Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters" in cheesily colored letters.

"Address.. Address.. Address. Address!" She mumbled to herself when she found the address and phone number for the school. "Yes!" She ran off to the bus station, which, after studying the maps she'd smuggled for years, was very easy to find. She navigated the abandoned streets through the dim light, hardly sleepy at all. Who could sleep, with this kind of thing in your head?

You're out! You're out!

They'll come after you.

SHUDDUP!

She didn't want to think this whole thing through. She just wanted to believe that this would all work out, that's all she wanted. And if thinking strategically and pratically was going to keep her from feeling that this would all work, then she was going to avoid thinking strategically and pratically. She liked that feeling, and practicality would just wash it all away. VAMOOSH.

A few cars passed, but she made it to the bus stop and bought a ticket for the town.