Mutant and Proud.
The large king sized bed was uncomfortable for the small girl, being smashed against the wall and another very warm body, she had been elbowed four times, kicked a few more and nearly shoved off the bed. All in the course of one night.
Katrina huffed as she kicked and elbowed one of her brothers in the back, her only response was mumbling in his sleep about some girl named Monica and a fart. She groaned and held her nostrils closed with two fingers and she climbed from the large mattress and onto the cold hardwood flooring of the bedroom.
She looked back, pushing her wild red hair behind her slim sun burnt shoulders, really, at thirteen years old she figured she'd be filling out more. So far though nothing, her mother was slender though, tall and willowy, really it was quite graceful to Katrina.
Her mother moved like a ballet dancer, light on her feet, Katrina on the other hand, not so much. She was rather clumsy, she always found herself knocking something over or running into something and stubbing her toe, or breaking it. She sighed, shaking herself from her thoughts before she turned away from the bed and moving towards the door. Cracking it open she looked up and down the hall before fully stepping out.
While Katrina was clumsy to a fault, she could be quite sneaky in her childhood home, she knew all the floorboards to avoid, all the steps to skip, hidden cupboards, and even hidden rooms. She bit the inside of her cheek as she came to a stop at the top of the steps.
"Kathrine, you don't understand." She paused, her father never called her mother by her name, they must be having a very interesting conversation. A part of her started to turn back around, climb back into the uncomfortable bed with her stinky brothers. Another part warned her, if she left, she'd miss something important. So she stayed, crouching at the top of the stairs and leaning down she could see her parents in the kitchen,
"I understand perfectly John, you want me to run from him-" Him? "with my tail tucked between my legs, and leave you behind," Her father shook his head, his dark hair fell in front of his face, it'd recently started to go from jet back to a salt and pepper color.
Looking at the woman in front of him, her red hair looked like it was glowing, she was pissed. "You don't get it, do you?" He was always the calmer of the two, the more level headed one. "This isn't about you running away, or leaving me behind. Kat, this is about Katrina." Her mother paused, her hair seemed to stop glowing as she looked at him. Nodding her head. "I understand." But Katrina didn't all it did was raise more questions from her. Why was this suddenly about her?
Her brows knitted together as she watched her parents. A small ticking sounds started, along with a tingling down her spine, a sharp pain at the base of her skull followed. She ducked behind the large metal pillar of the stairs in time for the door to fly off the henge and send debris all around the foyer and up the stairs. She breathed deeply as she peaked around the corner, the smoke cleared to reveal a large man, with a long trench coat.
His hair was cropped closely to his head and his sideburns took up most of the sides of his face. He raised his upper lip and showed fangs. Mutant. Katrina blinked her electric blue eyes as she watched the scene unfold before her. "Hello Kitty Kat." He purred lightly as he stared at her mother. She all but growled at him as she balled her hands into tight fists. "Victor."
He placed his hand over his heart. "Ouch, no 'welcome home'?" Her mother curled her lip in distaste. "You aren't home, Victor, haven't been in a while." He narrowed his eyes at her as he pulled a large hand from his pocket. "Ouch." His nails looked like they were growing. "That hurt." And then all hell broke loose.
Her father's skin seemed to vibrate as he fought the large man, and he seemed to be handling him well, until another man appeared from smoke and stuck a hand into his back. She watched him stiffen before he fell to the floor, her mother released an inhumane roar as she grasped the other man by his neck, holding his feet off the floor. Crack. The lifeless body fell from her hands to the floor.
Runrunrunrurunrun. Katrina was frozen at the top of the steps before a hand gripped her upper arm, she snapped her head to the left, her blue eyes wide and filled with tears. Her older brother, Adrian, his wild red hair stuck up at odd angles, the telltale sign that he'd just woken up.
His green eyes were narrowed, his mouth set into a firm line as he looked down the stairs to see their mother standing off with the large mutant and their father lifeless body on the kitchen floor. He placed his finger to his lips, before his skin started to glow and Katrina's whole world went black.
She faded in and out, she could remember the smell of burning wood and one of her younger brothers crying for their mother and father. 'They're dead, aren't they?' She couldn't find it in herself to muster more tears than she'd already cried.
She vowed to herself she'd be damned if she'd be crying again anytime soon. When she fully regained consciousness she was laying on a large bed, the only thing missing the sound of pots and pans banging together and her mother swearing, she swallowed the large lump in her throat and pushed the tears back. Taking a deep breath and pushing her dirty hair back over her shoulders, she smelled burnt wood when she moved the red tresses.
Slowly climbing from the bed and looking down, she was still wearing the soot covered bedclothes from the night before. She rubbed her wrist roughly against her nose.
A knock sounded at the door before it opened and Adrian walked into the room, looking as solemn as he usually did, but there was something different, the small glint in his eyes was gone, permanently banished from the events of the night. "Katrina-" "I already know."
He raised an eyebrow, looking slightly surprised. "Mom and Dad, they're dead, killed by-" She stopped, looking at her older brother, he was still covered in soot, and if she wasn't mistaken, blood as well.
"Victor, that mutant that was there." Another rough swipe at her nose, looking away from her brother she took her time to observe the room she'd woken up in. "Katrina, there's something's we need to talk about." She paused in her wallpaper admiring as she looked at him.
"Mom and Dad, were mutants, which means that we could all very well be mutants as well." She'd already known that, she hadn't thought it was that much of a secret. "I know." Another twitch of his eyebrow.
"I've known for a while, since I was nine." She sat on the edge of the bed as she looked at her brother. "I'm not stupid, I just know how to go unnoticed, I watched as that man came and blew our door off the hinges."
She wasn't sure why she was telling him all this. "I watched dad die, and I watched mom kill that man." She looked up at him, her bright blue eyes empty. "Mom was probably killed by Victor, he knew mom and dad, you know?" She shrugged her shoulders as she pulled a loose string from the quilt. "I'm going to kill that man Adrian, it's the only way to fix things." He nodded. "I understand."