gravity (SUMMERS)

CHAPTER TWO

His hand grasped for hers. Her hand grasped for her knife.

"Tell me why," Solstice stuttered. "Tell me why I should trust some creep wearing weird glasses in an alley."

Scott let out a low chuckle, as if he were in on an inside joke she didn't know about. Just as he was opening his mouth to respond, he was cut off.

"Trust me, you do not want him to take the glasses off." The voice was like mint tea- smooth yet chilling, comforting yet unfamiliar. Solstice wanted to trust it but had no idea if she could.

Her head turned so sharply that her neck ached, but her knife stayed aimed outwards. It took her a minute to connect what she was seeing, for it was so shockingly different from everything else in the scene.

The man was as neat as his British accent made him sound. His crisp blue sweater seemed to be nearly luminescent compared to the backwash of heavy graffiti and filthy brick. He was as close to a smile as anyone could get in a hellhole like this one and his cordial blue eyes seemed fond.

Solstice couldn't remember the last time she'd seen someone in a wheelchair, especially not one like his. The metal of it gleamed and it seemed far more high tech than it should've been. She wondered if he'd been sitting there the whole time, watching the conversation unfold. Surely his wheelchair couldn't just seamlessly roll through the litter-lined street without making noise.

"Who are you?" Solstice's fear was laced with anger at this point.

"Solstice, meet Charles Xavier. He wants to help you even more than I do." Scott's voice had the faux casual tone that people got when they tried to calm someone down.

"Solstice, I used to be friends with your mother," Charles shares. "She was one of the most brilliant women I've ever known, and I was very sorry to hear about her death. She was even more powerful telepathically than I was at the time of our friendship."

Solstice felt as if she had been gutted. "What the hell do you even mean, telepathically? Are you kidding me? My mother is dead, and she was damn insane for the last couple years of her life, thanks to people like you."

Charles's face was grim. "You act just like her. You look just like her, too. She'd be proud of what you are."

"What the hell are you even talking about? What I am? You don't know anything about me," Solstice seethed. Her hold on the knife tightened.

"Solstice, you don't have to pretend, we already know," Scott insisted.

"Solstice, don't you realize? You aren't the same as everyone else." Charles insisted. Solstice looked at him and felt glistening horror fill her stomach when he continued speaking, his mouth staying firmly shut. "I know what you've done to survive, and I know what you've been through. Let me help you."

"How are you doing that?" Solstice demanded. "What's wrong with you?" Her head was spinning, and she ached to sit down.

"Solstice, we're mutants, and you are too. You know you are, I can see it plain and clear on your face," Scott interjected. "I'll even make you a deal. You come with us, and you spend a week at the school, and if you don't like it, then we'll take you back to..." He waved a hand vaguely at the alley. "This."

Solstice found herself being soothed by his words. She was exhausted, and tired, and filthy, and if these two wanted to help her then she had nothing to lose.

This time, when Scott reached for her hand, she let him take it.