Ok, as promised, one chapter a day! Chapter three ladies and gentlemen! (Crowd cheering) Ok…you know you're losing it when you start cheering for your own writing….Please comment!

Oh, and if you have any ideas for cool mutations you might like to see in the story, just put them in your comments! That's right…comments! Say it with me now…co-mm-en-ts! Ok…chapter three!

For several weeks Andy and Vanessa met in the parking lot of the high school at 6:30 sharp and went together into the school. They stopped at their lockers together, talked about classes, teachers, students, and Andy told her bit by bit about himself. They could have talked for hours and hours, but eventually the bell would ring and they would be forced to go their separate ways.

The stuff he had to put up with when Vanessa wasn't around was just as bad as he had thought it was going to be, but after school they would meet in the parking lot again and they would walk home, separating about half-way to and Vanessa would smile, wave good-bye, and dart off the main road and into the woods and out of sight. She never told him where she lived, in fact, she never even told him who she lived with. Parents? Siblings? Anyone? Ever since their first meeting, she never satisfactorily explained why every time those three boys passed them in the halls they would immediately cower and run around them as quickly as possible. Andy never asked.

One day in early winter as Andy stood outside the doors of the school waiting for Vanessa, he decided to ask her about it. It just seemed like something he should know. He didn't know what he had seen on the first day of school; he had been hit in the head pretty hard…

It was almost 7 o'clock and Vanessa still hadn't shown up. She was always on time. Andy was worried. Eventually the bell rang and he had to go inside to make it to his first hour class. He kept an eye out for her all day, but he never found her. At the end of the day he still waited for her in the lot, but again, she never appeared. This carried on for another week and a half. By now the people that had refrained from hassling him realized that he didn't have any back up and the bullying increased ten-fold.

After ten days without Vanessa, Andy had given up waiting for her after school and as he walked home in the shallow layer of snow that covered the city side-walk he tried not to think about all the reasons for her not being at school. Did she move? Did she get hurt? Is she de… No…He couldn't think like that. Andy passed an alley and kept walking with his head down.

Suddenly something hit him hard in the back and he was flung face-down into the snow. He heard a loud shout, a scream, and a thud behind him. By the time he turned around, it was over. There was Vanessa, standing over the hunched form of a man, a knife still clutched in his limp hand. There were burn marks all over the man's jacket and his face was almost burned beyond recognition. Vanessa looked up and saw Andy looking at her. Her hands were covered in the man's blood. On shaking legs Andy stood and looked in amazement at his friend.

"Vanessa?" He stuttered in his hissing voice. She looked terrified, manic with fear. She leapt to her feet and ran away, tearing down the alley and out of sight. "Vanessa!" Andy shouted, running after her and stepping around the body of the man who had nearly killed him. "Vanessa! Wait! It's me!"

She never turned around and never slowed down. The cold air was definitely having an effect on his cold blood and soon he was out of breath and freezing. He was also quite lost in the back-alleys of New York City. He stopped to catch his breath and to get his bearings. He heard a metallic clanking sound to his right and he ran into an alley off of a main road.

He saw Vanessa scrambling up a large chain-link fence. He ran to her and jumped, grabbing her ankle. She looked down and tried to kick him with her other foot, but she was off-balance and fell on top of him. He had to hold her shoulders against the fence to keep her from running again.

"Vanessa! Vanessa, it's me! Andy!" She looked at him with those flaming eyes of hers and Andy jumped back in surprise. They were glowing a fierce red.

Recognition seemed to dawn on her and she relaxed a bit. Andy got a good look at her for the first time. There were dark circles under her eyes and her hair was messed up and snarly. She looked like she hadn't slept in weeks.

As she looked at Andy her eyes faded until they were their normal colors. A tear rolled down her cheek.

"Andy?" She stuttered. She threw her arms around him and he held her awkwardly in his arms. He heard her crying into his shoulder. "I killed him Andy!" She wept through her tears. "I didn't mean to kill him! I just didn't want him to…"

"Hey, it's ok…It was a mistake…and you saved me again you know." She gave a hallow laugh and was silent for a while. She pulled away and half-smiled at Andy.

"I'm sorry. Really, I'm just…Sorry. I haven't been there for you, and I want to show you why. It's the least I can do."

"What do you mean?" He asked with a frown.

"I haven't told you everything about me, and there's something you need to know."

Before she could say another word, a large windowless black van screeched around a corner and tore down their street, stopping at the end of the alley. Vanessa and Andy jumped to their feet and watched as the back of the van opened and five men in black uniforms charged out. They were carrying guns. A man in a sharp suit and sunglasses stepped out of the passenger side and stopped at the entrance of the alley. The five armed men ran at Vanessa and Andy and it was clear that their intentions were not friendly. Vanessa assumed a threatening stance and, to Andy's amazement, the air around her started to ripple with heat. He had to take a step back, the temperature around her grew so high.

"What the…" He started as the men stopped a few feet away at the sight of her.

"Just go along with it, ok Andy?" He gave her a puzzled look. "Look scary!"

"Oh!" He bared his pointed fangs and hissed like a snake ready to strike.

"Nice." Vanessa commented after seeing the uneasy look of the men. The man in the suit smiled, despite their hostility. He walked down the alley and stepped in front of his men.

"At ease gentlemen." He said in a voice as cool and collected as if he were trying to sell them a car. "Hello kids. My name is Jonathan Sanders." He put out his hand to shake, but they looked at him coldly and he shrugged, pulling back his hand. "Fine. Down to business." He looked over his shoulder and motioned for one of the men to come forward. He did, and handed him a small slip of paper. Sanders cleared his throat and read off of it…

"Mutant, you are hereby charged with the murder of a non-mutant in a situation where deadly force was not necessary. As this is a case involving the protection of a mutant by a mutant, you are to be imprisoned without trial until such time as you are deceased or your mutation can be treated. Do you have a statement which you would like to have on record before you are taken into custody?"

Vanessa looked at Andy in the corner of her eye and glared at Jonathan.

"What if I don't go peacefully?" She said menacingly. Sanders laughed. It was a nasty sound like someone was trying to drown a tiger.

"You'd lose all your breathing privileges, Ms. Viorenza, and we might just have to stop by and have a chat with that brother of yours…"

The expression that made its way slowly across Vanessa's face could have cut through a bank vault. Clearly Sanders had crossed a line, and Andy could tell that the man was in immediate danger of bodily harm.

"If you touch him, I'll burn your damned face off…" She growled quietly, but the menace in her voice filled the silent alley like some sort of deadly smoke. There was a horrible silence and Andy could sense Jonathan's unease. He grinned, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, and chuckled, though it was underlined with obvious fear of this girl that stood before him. Andy could feel the heat that radiated from his friend's hands increase with every tense second. Andy stepped forward until he was at her side.

"Van, I think we should go." She never took her eyes off of Sanders. Her eyes…They glowed an almost blinding red and flickered like fire. She looked murderous.

"Do you hear me? I'll burn your face off." She repeated, punctuating each word with a flash of yellow in her eyes. Andy grabbed her shoulder to pull her away, but he jerked his fingers back in surprise. Her shoulder, straight through her clothes, was insanely hot. He couldn't touch her without being burned.

"Listen to him Vanessa, go. I dare you." Sanders smirked, regaining some of his former arrogance. Vanessa, without a word, reached out to pull Andy by the arm. Although her skin was still hot to the touch, she was clearly able to cool down when she wanted to. She pulled him in a slow walk down the alley, never letting her guard down or looking away from Sanders. That was her one mistake.

In a lightning fast movement, one of the men had grabbed Andy by the throat and pulled him away from Vanessa. She turned on the man with a furious "Let him go!" and reached out to touch him with her scorching hand, but before she could reach him, behind her another man in black stabbed a large syringe into her shoulder. She screamed and pulled it out, the metal and glass melting to nothing in her hand. She ran for Sanders, but her legs fell out from beneath her and she collapsed to the slush-covered ground. The snow sizzled and evaporated on contact with her arms, hands, and face and she jolted on the ground, still trying to grab hold of Sander's shoes and legs. He stood there, knowing she couldn't reach him, and smiled. He kneeled down by her head as the strength left her and she lay twitching violently on the cold asphalt.

"Yes, I'll defiantly be paying your bro a visit Viorenza." He said slowly. Vanessa blinked violently, trying in desperation to fight whatever had been in the syringe. She could hear Andy shouting her name, but right now only this man mattered. This man that knew where her brother was.

"Touch him…touch him and…" She gasped and had to stop to catch her breath. Her voice was hardly audible and Sanders leaned in close to hear her.

"What? What could you possibly do to me?" He teased. With all of her remaining strength, Vanessa shot an arm out and grabbed his collar, pulling his face inches away from hers. The smell of burning fabric tinged the air.

"I…will…kill…you." With this threat, Vanessa was out cold. Andy's yells fell on her deaf ears as Sanders pulled his charred collar out of her lose grip and dusted himself off in contempt.

"Take it away." He commanded. The two men that were not involved in restraining Andy lifted Vanessa off of the ground and unceremoniously shoved her into the back of the black van at the end of the alley. Sanders watched, then turned his attention to Andy. Three of the men had him pinned against a wall as he struggled to get free and reach his friend. Sanders approached slowly, theatrically, and spoke calmly now that he was in control of the situation.

"Oh, look at this one…" He said disapprovingly, brushing a hand over the scales on Andy's restrained wrist. He wiped his hand on his pants in disgust. "He's not worth the trouble. The only thing he's good for is a new leather chair! We'll let him go this time. We don't have room at the facility for useless mutants." He piled on the disapproval of this last word, rolling it around his mouth like he was eating a bad piece of fish. Andy had heard about the recent "mutant scare" and the incident in Cuba that the government seemed determined to push under the rug, but was this guy serious? How many mutants were there? Andy felt useless. Here he was, mere feet from a man that had just threatened, drugged, and shoved his best…and only…friend into the back of a van, and he couldn't do anything. Well…anything except one…

Andy spat into Sander's face. The man recoiled in revulsion and wiped the saliva off of his face. Andy wasn't afraid. For the first time in his life, he saw a man's fist draw closer and closer and finally make contact with the side of his head, and he wasn't afraid.

Andy fell to the ground, flittering in and out of consciousness for several seconds. It hadn't been a solid hit and while it was going to hurt like the dickens tomorrow, he never blacked out. He saw the five men and Sanders walk away down the alley and pile into the car. Vanessa. Using the wall for support, Andy pulled himself to his feet and stumbled toward the van. He heard the engine start and for a moment he was too dazed to continue. He fell against a dumpster, recovered, and made a run for it. He grabbed the passenger-side door handle just as the van pulled away, dragging him along for several feet before he had to let go. His head was almost clear and he started to run desperately after the disappearing van. A car going the opposite way nearly hit him, but he hardly noticed it. All that mattered right now was Vanessa.

As his temperature went up due to the physical strain of chasing the van he could go increasingly faster eventually tearing down the street, dodging cars, fixated on his goal. Now that there were people around, the van had to abide by the speed limit, so Andy actually had a chance of catching up with it if he went his fastest.

The van squealed around a corner and Andy came after it, its speed suddenly dropping to make the turn. When he turned the corner after it however, the van was gone. He stopped, completely out of breath and turned on the spot, looking around for any trace of it. His ear registered a mechanical clanking sound to his left and there was a half closed garage door, just big enough for a van to pass through. The huge concrete building that stood before him was surrounded by a high fence, but the garage was only blocked off by a traffic stop, which he just climbed under. Andy ran up to it, but two large men in the same black uniforms that Andy had seen before stepped out. He was about to fight them to get through to the rapidly closing door when one, who appeared ready to speak, suddenly fell over unconscious. The other did likewise and Andy only paused for a moment to register this before sprinting for the door and sliding in just as it slammed shut.