The last rays of sun were disappearing over the horizon, covering every object within reach of a strange orange color. At the same time it created deep shadows everywhere. Perfect black pools, dangerous hiding places.
A few heavy drops of water hit her umbrella while a sudden wind attempted to take it away from her hands. Both announced in unison an impending storm on the way. Fortunately it was not raining yet.

Celeste was not entirely sure since when she was being followed. It was as if the male figure wrapped in a long overcoat had emerged from the shadows at the very moment the sun had disappeared. In an instant there was no one, and suddenly the man was there. Following her.
Of course, it was not the only person on the street. There were more people walking or running around the soon to be rain, all too preoccupied with himself to notice the silent persecution. That man was the only person who walked behind her for a couple of blocks ago. Staying close but keeping a safe distance.
He was a sinister mockery of her own shadow.

Determined to avoid becoming a sad statistic, she rummaged in her purse until she found her taser. Small and reliable. The size of a TV remote control. In theory a full discharge would be enough to knock him out and give her enough time to run as fast as possible and get away from the animal that was trying to hunt her. In practice she had never used the device against a human being. So she had her doubts. But still deposited her trust in that particular gadget.
The girl was impatient, holding her taser tightly in her right hand. So strong that she feared it would break. Anxiety threatened to waste her only chance. But when the distance between them was less than before, she turned suddenly. Finding determination and courage she can not believed she had. The girl threw her umbrella aside and ran to close the gap even more. Brandishing the little instrument in front of the alleged offender in a threatening manner. The man had no time to react. Small metal fangs jumped from six meter afar, piercing the skin and clothes alike, to download its paralyzing anger directly into his muscles. Taking him down on one shot. A small drowned word escaped from his throat before the electricity shut off his motor functions. The man fell down immediately becoming an amorphous ball product of the strong muscle contraction, unable to stand.
The girl immediately ran in the opposite direction. Turning off her brain to direct all the energy to the simple but extremely important task of moving her legs as fast as she could.

Errand-running. Today, Gemma had opted for public transportation and left her own car at home. It was late, they were walking to the bus stop, and Chase was battling with his own, waning attention span. Gemma was in a rush to catch the bus, yet Chase was moving at his own liesurely pace, stopping to look at the flowers of weeds growing out from cracks in the sidewalk, or an odd bug that was crawling on the window sill.... oo, and a stray cat!

"Mama, look at that skinny cat!" Chase gasped, pointing at the malnourished thing, "Can we take it home?"

"They don't let cats on the bus, Chase. Come on-"

Chase sighed and began to follow, but then paused when the cat meowed at him pitifully. Maybe, if he just stuffed the thing into his jacket, Gemma wouldn't notice it? Yeah... he could do that... Chase went into the alleyway, doing his best impersonation of a cat. Lo and behold, as he meowed, the cat lifted its gaze, drew closer... which probably meant that it wasn't feral, but that wasn't Chase's primary concern. Chase managed to pick the cat up in one arm, while the opposite hand pulled at the half zipped jacket. Chase zipped the coat up over the cat, and the cat poked its head out of the neck-hole of the coat. It seemed to have no tiff with being carried in a nice, warm coat.

"I think that I'll name you... Fluffy," Chase informed the cat. It wasn't really fluffy. It was grey and mangy and malnourished., with haunting, sage green eyes. Not exactly a vision of "fluffiness". With his arms wrapped beneath Fluffy, Chase started marching back towards the street.

Only to be cut off by a fightened girl at the mouth of an alley. She turned, pointed an object at a pursuer who was close behind, and two prongs tethered onto strings shot out, striking their target and crackling with elecrticity. Chase startled and stepped back, eyes wide, and Fluffy also started, scrambling out of the coat, and slicing into Chases' face with its claws in the process.

In a panic, Chases' form slipped, the girl fled, and the man was left twitching on the sidewalk in silence.

"Fluffy!" Chase yelled after the retreating cat. But the cat was long-gone. He turned to the man, touching his cheek. Even in his natural state, his fingers came away with blood from a fresh cut.

He opened his mouth to speak to the felled man, but the words stopped in his throat. Chase closed his mouth, opened it up again when he thought that he'd found his voice, and closed it again. The whole silent gaping, and subsequent closing, of his mouth rather looked like a fish. Finally, Chase found his voice enough to ask,

"A-a-are you o-okay?"

Her blood infested with adrenaline boosted her body. Far. Fast. Her little lungs filled and emptied of light and cold air, her heart pumping oxygenated blood to all the cell in frenzy following an ancient song of survival. Her body was a machine made for running. And she was doing great, until suddenly an idea materialized in her mind. Solitary and small. But strong and irrefutable. The man said something.
Then, with the same speed as that absurd idea attacked, the world around her became a dizzying whirl of color and sound. Multiple colors were washed as fresh paint, creating a burst like a rainbow that surrounded her quickly. Wrapping her head accompanying her in her fall.
She rolled on the floor unable to stop, spinning several times before hitting something. It was a plastic garbage can. Her purse flew in one direction while one of her sandals did the same in the opposite direction.
Gasping and cursing, the child sit up shaking the garbage off of her expensive clothes. She looked around for witnesses. But luckily she found no one. Still a bit dizzy, she picked up her purse and her broken sandal. Confused began to remember in retrospective. Until the silly idea assaulted her again. The man said her name.

With horror, she understood what her brain was trying to say. She had shot someone she knew and had left him there, helpless. Desperate, the girl ran back with the hope that the damage was not so much. Even willing to apologize and accept her mistake. Thing that the poor electrocuted man should accept with pride. Since it do not happen often.
But upon reaching the scene, she noticed with genuine astonishment and disbelief as a creepy alien chewed someone looking remarkable like her bodyguard, Peter. The situation was simply absurd and seemed to get worse with each minute.
The creature looked human, except for the lack of skin that exposed its many muscles like cords. These thick filaments were as red as blood. That being looked like a fresh corpse from the morgue or some top-secret laboratory.

She looked creepy too, though not as much as the monster. Only kept one of her sandals, the other was in her hand. Her purse and clothing were completely stained with organic garbage. Her hair disheveled and dirty. And her face was a mask of horror completely white. Peter was dead, and it was all her fault. She had killed someone. Celeste was almost on the verge of become hysteric, but managed to use all her willpower to not panic. Concentrating all her anger at that infernal being, knowing full well that if she had not electrocuted him, he could have defended himself from that abomination. Now, it was her obligation to at least give him a proper funeral. And for that she needed to rescue the body in good shape.
The voice that came out of her mouth was loud and clear. Full of authority."Go away monster!" Her thunderous voice commanded as she threw a sandal to the horrible creature with all her might.
Astonished with the result, Celeste watched with horror as the projectile moved at an impossible angle and hit her bodyguard in the head. "Rats."

Chase was already attempting to return to his human guise when the girl who had shot the man returned. She recoiled in fear and disgust, and Chase stepped back hesitantly, his eyes completely blackened by fear. The shifting came to a halt, and he did not leave his natural skin.

"Please don't zap me with that thing," Chase pleaded, holding his hands up placatingly. He meant no trouble, nor did he mean any harm. He was just a kid, just a nine-year-old child. And even if he didn't know what a taser was, he most certainly didn't want to get shot with one.

>> "Go away monster!"

The girl was dirtied and disheveled all over, and she bore one shoe in her grasp rather than on her foot. She made like she was going to throw the shoe at Chase, but her aim was awful and the shoe missed him completely. Chase still winced away nonetheless, and in the moment of the girl's distraction, he quickly returned to his human guise. Only when he was back to looking like a blond-haired little kid did he drop his arm (which had been raised protectively over his face), and glower at the older girl.

"You're stupid!" he snapped back. His human form gave him enough courage to yell back at her, but there were tears in his eyes. Tears from being scratched on the cheek by fluffy, and tears from being called a monster by a mean girl, "You're nothing but a stupid girl!"

... because a smart girl would no that he wasn't a monster.

His voice was raw with emotion that he was trying to contain. Had he been on his own, he would have turned-tail and run without so much as a second thought. But he needed to go in the direction that the girl was standing, to catch up with Gemma and catch the bus.

Defeated. Tired. Dirty. Extremely scared. A little sad. Her mind was a whirl of emotions. Unable to stop the flow of thoughts that ran at high speed on her mind, she analyzed them one by one. All of them. Slowly. It was an arduous task. Externally the untrained viewer might say that she was paralyzed. Analyzing. Looking from the lifeless body to the monster that was over it.
As she watched, it began to change shape. It was a incredibly realistic camouflage, and he changed in just a moment. A modern chameleon. Now it looked like an innocent child. As if that trick was going to work... She had seen him without disguise. It was too late for him.
Apparently, his new human form gave him the ability to speak the native language. The monster screamed. In English. Do they speak English on other planet ...? Doubts. More doubts. All about that being was new and strange. Except for the insult. Right from the earth. The insult itself did not surprised her. She felt anger growing inside her flat chest. Stupid? How dare that horrible monster treat someone like her that way? Clearly she, who was a beautiful being and wholly human was right. She was good. The villains were always ugly. But even knowing she was right, she did not dare to retort. Perhaps she was facing a race of superior intelligent things able to conquer the universe...
Stupid. She shook her head in disbelief once again, rejecting the insult. She was not stupid. The facts were there. It was impossible not to see the path of crumbs that pointed to the real culprit. Even at the distance she could clearly see a small trail of blood, probably by where the alien had inserted his tongue to remove Peter´s juicy brain. As a frozen monkey brain. The memory of the dishes that movie gave her nausea. It was a stupid movie in her opinion.

All the time she was looking at all the possibilities. Escape routes, ways to deal with that strange thing. But all her ideas were useless. She did not have any tactical advantage. She must negotiate. But... With what? It seemed another of the many dead end. She told herself to be rational, trying to find an answer for a problem that was not rational at all. Then all of a sudden she had a brilliant idea.
Keeping the desire to run and cry under control, she begged the alien with a sweet voice, soft but audible. The first drops of rain fell slowly, while her voice full of deep and sincere sorrow made her request. "Do not chew him, please." At the same time she delivered her plea, she took her purse that had hung on her left arm to turn it into a improvised Morning Star. And left it hanging from her right hand. She had so many things in the bag, that the bruise caused by her improvised weapon would leave anybody out of combat with a single blunt hit. Or that was what she hoped for. "I have a bag and I know how to use it." The memory of the sandal that did not follow the desired trajectory did not discourage her.

Her priority at that time was to lure him away from the corpse, and she thought to know exactly whats he had to do... that thing looked hungry. She was hungry too. The girl hesitated, unsure. But after a moment of silence, she finally continued. "I can find a cow for you to eat..." Alien likes cows. Right? She was pretty sure the answer would be positive. But just in case she added hastily. "Do you prefer..." Pause. She opened her mouth wide open, pronouncing each syllable with care. "... Cabra?" The peculiar foreign word felt strange in her mouth. Alien like. Still, she tried her best. Trying to do not infuriate the strange creature even more. He even could be the famous Chupacabras. His ability to copy humans was something new, no one had ever mentioned it over the years. But perhaps that secret was what had kept him alive all the time. What was he doing so far north?

Chase frowned at the girl, his arms laced across his chest. Rather than crying, he was getting annoyed-- though there were still tears in his eyes. Depending on the girls' actions, Chase could swing in either direction.

>> "Do not chew him, please. I can find a cow for you to eat... Do you prefer... Cabra?"

"You are stupid," Chase observed once more. He was a kid, he didn't have many insults under his belt, and the ones that he did have weren't very good, "A stupid girl. Who doesn't know anything."

While she was taking up her purse as a weapon, Chase was remaining rooted in his spot.

"I wasn't chewing him," he informed her frankly, "And the only cows I eat are burgers. I don't even eat snakes," Chase had mistakingly believed that stupid girl had offered him "cobra" to eat, as opposed to calling him a "chupacabra". He didn't even know what that was, "You shot him with your zappy-stick, I didn't do anything... I'm a mutant. And you're in my way."

It was an abnormal amount for the nine-year-old to say, but he was getting to be both impatient and defensive. If you had to catch up with your mom, and some girl wouldn't let you by them, and said girl kept calling you names like a stulpid-head, you would be, too.

The monster denied having chewed him, Celeste did not care. She looked at him in disgust. Asking mentally for a better excuse. The culprit always declared himself as innocent. He remarked again her lack of intelligence. It seemed he had a rather limited vocabulary. As also remarked that she had left the poor man unconscious in the first place. Of course, now he was trying to blame her. Deep down, she knew that everything was her fault. She would not admit it. And then another word changed everything. Like the first time. The word mutant came out of his mouth, loud and clear.
The reply was immediate, she glared at him while doubling the bet. "I'm a mutant too. "The girl admitted in the form of a threat. Hiding the fact that her skills were useless in combat. She begged that his imagination endow her powers capable of destroying everything in an instant. "So you'd better stay away before..." The words choked in her throat. Her mouth stayed open in the last pronounced word. The surprise was as big, she completely lost track of what she was saying. Her brain reset again.

Mutant. For a moment the girl did not understand what he meant. It was as if she heard that word for the first time in her life. She searched and searched in her head until she finally found the meaning of the word. At the same time the protection mechanism that had started before, magically shut down. Her adrenaline levels dropped considerably. And her senses returned to watch the world around her as a place to live, not as a giant monster ready to devour everything. And she saw him too. A scared mutant disguised as human. He was just trying to live a normal life...

When the statement took shape in her head, and she realized the possibilities involved in an active X gene, the blood rose quickly to her face to render it bright red. She blushed so hard, she felt that her blood would come out through the pores of her skin. Now that she knew and accepted the truth, there was no way that her brain would believe in the theory of monster or alien. It just made no sense since there was no evidence to support it. It was simple crazy talk.
Embarrassed and proved wrong, she stared at the young mutant in disbelief. She watched him for several seconds without knowing what to do. Not knowing how to apologize. Until the new reality made her realize something that overjoyed her. "'Then, Is he alive?" She asked awkwardly with much disbelief, but smiling foolishly at the thought.

>> "I'm a mutant too, so you'd better stay away before..."

She was a mutant, and she had the nerve to call Chase a monster. Chase folded his arms crossly, and made a show of glowering and pouting his mouth out. Girls were so stupid. She told him that he’d better stay away, or else she’d do something to him.

“I need to catch up with my mom,” Chase said flatly, “You’re in the way.”

He tilted his blonde head back towards the man on the ground. He was just a child. He couldn’t do anything about the man who was currently drooling on the pavement. He was the mean girl’s problem, not his. And then she was staring at Chase blankly, as if his protest that he was, in fact, a mutant, finally hit the girl’s brain. She seemed dumbfounded by the notion.

>> "'Then, Is he alive?"

“I don’t know,” Chase sighed peevishly, “Check.”

That’s what Chase had been trying to do, but since he wasn’t allowed to go near the body, he wouldn’t. He’d stand right where he was until the girl moved, and then he’d leave.

The history of the mutant shocked her, she was even willing to step aside and let him go to be reunited with her mom. How much she wished her mother would step aside from all the family business and return to be in the same country as her. That's not going to happen. If she let the child go or not. She wanted to. But an alarm rang in her head. She could not trust someone who can so skillfully disguised. Its present form was a lie. What other lies would he say? What if it was all a trap? The person in front of her could even an adult disguised as a child. She had saw him changing shape, hiding. He camouflaged himself without any problem. And with alarming ease. Maybe he lied, perhaps he was telling the truth.
Her judgment was clouded again with plots and lies. All against her.

The two maintained their positions, neither was willing to take the first step. As a Mexican stand off. Celeste knew that if she took the first step not only showed weakness, but also put her in the range of a power that she did not know. He could mutate again and stretch sticky tentacles... she could never be sure with mutants.

Celeste also had things to do and was getting a little impatient. Although she was doing her best not to show it, she wanted more than anything to get home and change her dirty clothes. To be taking a long hot bath and forget everything that happened that fateful day. She must also check the vital signs of her employee but it was not necessary. If he was only been electrocuted, he would regain consciousness and rise on its own without a scratch. But if Mr. mutant was telling the truth, he needed to get out of there or get in trouble. She had the advantage. An Advantage over what? To what purpose?

Finally, something she thought extinct indicated her what she had to do. "I believe you. Run before she get worry " Her brain did not believe the words that came out of her mouth, it did not understand why she was letting him go without making him pay for the state of her clothes, or after made her think he was a monster with the sole purpose of letting her in ridicule. "Traitor." A voice in her head repeated over and over. Her own voice. The more she thought about it, the least she wanted to end things peacefully. She wanted so badly to left him with a black eye, but again there was that little thing beating in her chest. And Although her brain fought fiercely, her heart win. The words already left her lips.
She stepped to the side leaving the way open for the little mutant to escape. No before giving him a warning. She wanted him to remember his skirmish with The Queen "Be a good boy or I will zap you while you sleep." Mutants were predictable. Always attracted by the safe walls of the mansion.

>> "I believe you. Run before she get worry."

Chase nodded, and gave a mumbled, “Thank you.”

He didn’t question the sudden change of heart. He simply made his quick retreat. He didn’t want to be around that mean “mutant” girl any longer. He just wanted to get Gemma and get on the bus.

>> "Be a good boy or I will zap you while you sleep."

It was an odd warning that sent a chill skittering down Chase’s spine. What was a little lie? She would never see Chase again.

“No you won’t,” Chase retorted from a safe distance, “My dad’s a policeman. He would never let you.”

So Jorge wasn’t his dad, he was his mom’s boyfriend—and he was a detective, not a cop, but it was close enough. He was close enough to being a policeman-dad, and he wouldn’t let a crazy little girl zap him.

The fact that the small mutant thanked her, almost tore her heart. It even made ​​her feel uncomfortable for the threat she gifted him as farewell . It was filled with so much malice. But she was responsible for maintaining the status of the infamous Manfrella family. She nodded approvingly. Praising her joke. While trying to decide if the boy had enough. Finally she choose to let him go. Both had enough of that. She was exhausted. And dirty.

With fearful steps, she timidly approached her bodyguard who was still lying unconscious on the floor. From his mouth fell a thin line of drool that the few drops of the soon to be storm could not wash. Kneeling beside him, she put two fingers on his jugular trying to feel his pulse. She waited. Then she get distracted. It was not easy. Then she tried again. To finally found what she wanted. There it was, loud and clear as a drum. His heart beating healthily.

At the moment her limousine and the ambulance arrived, her bodyguard was conscious. Confused by the strange situation, but conscious and without apparent damage. Max accompanied his partner Peter on the trip to the hospital. Just in case.
Her driver, Malcom, drove her home. Along the way he glanced back several times, his eyes were full of confusion as he watched her clothes and her hair. And though he made no mention of it, she knew that the smell emanating from her was nauseating. "Nothing that a bath would not fix." She said to herself. Trying believe it. She knew it would take more than a hot bath to end that plague.