Guilty Until Proven Innocent

[Shade]

Well... That lead to a dead end. Well she thought they were just normal people, not X-men, so the prospect of them accepting her and not turning her in to the police wasn't very likely... Shade sighed to himself and swept the restaurant again. No one out of the ordinary here nor anyone he had seen while they were walking. At least that meant they hadn't been followed... But that was when his eyes fell upon those of a small kid, 6 or 7years old tops. He had his eyes trained on "Rachel"... Oh this wasn't a good sign. Maybe he was just looking at the food and figured he wanted a grilled sandwich?

"Mommy! Mommy! Look at that girl"

...Well it was a pipe dream anyway. Shade had to act fast, lest the kid blab that a dangerous mutant was right there in the restaurant. He sent the shadow at his mothers feet to wrap around the young boy's mouth like duct tape, sealing it. Shade then took one last bite of his burger, grabbed his soda in one hand and "Rachel's" hand in the other.

"Come on Rachel, we have to go. Now!"

Half pulling and half dragging, Shade took her through the crowd of people ganging around the little boy, now realizing the foreign object that latched onto his lips. As they went out the door, Shade released the shadow, but soon regretted it after hearing what he said next.

"It's that scary mutant girl they showed on TV! She just left!"

Crapcrapcrapcrap... He pulled her into an alleyway and pressed her back against a graffitied wall. He hoped she wouldn't panic with what he was about to do... Shade smiled to her and looked into her eyes.

"Rachel... I need you to trust me okay..? I promised you I wouldn't let anything happen to you and I'm going to keep that promise. I need you not move and to stay calm."

With that, he crouched down while holding her down, the shadows wrapping around both of them and hiding them the darkness. They could hear all that was going on outside but were trapped in total darkness for the time being. It was a good thing it was still early and the shadows of this alleyway hadn't been forced away by the harsh sunlight. Now he needed a plan of how to get this girl to safety and the sound of the lynch mob and sirens wasn't exactly helping the matters... And of course, he owed Nightlocke quite the explanation...

[Nightlocke]

Charlotte eyed the same boy Tony was looking at. She could see the recognition in his eyes and knew that as a child, he would spill the beans as children often did. Her eyes bulged but before she could act, something wrapped around his mouth. Her eyebrows scrunched together in confusion and she turned her head as Tony grabbed her hand, exclaiming they had to leave. She had a huge urge to shock his hand. She didn't like the contact, she just wanted to run away. Still, he dragged her out of the fast food restaurant and behind them she could hear the boy yelling that he had seen her. Panic went through her but before she could do anything, Tony pressed her gently against the wall and talked to her in a calm and reassuring voice.

He told her to trust her and that everything was going to be alright. That was always a hard thing to believe. Why should she believe him anyway? Because they had shared burgers at McDonalds? Suddenly, Tony used his powers to hide them from sight. They appeared to be some kind of powers of darkness. She could hear people and police gathering not far off. Charlotte panicked and attempted to grab Tony anyway that she could and shock him. It was better to run away than to just stand there like idiots, even if they were temporarily gone from sight. The police would be around the area for the rest of the week, most likely. They would be stuck there a very long time if they didn't

move. 'I can't do that! Let me go!"

[Shade]

"I can't do that! Let me go!"

Was this girl thick or something? Did she not understand that going out there meant being riddled with tranquilizer darts and pegged with knockout gas grenades? Or worse if the police deemed her too dangerous to live as well as her "accomplice". He was too young and pretty to shot full of more holes than swiss cheese. He then felt a zap of energy as his skin made contact with her. Oh perfect, the mutant girl was panicking. Just dandy. Wonderful. And he was going to be the test dummy of her electrically charged slaps, or he could get an even worse zap if she decided to make constant contact with him...

Sliding his hands into his sleeves so as to have less exposed skin, Shade decided that he would have to try and pull her into the shadows with him... It was risky, what with her struggling more that Schrodinger's cat. Actually that metaphor worked perfectly for what would happen to the girl if she got away from him wile they were traveling through the darkness. She could end up anywhere and he would have no clue how to get to her. For all he knew, she could end up in Antarctica surrounded by starving polar bears. He gritted his teeth as he spoke to the struggling girl in a seething whisper.

"WILL YOU STOP THAT?! I HAVE A WAY TO GET US OUT OF HERE BUT IF YOU KEEP FIGHTING ME AND MAKING NOISE WE'RE PROBABLY GOING TO END UP DEAD! YOU CAN'T KEEP PULLING THIS SHIT WHILE WE'RE TRAVELING THROUGH THE DARKNESS OR YOU WILL GET HURLED OFF TO GOD KNOWS WHERE! NOW LIKE I SAID BEFORE, TRUST ME. BUT WHAT'S MORE, CALM SOWN!"

The shadows around them began to swallow them up as Shade began to teleport them to the Xavier School. If she got there, then she would be hidden well... She could maybe learn to trust other people after a life of constant deceit and mistrust. But what he kept thinking over and over in his mind was "Please don't struggle, please don't struggle,please don't struggle!"

[Nightlocke]

Charlotte froze, listening to his harshly whispered words. She bit her bottom lip as she heard him speak. She felt like cornered pray but this man was offering to help her. It was the most difficult think to simply give in. What if he was lying? But what if he wasn't? What if he really did want to help her? Was it really a coincidence that she had met a mutant in the park? But more, she feared by what he meant that she would be hurled off to god knows where. Was he able to travel through these shadows? And was it the fact that she was struggling the reason he said this? Charlotte did not struggle any longer as the darkness sucked them in. It would be a bad idea, and she did not wish to find out the consequences of his words. She decided to trust him and shut her eyes tightly, bracing herself.