He should have known keeping them was a bad move in the long run.

People around here, they knew him.

They knew there shouldn't be children in his shop and apartment.

And suddenly his apartment was full of noise and soldiers and demands.

"What are you hoping to achieve?" Otto shouted as they dragged the three kids out into his shop.

"You know it's a crime and a danger to be sheltering mutants."

"I'm an old man; I'm not sheltering mutants."

The leader jabbed his gun in Norah's direction. She burst into tears.

"And what do you call that?"

"A child displaced by this ridiculous war who needs a place to stay."

"She is a mutant criminal."

"She is a little girl, and I am well within my rights to invite her into my home."

The leader cocked his gun at her. Norah wailed and Lukas pulled her behind him, hissing through his teeth. "Back off fucker!"

And all hell broke out.

A gun fired, but it somehow missed Lukas, as though reality had briefly twisted, and hit one of the soldiers.

Confusion.

Panic.

Norah was still screaming, shrieking, frantic.

Power unused for so many years roared under his skin, and then there was fire and bullets and pain.

Lukas dragged the girls through the door.

"Look after them," he whispered.