Mia's Pov
I stood in front of the door to Andy and Lauren's room trying to make myself knock. Lorna had told me where the room was after I explained my plan to convince Josh to stay here to her. After a while, I gathered my courage and knocked. Lauren opened the door.
"Hi?" she said, clearly questioning why I was there.
"So, this is a bit weird but my friends are annoying right, and um, well, I'm trying to convince them to stay here but they won't. So we made a deal that if I can prove to them that everyone here is a normal person they will stay. Sort of weird but you know." I said really awkwardly. Leaving out the part that my friends specifically didn't like her or her brother.
"So you are trying to convince your friends that everyone here is 'normal'" Lauren said.
"Kind of," I said.
"Hate to break it to you but no one here is 'normal.' So, how are you going to convince them that we are all at least semi-normal." She asked.
"Well, I was thinking that I could get to know each other like I could ask you questions and you could ask me questions," I said nervously.
"Ok, sounds interesting. Nothing much has happened here in a while and this seems like a much-needed distraction," Lauren said.
We ended up sitting on the floor to get to know each other. It was definitely a little awkward at first but it got better.
"So how old are you?" I asked them.
"I just turned 18 and Andy's 16," Lauren said before turning the question back on me. "How old are you?"
"15. Although I turn 16 in two weeks." I said. "have you lived anywhere else. I mean like besides Philly."
"Yeah, we used to live in Atlanta before I got my powers," Andy said.
"That's really cool. What was it like?" I asked genuinely curious.
"Hot. That's definitely something that I've noticed as we've moved north. It's gotten steadily colder." Lauren said laughing a little.
"Do you like video games?" I said.
Andy got really excited "Yes. I haven't gotten to play them recently though which sucks," he said smiling.
"Do-Did you live around here?" Lauren asked, correcting herself.
"I lived up in Easton. It's a town about an hour outside the city." I said, noticing her self correction. "What's your favorite color?" I redirected.
"Purple," Lauren said.
"Blue," Andy said. "Do you have any siblings?"
"Nope. I'm an only child. I've always wanted siblings though," I said.
Andy and Lauren looked at each other. "No, you don't." They said at the same time.
I laughed a little bit before I kept quizzing them. We kept talking like that for a while. It was fun getting to know them, they were just so normal. I get how people would assume that they would be scary or something but talking to them I had to laugh at the thought.
"Do you like cats or dogs?" I asked
"Dogs," Andy said definitively.
"Cats are better," Lauren said.
"No, Dogs are so much better, can you play with a cat? No! The cat would scratch your eyes out. They are rude creatures" Andy said, clearly offended.
"But cats are so cute and cuddly though," Lauren said. I laughed as they argued. They kept arguing about it until all of a sudden a glass of water that had been sitting on the dresser near the door, shattered. The smiles on their faces disappeared and were replaced by scared looks. They glanced at each other
"What was that?" I was confused.
"You should go," Lauren said.
I nodded "ok" I left and the two siblings retreated back into their room and closed the door as soon as I left.
I was a little confused about what had just happened but I brushed it off. I went to go find Josh. I think that I have enough to convince him that they are just normal kids.
Lorna's Pov
I was in Marcos's and my bedroom looking at a picture of Dawn. We left her with my aunt for now. It was still just too dangerous for her here. As much as I want to be with my daughter I just couldn't bring myself to raise her here. She deserves a normal life for as long as possible.
I used to hate my Father for giving me up, sending me away to be raised without him. Looking at my situation now, I understand why he did it. He just wanted me to have a normal life, something that he just couldn't provide. I want the same for Dawn and if she lived here, her life just wouldn't be the best that it could be so I left her with my aunt until I could give her the life I wanted her to have.
Marcos walked in and saw me looking at Dawn's picture. He smiled and walked over.
"Is that a picture of Dawn?" He asked.
"Yeah, my Aunt just sent a new one," I said wiping away a tear that I had forgotten had fallen. He took the picture and sat down next to me.
"She looks so big," he said, his face lighting up as he looked at the picture.
"I know. I just wish I could be there with her." I said a little sadly.
"I know. I do too."
I kissed his cheek. "So what do you think of the kids that we found?" I asked, changing the subject.
"I don't know. From what I heard from Esme only one really wants to stay here." Marcos said, shaking his head.
"Yeah, Mia was talking to me about that. I think that her friends are nervous because of Andy and Lauren." I said.
"Probably, the reason most people don't stay is either that they want to get out of the country right away or they freak out because of Andy and Lauren," said Marcos.
"Do you think that if she can convince her friends to let her stay I could train her? With her powers and her friend's powers, they aren't necessarily fighting powers but can be made into them if they learned how to use them right." I said, thinking further into what I had said. "Like with Mia, from what I understand her powers are mostly defensive but if we gave her a weapon she could be a great offensive fighter. During the fight earlier the way that she was analyzing what was happening even though she didn't know what was going on, which was really impressive."
Marcos gave me a curious expression, "I don't know Lorna. If you wanted you could go find her and ask her." He said.
I smiled excited about this new possibility and put Dawn's photo back on the nightstand and went to go find Mia.
I was walking down the hallway to the area I knew that she and her friends were staying in but I heard arguing even before I got close to the door.
"Ok, so we can stay right."
"No"
"Why? You agreed that if I could convince you that they are normal kids and I did so we're staying."
"Yes but I still think that they are dangerous."
"That wasn't the deal. It convinced you they were normal." Mia said to Josh who was on the other side of the conversation.
I leaned against the door frame very amused at the argument taking place. It took them a more few minutes of arguing to notice me standing there.
"Oh hey, Lorna!" Mia said when she noticed me.
"So have you figured out if you're staying or not yet?" I asked.
"I don't know. Have we Josh?" Mia said, turning towards her friend.
He sighed and relented very reluctantly, "fine we can stay."
Mia got up and did a little happy dance that made me smile. I turned to her other friends and asked, "Do you plan on staying?" I asked them.
"No, Lizzie and I are going to leave tomorrow morning," he said. He turned to his friends, "We need to go look in one of the storage rooms for clothes and stuff for the trip to Baltimore." They left heading towards one of the storage rooms.
I turned back to Mia "Mia since you're staying I was wondering if you would like to train your powers." I said.
"Sure, why not," She said shrugging.
"I was thinking that you could also do weapon training. We keep some weapons in a locked storage room." I said my mind began to think about ways to train her powers.
"Sure sounds fun. When are we starting?" She said excitedly.
"We could start now. We could get you weapons and make sure you know how to use them," I said.
"Ok," she said jumping up. I lead her down a hallway to where the weapon storage room is.
"So why don't you tell me more about your powers. How do they work," I said wanting to know a bit more about her powers and how they work.
"It's complicated. I can create shadows and can manipulate and control them. Like I can move them and hide things in shadows but if shadows are already in an area I can't take them away. I can also travel through them, which is basically teleporting. I can make other things travel through shadows too." She said motioning with her hands showing how she could hide her hands behind shadows so you can't quite make it out.
"That's really cool. I've never really heard of another mutant with that ability before" I said as we rounded the corner to the weapons room. I unlocked the door and turned on the lights.
"Woah," Mia said softly, taking in the walls of weapons. She walked over to a sword on the wall and gently ran her fingers on the blade.
"It's cool right," I said smiling, knowing that she was in awe.
"I've never seen so many different types of weapons before," she said as she walked over to a recurve bow and took it off the wall. "Can I pick a few out to keep?"
"Sure, you'll probably need them soon enough. Better to start practicing now rather than later."
She grabbed a bag from a pile in a corner and put a few throwing knives in as well as the bow that she had picked up earlier. She grabbed an over-the-shoulder quiver for arrows as well as an extra quiver of arrows.
"Why a bow and not a gun," I asked, curious, I would have chosen the gun
"Guns are loud. Bows are silent," she said with a mischievous smile on her face. She picked up her new bag of weapons and smiled. "I've always wanted to learn how to do archery. Now's my chance," she told me with her eyes bright.
"Let's go, I'll show you space where you can practice," I said laughing a little, I led her out of the room and locked the door behind me.
