Hello, my loves!

It's me. Duh. XD

Well, I've decided to introduce a new character! I know how excited you are about that. *sarcasm* But on a serious note, I'm going to start working on bringing in some romance. I've decided on the love interests! I know I'm being a pain in the arse by not telling you guys, but I want you to wait and see.

It was kind of weird, thinking that I was going to sleep in the same place twice. It was like, here I was, after many, many years on the run, running from something, everything, everyone. I had always made sure to never sleep in the same place two times in a row.

Tonight I would do that quite willingly.

Weird.

I sat in a lounge off to one side of the kitchen, resting my eyes and basking in the sunlight leaking through the window beside my chair. Then something happened; a person walked in the door. A small person. A kid.

I let my head loll to one side, then looked lazily at the teenager. She looked frightened, and small; maybe fourteen. She glanced around, then asked, "Are- are you a teacher?" I shook my head, amused. "A . . . student?"

I shook my head again. "No. Far from it. I'm just . . . an acquaintance of Professor Xavier." She looked over at the window, then back at me. "I'm a mutie as well, relax, lass. Feral."

She blinked, then moved to sit down, then stopped. "Do you mind if I . . . ?"

"Nah, go ahead, kid."

She plopped down on the sofa and rooted around for a moment, then I saw her pull out a clicker and turn on the television across from us. "There's going to be a bunch of students in here pretty soon, just so you know."

I scowled, nodding. I'd have to abandon my nice, comfy chair in the sun. Maybe I'd go outside. I needed to stretch my legs. "Alright. When the first few get in here, I'll go for a jog around the grounds, maybe."

"I'm Catherine. I'm a- well, I can see others' auras, and project my own onto others. I tend to do that . . . unknowingly, sometimes." I nodded. "For example, when I walked in, you were a pretty lavender color, but then you changed to a really dark red, but it had a grey film. You got really . . . guarded, I guess." She nodded, then seemed to realize she may have crossed a line. "I mean, sorry, that's sort of personal, and-"

"Just shut up. You're mortal, as far as you know, right?" She nodded, wide-eyed, and stared at me with wild eyes. "Don't worry about what other people think about you so much. You only have so long to live." I stared right back into her eyes, doing what Hannah used to call my "fucking scary soul-stare." Catherine actually lasted a while before something in her facial expression changed and she looked away.

She took a deep breath, then said, "Sectoral heterochromia?"

What?

"What?"

She nodded at me. "You have sectoral heterochromia. It's where you have different colors in your eyes. You have it." I licked my lips. "It's really pretty, all the different colors in your eyes," she added.

That's another way I'm a freak, by the way. My left eye was brown, with a fraction of it being green. In the other, it was blue and a weird hazel-gold color. "Yeah. The odds of me being born a mutant with sect . . . whatever apparently was slim to none. But here I am." She smiled then, and I noticed the little crinkles around her eyes. Her eyes were older than her body.

"Hey, Cat. I'm hungry, so-" I looked up at the girl who had walked in. She was obviously older than Catherine, maybe sixteen or seventeen. She had bright red hair and green eyes, and was wearing a sweater that said "All I Want for Christmas Is Food."

"Oh, hey, Kary." I didn't smile, but I got up and stretched until my neck and back popped. I could practically hear Kary cringe. The scent of curiosity and fear drifted off of her in waves.

"I'm leaving, don't worry. See you, Catherine." I made my way to the archway leading to the kitchen, intending to grab some water and head to the Professor's office.

Catherine was at my elbow in an instant. She was shorter than I was. "Hang on, how long are you staying?" she asked quietly, obviously wary of the red headed girl in the room. I glanced at Catherine, then at Kary, then back at Catherine.

"I honestly have no idea. Probably not long. I'm never in one place very long." I tried to leave again, but only got a few steps.

"Wait!" I turned around again, agitated by this premature little thorn in my side. "Well . . . do you have any friends here?" I deadpanned her. "I'll take that as a no. Well, pretty soon, I'm making a trip to New York, but I'm not allowed to go without and adult."

I had a feeling I knew where this was going.

"Look, kid-"

"No, just for the train ride, then you can come straight back. I'll pay for all the expenses, and food, and everything." I scowled, and watched as Catherine's blue eyes got twice as wide as normal. "Please?"

I sighed. I'd be putting her in danger. But then again, I knew how to lay low. And I could keep track of the girl and make sure she didn't get into anything.

Wait. What did I care if the little bitch got into anything? She wasn't my problem. But for some reason, I just muttered a quick "Let me think" and then walked away. I headed for the place I saw Professor X the first time.

I hoped he was there. If not, then I'd go back to my room. Not my room, damn it! The room I woke up in, I revised in my mind. This place completely mindfucked me. Here I was, possibly the only female mutant left in the world, stuck in a school for freaks like me.

If you're a freak like me, get off your ass!

I, I, I. Everything you've ever done has revolved around you. You have to do something for someone else at some point.

Bullshit. I do things for exclusively me because I plan on living. Or surviving, or whatever the hell I'm doing.

Bullshit yourself. Three hundred years isn't worth it if you don't have anything to live for. Catherine needs a chaperon.

Yeah, well . . . shut up.

This monologue had been doing this back and forth shit in my mind for the past hour and a half. I stared at the ceiling and let this happen. My survival instinct was arguing vehemently with my emotions. I wondered briefly what my aura looked like right now. Probably a mush of everything. So gray.

We trusted Hannah. That was good. That kept us happy.

Yeah, look how that turned out.

Whatever. She's sorry, you know that. She never really hurt us. She was actually helping us.

No. It still hurt.

And what, suddenly you can't take a hit?

I growled out loud, then immediately shot up and looked around. No one was around to hear me, I was in my- the room I woke up in. With the dust in the air and the frilly curtains. The argument, I realized, had shifted from between my instinct and my emotions to the wildcat and my human. I shoved Wildcat to the deepest recess of my mind I could manage and threw my feet over the side of the bed, and headed for the little bathroom adjacent to the bedroom.

I looked the part of a feral mutant. My hair frizzy and wild, and reached the small of my back. My eyes were, of course, as wild and freaky as always. And my clothes were disheveled and dusty from my time in SoCal and Mexico. I couldn't be having this, oh but hell no. I brushed my clothes off, but the orange-yellow grains stuck to my shirt and pants like glue.

Damn.

Damn it all.

I glanced over at the shower. Hmm.

Before I did anything drastic (like getting naked), I ran through my hair with my fingers as best I could. The brown ball of frizz was so knotted, my fingers almost got stuck. No wonder people were afraid of me in the villages and towns we traveled through.

Ha. Yeah. "Damn it." I glanced around, then checked in the room again. The door was still shut, and no one was waiting on me with a potato sack and baseball bat. I wandered over to the door, and was disappointed. No lock.

But the bathroom door had a twist-lock on it. Well, I honestly didn't care who saw me naked, but I didn't want to scar some little kid that happened to wander in. I lifted my shirt over my head.

I left a trail of clothing from the bed to the shower. It looked rather comical, but I shut and locked the door of the bathroom. No peeks for horny teenage boys, oh no. I twisted the knob of the shower, and the water that rained from the shower head was hot. I must be near the water heater. I turned it so it wouldn't boil my skin and stepped over the wall of the tub. It occurred to me I could take a bath, but I was going for cleanliness, not relaxation.

The water felt really good, admittedly. It massaged the kinks out of my shoulders and back. My hair progressively got heavier. There was literally no way I got all the knots out, but I got some of them out.

I shut the water off and stepped out of the tub.

And realized I didn't have a towel.

"Fuck my life."

Okay, no romance for this chapter, but soon! I promise!

Just for you, I've decided to reveal to you Hannah's pairing! How excited are you, eh? Alright, alright, here it is.

*Clears throat*

And, the lucky male pairing for Hannah Willow is . . .

*Drumroll*

James Logan Howlett!

Ta-Da! The year: 2015. The month: July. Don't hate me, I made an executive decision, and it has something to do with the plot later in the story. There isn't much else left to say . . .

Bye my bitches!

~Kat