Hello earthlings! Thank you to everyone who reviewed, and I hope you enjoy! I own nothing except a dysfunctional computer.
Katherine stood on the sidewalk for a long time after Jack walked off, watching the sun slowly rise in a numb haze. Eventually she went back into the sewers, carefully making her way to where the mutants had been hiding. She wanted to see what had happened for herself.
The area was a madhouse. Hunters were still running around, searching for anyone who'd managed to escape the initial attack. Mutants were being forced outside, most of them with visible injuries. Katherine inhaled sharply as she spotted some hunters walking towards her, ducking into a wall as they approached.
She emerged into another tunnel after walking through the wall for a full five seconds. She wasn't sure what part of the sewers she was in, but Katherine did recognize one thing: her father's voice, coming from around a corner. She crept forward, trying to eavesdrop.
"-up at six in the morning, dragged out to the sewers and for what? To find out that you idiots still haven't found my daughter and the brat that kidnapped her?"
"We… we didn't know exactly who we were supposed to be looking for," a woman's voice said, sounding scared. Katherine didn't blame her. "We'll search all of the spots we've noticed the kids going before- the World Library on Red Street, The Larkin Family Theater on Lion Avenue.."
"Good. Find the boy."
Katherine backed up, careful to make sure she wasn't noticed. Lion Avenue… isn't that where they'd come out of the tunnels? She'd noticed a street sign… was Jack hiding out at the theater? Katherine needed to warn him. After all, it was partly her fault that these hunters were looking for her. Her father seemed to think that Jack had kidnapped her, and she and her friend had technically led the hunters here last night… she wanted to make it up to at least one mutant, for the sake of the rest she wasn't able to help. And he was her friend. She needed to find him.
Katherine carefully went back through the wall. Luckily the people she'd heard coming had walked off and she was free to hurry down the path, ducking into the shadows whenever she heard people and eventually clambering up the ladder and through the hole that hopefully led to Lion Avenue.
She emerged onto a familiar looking street, only now it was slightly busier. The people walking or driving past looked curiously at the girl climbing out of a hole, but she had no time for them. She ran down the sidewalk, eventually stopping in front of a large building with a sign reading "Larkin Family Theater". She tried the main door, but it was still locked. So were all of the side doors. She was about to phase, risk of being seen by a passerby be damned, when she noticed an employee's only door in an alley. When she tried it, it was unlocked. So that was good.
Inside, it was still mostly dark. The only light was from a small room, an office type space with a large brown desk. A dark-haired woman sat behind a desk, talking on a phone quickly. "Yes, Maria? Can you come in today? Jules has strep throat and- thank you so much, darling! See you at noon!" SHe hung up and sighed, then noticed Katherine. Her eyes widened.
"Um.. who are you?"
"I'm friends with Jack," Katherine said quickly, and the woman relaxed.
"Oh, lovely! My name's Medda, and welcome to my theater! I'm sorry about the mess, but I'm opening a new show in two days and my lead just caught strep throat… anyway, make yourself at home! What can I do for you?" Medda said all of this with a smile, as if she weren't probably overworked and this girl was a dear friend and not just some dirty stranger. Katherine liked her already.
"Nothing, Ms. Medda. I was looking for Jack?"
The woman sighed deeply. "He's on the roof of the building. I think something's up with him, showing up all alone and in that state… go on up and see him, honey. It's the top floor of the staircase right outside my office. You can't miss it."
"Thanks, Ms. Medda." Katherine paused for a second, then spoke hurriedly before she could stop herself. "Listen, some bad people are probably going to show up soon looking for Jack, alright? Stay away from them if you can. They're very dangerous." The girl ran off before Medda could do anything except widen her eyes.
The door to the roof was unlocked. Katherine pushed it open to see Jack, painting a canvas that he'd somehow dragged up there. He was oblivious to her presence, only glancing up when she whispered "Jack?"
Jack spun around to face her, glaring. "Who… oh. Just you. Please leave."
"Well, I would, except then you wouldn't know that the hunters are coming and they'll be here any minute."
Jack looked momentarily concerned before just sighing, sitting down with his head in his hands. "Great. Get yourself out of here." Katherine stared at him, wide eyed. Was he serious?
"You're not actually giving up, are you?" His silence confirmed it. "You can't! The others still need you!"
"What others? I led the hunters to the tunnels, and now everyone else may be kidnapped and shipped to the Refuge! I can't help anyone!"
"You have to try! Please-"
"Why are you even here, anyway? You don't know anything about what the mutants have to do just to survive! Just go back to being a princess, being Daddy's Little Girl and eventually becoming a famous, rich hunter."
Katherine gaped at him. He did not just say that. "You don't know what you're talking about! I would never-"
"Well, I do know you're a liar who's daddy is the man who wants to track me down and kill me, so I think I have a pretty good grasp of what's happening here! You feel guilty, and are trying to make up for it by pretending you care about some kid muties!"
Katherine glared at him. How dare he speak to her that way? After she'd come all this way to help him… "If I were a boy, you'd be looking at me through one swollen eyes!"
"Well what's stopping you, huh? Give it your best shot!"
And then, inexplicably, Katherine kissed him.
It was relatively short, but it felt… good. She'd never thought of herself as the kind of person to enjoy physical affection, especially since her disastrous first kiss with Micah, the hottest person in her high school Journalism club. But this was nice. She forced herself away after a few seconds, blushing. Thinking about the Journalism club had given her an idea.
"What if we got an article out about what's happening to mutants?"
Jack blinked at her for a second. "What?"
"I can write an article or a poster, get it to the local newspaper or something, and we can publish it!"
"What'll that do? No one really cares right now, not after we viciously attacked the poor hunters at the mayor's office. Plus, who actually still reads the newspaper?"
"Yes, but maybe if we had pictures on what was happening inside the Refuge… maybe then we could force people to care! And we could also send the article to news websites… this could totally work!"
"Then what?" At least he sounded faintly interested now.
"We'll tell everyone to send letters to D… Pulitzer and the mayor. Or… they could all call! That'd get their attention, and while this is happening a few mutants can go and talk to either of them! Not enough to be considered dangerous, but maybe one or two… oh! We could have an entire rally! And we could invite more normies, and I bet there's a way to protect the crowds from hunters!" Katherine spun, savoring the feeling a great idea brought her. If she had known kissing people could give her strokes of brilliance, she'd have done a lot more a long time ago.
"Just one problem," Jack said after a few seconds. "We have no way to get any real proof about what goes on in the Refuge. And we have nowhere to print the things-"
"I have a private printer in my room."
Jack blinked, then continued. "Great, but there's still the Refuge problem…"
Katherine thought about this for a second. "Do you know any mutants who can work with tech?"
"Um… I think Davey can, but-"
"So I can have you smuggle my extra phone into the Refuge, and then you can have the kids in there take pictures, and I'm sure Davey can make it so the pictures go straight to my computer, and I can print them out!"
"Wow. Wish we had a rich girl on our side years ago." Katherine wasn't sure if Jack was joking, but she continued talking as another idea came to her.
"We could all hide out at my vacation house! It's only a little bit outside the city, and it's pretty big. No one ever goes there, so it'd be perfect to plan all this! We just have to go find Spot and the others, and-"
"Well," Jack cut her off, "the thing is, I don't know where Spot and the others went. Plus they all hate me, so I don't know if they'd want to listen to me again."
"I can help with one of those problems," a voice said from out of nowhere. Both of the teenagers screamed and jumped, whipping around to see Race pop into view.
"How long have you been standing there?" Jack yelled.
"Only a couple seconds. I came looking for you, and heard the last thing you guys said. Everyone who escaped is hiding out around the area where the gang used to be. Bet they'd really like it if they were offered a secure place to stay for a while…"
Suddenly Katherine heard loud noises coming from the ground. She ran and peered over the edge of the roof, horrified to see hunters swarming into the building. Before she could say anything, Jack grabbed her and pulled her to the other side of the roof. "Jump!" he said urgently, gesturing to the fire escape of the office building a few feet away. Katherine took a deep breath and leaped, barely managing to keep her balance after she landed. The two boys jumped over too, and all three kids stumbled quickly to the ground. Once they were there, however, they discovered a new problem: the way out of the alley was blocked by a big white van filled with hunters who were now pointing guns at the teens. Before she had time to think it through, Katherine grabbed Jack and Race, closed her eyes, and yanked them through the wall of the building.
She had never tried phasing with more than just herself, and was honestly really surprised it worked. The office they stumbled into was thankfully empty. The two boys stared at Katherine for a second before Jack laughed. "I knew there was something different about you!" he said.
Race just sighed, folding his arms. "And I knew you were hiding something."
"Well, yeah. But she's a mutant! That makes so much sense!"
"Yeah, I guess it does." the younger boy slowly started to smile. "Welcome to the club."
Out of all the reactions Katherine had been expecting… this wasn't it. She really liked it. She beamed at the boys. "Thanks. But right now, I think we need to get out of here."
Needless to say, the meeting with the rest of the mutants was… awkward.
Almost everyone was mad at Jack for various reasons and mistrustful of Katherine after she told them who her dad was. But they warmed to her a bit after she showed them her mutation, and they were willing to at least listen to her idea. They didn't really have anything left to lose. So someone stole a ton of buses,and all of them went out to the house right outside the city.
For the next few days, Katherine alternated between helping the mutants and pretending everything was fine at home. She was hopeful they could get this sorted out before her two-week-long spring break was up. She, Davey, and a couple other mutants worked on the article while the others helped to organize the actual, city-wide event: a peaceful rally in front of the mayor's office, one where anyone was invited. Some others were involved with slowly wreaking havoc on the hunters: disrupting communications, wrecking vehicles, that kind of thing. Jack had gotten the phone to the Refuge, so they also had pictures to look over- disturbing, horrible cruel pictures. Someone had somehow managed to smuggle a phone into the adult mutant jail, so Katherine was getting those pictures too. Those were just as bad, if not worse.
Finally, four days after they'd first started working on it, the article and invitation to the event was finished. Katherine emailed it anonymously to the town's local newspaper as well as country wide news websites. All of the other mutants also posted the link on all of the social media sites they had access to. The next day, the day before the rally was supposed to happen, the article was everywhere: newspapers, national newsletters, blogs, Buzzfeed. Everything was ready.
That night, Katherine spent the night at the house. Many of the adult mutants were gone,back to one one of Spot's numerous hideouts, so it was just the kids who had nowhere else to go left, running around and yelling. Most of them had escaped, which everyone was thankful for, but the house was very full. Katherine needed some quiet. She walked slowly through the gardens, enjoying the quiet of the world around her.
"Hey, princess." Katherine spun around to see Jack, standing behind her, hands shoved into his pockets.
"God, you scared me!"
"Sorry." The boy looked different tonight. He looked awkward. Not scared or panicky, just awkward. Katherine had a feeling she knew what this was about. "So, you gonna tell me why you've been avoiding me?"
And there it was. Katherine hadn't been intentionally avoiding Jack, she just… hadn't gone out of her way to seek him out. She wasn't sure what to say. What could she say? "I… you're going to try to go to Peace if everything works." Why had she said that? That wasn't what she meant at all.
Jack frowned sadly. "Yeah. I'm gonna try. Try to get into the college there, make a life for myself."
"And what about the kids?"
"If I can, I'll get them out there with me, but… maybe if this all works out, they won't need me."
Katherine shook her head. "They'll always need you." I think I need you. Katherine didn't know why she thought that either. She didn't need anyone. But maybe… maybe she wanted Jack?
The teenagers were silent for a second. "What is this about, anyway?" Jack asked suddenly. "I don't just mean the muties and the rally, I mean… you and me. Am I stupid, or…"
Kaherine wasn't at all prepared for this. She'd never been in a real relationship before. Jack laughed grimly at her silence. "Yeah, I know girls like you don't end up with guys like me-"
"No!" Katherine cut him off, taking a deep breath. "I just… feel things for you. I… really, really like you, Jack. You're… kind and a good leader and smart and… I just really like you." She hesitated for a second, feeling silly. "Do you…"
"Yeah," he whispered. For a second, there was nothing in the world. Nothing except for the two of them and the sky. Slowly, they walked toward each other. Katherine smiled as they kissed. She had never understood why characters in books talked about kissing being a "joyous experience", but now she was starting to get it.
The second ever romance scene I've ever published! It wasn't completely awful! Whoo! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that! Please leave a review with constructive criticism, advice, and/or words of encouragement! Later, potaters!