Bloodshed

Chapter 7

Pandora was awakened by someone urgently shaking her shoulder, she flinched away and sat up before her mind registered that it was just Charles. He gave her a concerned look but turned towards the door as Raven walked in.

            “I heard a scream what’s happening?” She asked.

            Charles looked back at Pandora as she pieced together what happened. “Mind telling us? I’d rather not be the one to do it… it is your mind after all.”

            “Nightmares. I’m fine.” Pandora avoided their gaze and looked towards the wall, she could still feel her brother’s hand around her throat.

            “Want to talk about it?” Raven asked.

            “No.”

            Charles patted her shoulder’s to comfort her. “How long has this been going on?”

            “Since I left the Hellfire Club.”

            “Tell me. Could your brother be doing it? Making you become scared in real life so you have these nightmares?”

            “We’re pretty far away from them I think. And he doesn’t know where we are so that’s almost impossible unless my dad taught him a new trick about finding your enemy.”

            “Well that can’t be it otherwise I’m sure they would’ve attacked by now.” Erik’s voice called out from the doorway.

            Pandora curled up in a ball and glanced at them. “Did you all hear me scream?”

            “No Erik and I sensed your fear. You must have used your powers without knowing… of course that’s why today we are going to train.”

            Erik glared at Charles for going into his head. “Later in the day I believe. Not two in the morning. Now let’s all go back to sleep before we wake up everyone.”

            “Too late.” Alex called. “I don’t think anyone can sleep through your shouting.”

            Erik muttered something under his breath and left. Pandora looked back at Charles as Hank, Alex, and Sean came in. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to do this.”

            “It’s okay. No one is hurt.” Charles assured her before walking over to Hank. “I want you to go find something in the lab to help with Pandora’s sleeping habits. I don’t want her to die in her sleep.”

            “What?” Hank snapped fully awake. “Why would she die?”

            “Heart rates speed up when you get scared, if they go too high then the person will die.”

            “I’ll find something.”

            “Take the day off training if you need, I can train Alex instead.”

            Pandora walked over to them and listened to Charles tell them the training schedule for the day, she felt tired from the lack of sleep but wasn’t going to complain, if they’d even mentioned going back to bed she would stay up; sleep wouldn’t help her, not with the fear of being killed over her head.

            A few hours later they were all in gray sweatshirts and pants excluding Hank who was still working on something to help Pandora. Charles let Raven go do her own training since she could already control her powers while he took Alex and Pandora down into the basement to prepare a bomb shelter so he could help Alex train first.

            “Why isn’t Sean helping?” Pandora sneezed as dust flew up around them.

            “Hank needs him for another project he’s working on.” Charles explained.

            “What about Erik?”

            “You are going to practice your powers on him later.”

            Pandora cowered at the thought of messing with Erik’s emotions, she could tell he still didn’t like her and the thought of going near him didn’t help. Once they had the targets set up on the other side of the chamber Charles ushered Pandora to the door and turned to face Alex.

            “Should we go outside?”

            “Yeah.” Alex nodded and Pandora could detect a hint of doubt and nervousness in his voice.

            Charles closed the door and waited with her until a noise came from the inside and an alarm went off, they walked into the room and saw flames on the ground and the target almost perfectly fine. Charles looked at the flames in shock before grabbing a fire extinguisher.

            “I will help you control this Alex!”

            “Yeah right…” He muttered as he watched Charles.

            Pandora walked over to him. “You need to focus more. When you attack you let your fear and panic consume you.”

            “What do you mean? Why would I fear my power?”

            “Don’t try that I could sense it. As for why… that would have to do with killing Darwin right?”

            “Not completely.” Alex admitted but didn’t elaborate and Pandora didn’t push him to.

            Charles put the flames out and made Alex go through the exercise for about an hour before Alex needed a break and they ran out of fire extinguishers. Pandora was led outside to where Erik was and Charles whispered what he wanted her to do before approaching Erik. All she could think was how dangerous going into a man who hated her father mind was, this wouldn’t be a fun training exercise that was one thing she was positive of.