The Animal's Daughter

Chapter 6

*Alex's POV*

7:00 A.M. Everyone went to bed several hours ago and here I am wide awake sitting in a tree. I don't want to go sleep. I don't want to close my eyes. When I do, all I see is them. Armstrong. His soldiers. The scientists. The chains. The room painted red with my blood. Their laughter echos in my ears. Despite all my efforts, I can't drown them out. My muscles tense at the very thoughts. My claws come out. All I want is to rip them to sheds. Show them what I am. What they made me. My blood is boiling and I can feel myself switching sides.

No. I can't switch. I have to calm down. I take deep breaths until I become some what calmer. I'm snapped out of my thoughts when I hear someone walking towards the tree I'm in. I sniff the air. Logan. I watched him come and stop below the tree. He looked up at me as I perched on a limb.
"Come on down, kid." I jumped from branch to branch until I was on the lowest one just in front of him. He stood there with his arms crossed. I've noticed how he always looks pissed.
"What are you doin' out here?"
"Nothin."
"Well, why don't you go do nothin' inside. Don't need you runnin' off before Victor gets here, and just so you know, he ain't gonna put up with you not talkin'. So you might as well start sayin' somethin." I jumped down and walked past him. He shook his head and followed me inside.
Graydon came downstairs just as I was about to go up.
"You're up early. Wanna come work out? I heard you were pretty tough." He stood in my way of the stairs.
"Sure." Might as well. I'm gonna have to live with him, so I might as well hang out with him.

He lead me to the elevator and we went down a few floors. Once the doors opened, he lead me down the hall that lead to a huge training area. Weights were everywhere. Different sized platforms were all over the place. There was even a ring in the center.
"Come on. Let's start on weights. Spot me." He walked over and grabbed a couple of 75 pound plates and put them on the bar for bench pressing. He added more plates until he got to 250. I took my jacket off, showing my tattoos that no one knew about. Graydon was a bit shocked when he saw them but he thinks their cool.
He laid down the bench as I stood behind the bar. He did a set then we switched and I did a set. We continued doing weights for about a hour.

We switched from weights to went to the gymnastics side of the room. I looked up to see a net hanging below the trapeze. I love gymnastics. I climbed up the ladder to the platform. I did flips on the trapeze for a while until I realized I had gained an audience of Logan, Wyatt and a few students.

I was hanging upside down from one of the bars just swinging back and forth.
"Gonna come down?" Wyatt asked.
"Probably not."
"Come on." I made my way back towards the platform. Graydon was walking on his hands on the bar. He obviously didn't care that they were waiting on us. I walked over to him and pushed him off, making him fall on the mats.
"Dick move, Alex." He said jumping up. I flipped him off and grabbed my jacket. I slipped it on as I walked over to them.
"Come on. Let's head up to the Professor's office." Logan said.
"When did you get tattoos?" Wyatt asked in the elevator.
"The last night we were at the base when they dragged me out."
"Where do they take you? What do they do?"
"I told you not to ask. I'm not gonna talk about it." She glared at me and huffed.