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He didn't answer the other mutant's question right away. On one hand, Chris needed to get out of the water and get his wound looked at. Continuing to swim wasn't really an option. But on the other hand, the spiky, nightmarish shape of the other mutant didn't exactly make him anxious to get close.
The mutant seemed to have lost interest in Chris after realizing Chris was a sentient being rather than a large fish, but on land Chris would be the slower out of the two... especially with a wounded leg.

"No, I don't," he finally admitted and began to swim towards the shore. However, when he waded ashore he kept a distance of about 5 meters between himself and the other mutant. It wasn't to be rude, it was out of pure self-preservation. Chris limped over to a nearby rock and sat down on it; he began wringing out his clothes while keeping a watchful eye on the other mutant. Any sudden movements and he'd bolt straight out into the relative safety of the lake again.
Then he suddenly bolted to his feet quickly, despite the sudden pang of pain in his leg.
"How... how did you know I was bleeding?" he asked nervously while weighing from foot to foot.

His attempt at cheek backfired when the other mutant mentioned that he'd remember that the next time.
"...oh," Chris said weakly. It was... hard to tell if the clawed mutant was serious or not. Chris made a mental note - don't try to make any jokes around someone who can eviscerate you.

"I see. That explains the..." Chris began to say, but he didn't finish the sentence. The other mutant was not acting in a hostile way, and Chris was anxious to keep it that way. Mentioning the way the other mutant smelled would probably not be a very wise thing to do. "I see," he repeated instead.

His leg was still hurting, and Chris knew he needed to get a look at it to see how bad it was. However, he wasn't about to climb onto dry ground next to Claws. On land he was too slow, too vulnerable. And even if he would be able to swim to the other side of the lake in his current state, the long swim would weaken him.
So for now it seemed like he had to continue paddling until the predatory mutant left.
"I guess you must be anxious to go back, then," he said with a slightly strained voice.

Chris didn't notice any eventual discomfort on Locke's part, but his eyes widened in surprise when Locke mentioned that he'd been threatened. That he found hard to imagine. Calm, polite Locke, who'd been helping him out earlier when he'd really felt like a, a... Chris tried to think of a different figure of speech than 'a fish out of water', but honestly that was what best had described his situation. Locke had struggled with his studies along Chris, they had trained their abilities together, and he'd even taken him to see his hometown.
What had happened in the time he'd been gone that would prompt someone to threaten him?

Instead of digging into it, Chris just nodded.
"I see," he said - it was a very vague comment, but he didn't want to dig into a subject if Locke didn't want to talk about it. A concerned frown had appeared on his forehead, though.

And about Locke's father... well. Chris knew of it, Locke had mentioned it, but they hadn't exactly discussed it thoroughly and it was apparent that it was a subject Locke would rather avoid. What he said about helping other kids in similarly positions sounded very logical. Someone who hadn't been in a tough spot growing up could probably not realize what children in similar situations were going through.
"That makes sense."
Children development... Chris wasn't exactly sure what you did when you worked with something like that, but he remembered something Locke had said in the beginning of the conversation.
"So is that why they need you close by? Are you a teacher here at the school?"

Locke offered some words of comfort, which did nothing but confuse Chris until he realized his choice of words might have made it sound like his grandfather had died recently.
"Oh. Wait, I might have explained it wrong. He died before I came to New York, his death had nothing to do with me leaving."
Chris had visited the old man's grave during his recent trip to Wisconsin. In movies you always saw people standing by the graves of loved ones, giving long, heartfelt speeches about how much the departed meant for them, how much they missed them... Chris hadn't been able to think of anything to say. Then again, his grandfather hadn't been a very talkative man, so he would probably just have enjoyed the silence.

They hadn't been very close. Chris knew the old man had taken him in when no-one else would, but he'd never felt that his grandfather had loved him, or even liked him. More like he'd been a plight the old man had taken upon himself. He was grateful, of course, but he was also a bit upset - upset that there was so much his grandfather hadn't bothered teaching him.
But you weren't supposed to be upset with the dead! It was probably really bad tact.
Which I would have known if he'd taught me anything about tact, Chris thought nastily.

But this wasn't something you brought up in a conversation, so he just nodded.
"Um, yeah. Not letting it fester."

Locke's answer surprised him a bit, and he looked at the dark-haired mutant with yellow, inquisitive eyes.
"Why?"
The question might have been taken as him being dismissive about Locke's choice, but Chris didn't mean it to sound like that. He was genuinely interested in why Locke had chosen the field he had. Childhood development and social work were fields Chris was about as knowledgeable about as he was about the natural sciences.
"Does it have anything to do with Mai and Other Chris?" he said, going back to the nickname he'd used when they'd been in San Francisco to differ between the two Chrises. Even an emotionally stunted fish-mutant was able to see how much Locke's siblings had meant to him, so it was a logical leap for him to make.

Apparently he'd misunderstood her point about turning around. When she told him to stop it with the games and to turn back to face her he did so.
>>"Okay, I get that you don't trust me, and I'm not asking you to. It probably doesn't mean anything to you but I swear, I won't stab you. All good?"
She sounded earnest, so after a moment of hesitation he nodded silently and stepped out on the street again from behind the garbage cans.

Margo's proposition to help him out was... unexpected. He wasn't above accepting money from others, but that meant he'd owed her. He already owed a lot of people in this city favors... too many, actually. He would have to start returning them soon if he ever wanted to get the balance right.
But, until then, another debt probably wouldn't tip down the scales too much.
"Really?" he said hesitantly. He was on the verge of asking her why she wanted to see the van, but he had second-guessed her enough. This was a chance for him to get the money he needed without stealing it, and he wasn't about to let it slip between his fingers.
"In that case, I'd owe you one. It's parked not far from here."

He began to walk along the sidewalk, his bare, three-toed feet splashing in the puddles that had formed in the light rain. He gave her a look over his shoulder.
"For the record, you shouldn't follow strangers to their vans either."
Just like his previous advice it might come off as threatening, but this was Chris' idea of a callback joke. He might not have the comical timing needed to deliver a joke right, but that didn't mean he wasn't trying.

The makeshift club hit once, twice - not particularly hard, but it was enough to surprise the predator.  Chris quickly swam to the surface, and once he broke it he took a few deep breaths of fresh air.
He started to swim away from the spot, but then a voice behind him made him freeze.
>>"What the heck man?"

Chris slowly spun around, threading water. 

Once again, he would have rather been eye to eye with an alligator. It was too dark for Chris to make out the details, but he could see a humanoid head, long, wet hair, and eyes that glistened in the moonlight. Chris took a quick backstroke to create some more space between them, his heart still pounding in his chest, but he didn't want to seem like he was fleeing. He had already been hunted enough for one evening, and if it was possible to talk his way out of this...

Just in case, he still held the branch in a firm grip... even though the wood smelled partly rotten, and another hit would probably split it in two.

"You... you want this spot? You can have it," he stammered. "I, I can find another lake. No problems. No problems at all. Please don't kill me."

It was impossible to tell which way to go in the dark water!
Chris was swimming in a random pattern, but forced himself to stop when he realized that he might as well swim right into whatever the hell it was that was chasing him. With his heart beating wildly in his chest he tried to see where the dark figure had gone.

A stream of bubbles escaped from his flat nose. He had been under water for long, too long, and his chest had begun to ache. If he didn't go up for air soon, he'd drown... and that would be a way too ironic death for his taste.

What had it been, anyway? He'd only caught a brief glance of it, a dark shadow cutting off the moonlight above him, but the way it had moved... with a long tail, swishing from side to side...
No. Impossible.
Alligators in New York were just a myth, an urban legend. But it would explain the smell of sewage, and... oh. Unless the lack of air was beginning to make him dizzy, he'd just heard it talk. Alligators didn't talk. That basically left one other option... another mutant.

Chris would rather have met a gator.

The thing made another dive for him, he could hear it breach the surface above him. How could it know where he was?!
Chris tried swimming downwards, but his leg scraped against a sharp wooden branch protruding from the bottom of the lake. He could feel the taste of his own blood in the water, and that, together with the growing ache in his lungs, made him desperate. He pulled up the branch from the mud, pressed his feet against the bottom and then lunged straight towards the dark figure.
Hopefully he'd be able to get in a good strike with the branch and leave it dazed enough to get himself to the surface... it wasn't much of a plan, but he was desperate.
To bad that he could barely see his opponent. Chris flailed wildly with the branch when he considered himself close enough, hoping he'd get in a lucky hit.