CHAPTER TWO:

Alexandria's POV

When I opened my eyes for the second time since the attack, I felt cool metal under me. I was in the infirmary. No big surprise there. Feeling much more alert and stronger than last time, I sat up. Then instantly regretted that decision as an intense feeling of lightheadedness overcame me. I moaned. Just how messed up had I been? I swung my legs off the edge of the table once the worse of the dizziness passed. Pushing myself up and off, I walked toward the mirror on the other end of the room.

I was not prepared for what I saw.

I looked like I had survived world war 3 several times over. The skin around my right eye was black for at least two inches. My lip was split, and I had a nasty gash that started at the hairline at the top of my forehead and trailed down the side of my face, stopping mid-cheek. That had to have taken at least thirty stitches. I had reconstructing tape on the bridge of my nose, and that was just my head. The rest of me had various cuts, scrapes, sewn together gashes and was pretty much black and blue. And from the way it was painful to breathe, I probably had fractured, if not broken, ribs. Feeling through my gown I felt the tape and bandages wrapped around my torso.

Great. This was just perfect.

"Alex! You should be lying down." Professor Storm pulled me away from the mirror and sat me down at one of the closest tables. She took measurements, checked my tapes, bandages, and stitches. I looked down at my right wrist, which was clad in a white cast. I was right handed. I sighed.

"It could have been worse. You survived a vicious attack."

"I know that" I snapped.

Professor Storm didn't seem ruffled by my sudden attitude. Though she wouldn't, I mused. Storm had helped my father raise me. My mother had died in childbirth, and Storm was kind of like a replacement mother.

Of course, my massive headache didn't exactly help my attitude at the moment.

Storm left to get me some food, and I switched on the TV. Mindlessly flipping through the channels, I stopped on a news station. They were reporting on a mass killing in an alley downtown. I froze when they showed footage of the alley. The bodies were covered with white sheets, but that wasn't what had my attention. I knew that alley! That was the alley my attack had occurred in. I turned up the volume has the reporter kept speaking.

"It would seem that the five teenage boys were found by a homeless man earlier this morning. Why the boys were even out here is something the police have no answers for. These killing seem unprovoked and random. The police are asking for any new information"

The reporter went on to list the boy's names and such, but I had drowned her out. Storm came in "here-" she stopped short as she listened. "is that-"

"uh huh" I said numbly. Had the guy…killed them?

GIDEON'S POV

"HOW STUPID! You were behind this! And it's on the news!" My father threw papers across the room.

The news story about the five boys I'd killed in the alley was on. I briefly wondered if Miss Xavier was watching. I wondered if she had even recognized me last night. I doubted it.

"Look at me Gideon. What possessed you to do this?" I knew my father didn't have a problem with the fact I'd killed someone-hell, he'd taken lives himself. He was mad because if the police found out it was mutant who did it, they'd come sniffing around my father's organizations, which not something that he wanted.

"I sensed a mutant who was in trouble, and just went to investigate-"

"Does that look like 'just investigating' Gideon!"

"Well, my plans changed when I realized that I wasn't making it out with her if they were alive because they would follow us-"

"Her? This better not be some piece of ass that you hope to-"

"It was Alexandria Xavier."

That shut my father up. "Alexandria Xavier?"

"Yes sir"