I sigh as Jawn embraces me again once we finish unpacking my belongings in my room. He is far too excited to have me back in the house. It isn't that I'm not happy to be home, I am it's just I'm tired and still trying to come to terms with being a mutant. This is a sentiment he doesn't have any understanding of as he'd been born with his unique abilities.
Jawn then pulls out that he knew that I had skipped my last class of the day to go sneak into an R-Rated film that I had no business watching and I'm horrified.
"How did you know it was an R-Rated movie?" I demand.
"Same way I knew you skipped school." He said in an insufferably smug tone.
I glare at him.
"You had better not tell my dad!" I say threateningly.
"Wait... you mean Uncle Charles doesn't know!" he said in shock.
"No, and you had better help me keep it that way!" I threaten.
"I can't believe this! How does he not know this yet?" Jawn rambled in surprise "I have never done this before!"
I pin him with my best Wolverine glare "You had better not tell him!"
"Oh I won't but the theater might!" he said as he holds up my ticket stub "That or the school when they tell him you missed a class."
I try to snatch the ticket stub back but before I can my father's voice intrudes into my mind summoning me to his office and I bite back the profanity that wants to come falling out of my mouth except for the "Damn it" I let slide.
"Uh oh…" Jawn says with a cheeky smirk "Glad that's not me."
I pin him with another glare as I leave the room to go to dad's office and he is right behind me for reasons I don't pretend to understand.
We enter the office and dad turns to Jawn
"Jawn, while I admire your drive to protect your cousin, this is something I need to discuss with her alone. She will be out in a few minutes" he says, his tone gentle but I know he's figured at least part of what transpired. My best guess is that he has realized that I skipped a class.
Jawn leaves and I just stand there, my palms sweating. I am by no means afraid of my father but in that moment I'm terrified that he knows exactly what I did. Yeah I wanted him to pay attention to me, that's part of why I did what I did, but I didn't really think the consequences out of him figuring it out and coming to me.
He dismissed Eli and turned to me the weight of his disappointment in his eyes.
"Kathryn you have a lot of explaining to do." He said leaning his elbows on the arms of his wheelchair.
For some reason I stuttered through the half-truth explanation that it was to spend time with the girls that I thought were my friends. I couldn't bring myself to tell him the real truth, the truth that was that the only way I knew to get his attention was to get in trouble where the school called him.
He passed down a week's grounding, frankly more than fair for skipping school, if anything it's on the generous side considering what I did.
I bring him my mac book and charger before joining Jawn in the hallway, I'm half-convinced he knows what happened between me and my dad.
"So what happened?" he asked.
"I'm grounded for a week, and he took my mac book." I replied.
Jawn winced. "You got off easy... Kurt had to clean the jets a few weeks ago."
"Yes, but Kurt is what seventeen or eighteen?" I point out as if it should be obvious why he'd get a worse punishment than me at fourteen
Jawn just rolled his eyes at my statement.
"I do something like that, and I get detention with Logan."
"Who's to say I'm not going to be subject to that… I'm not enrolled in school yet, so I'll be stuck here till Monday."
"That's the point, you'll be here until Monday… how are you going to study if you don't have your mac book?"
"The old-fashioned way... books"
I nearly jump out of my skin at the sudden arrival of Logan in the hallway with us.
Jawn points out that he doesn't have detention before running away and I swear he starts laughing out loud when I call him a traitor.
"Come on, munchkin we've got work to do." Logan says putting a hand on my shoulder.
"Yes, Uncle Logan" I say my tone a little overdramatic, but Logan doesn't seem bothered by that. I assume it's because he's spent the last four years surrounded by teenagers.
We get into the library and Logan turns to me with the same questions everyone else seemed to have as to why I chose to skip school for the movie, and I give him the same explanation I gave everyone else, and he just sits there on the table staring me down while subtly chewing on a toothpick. It's typical Logan and I find myself wondering, not for the first time if he had ever gotten a splinter in his cheek doing that. I've never had the courage to ask that question.
"Okay, that's your story… now try again... but this time with the truth."
I gape in surprise.
"You look like a fish." He growled good-naturedly.
It takes me a few moments to recover, and I sigh dropping heavily in the closest chair.
"You want the truth, yeah, that's part of it, but the rest is that... that I figured that was the only way to get my father to pay attention to me." I sighed, not looking at Logan. I backhand at the tears that fall at the confession and pray that Logan doesn't notice.
"Have you tried talkin to him?" he asks adjusting the toothpick in the corner of his mouth.
"Of course I tried talking to him, but it's like he doesn't hear me, Uncle Logan. It's like the school and students are more important than me." I wipe the tears from my cheeks.
"You need to try again and keep tryin till he hears you. Don't worry I'll help ya as much as I can." He ruffles my hair and I give a watery smile. People wonder why I refer to Logan as my uncle and the truth is he's the closest thing I've ever had to a real uncle. Though there are times that even my father has begrudgingly admitted Logan might not have been the best influence, he has never had reason to fear for my safety as long as Logan was around.
After dinner I go out onto my private balcony to try to get the events of the past day to make sense. When a strange blonde landed behind me. I turned to him and the next thing I know he is trying to attack my mind. I'm no match for him and my world quickly goes black.
I wake up an unknown time later kneeling in a clearing with my hands tied behind my back.
"Who are you?" I demanded trying to get out of my restraints, but it quickly became clear that wasn't going to happen.
"Ye really dunnae know who I am." He replied as he squatted down to look me in the eye and grabbed me by the chin to force me to look up at him.
"I'm your elder half-brother, or part of 'im anyway" even before he says his name my blood freezes in my veins at the thought of who I was looking at, Legion.
"You can call me Lucas."
The words get caught by the massive lump in my throat and I began to try to free myself to no avail.
"Aye… so you've heard of me… I see father told ya I'm dangerous… he be right ya know; I am dangerous." He said his grip tightening painfully on my chin as he spoke "So, little sister what have ye to say for yerself… you were father's favorite, father raised you, he wanted nothin to do with me."
"Lucas, he… he didn't know about you… I promise, he would have been there had he known."
"I dunnae believe ye… how could he not with that big supercomputer!"
I grit my teeth at the sheer audacity of him to believe that it was so easy to find a mutant with Cerebro much less figure out that mutant is the son he was unaware of even existing. I'm shocked to my senses when Lucas backhands me in the mouth causing some of my teeth to gouge painfully into the inside of my mouth.
"He has ya believin his every lie." Lucas barks in rage then in seconds he is lying in a heap at the base of a large tree. Jawn walks up looking angrier than I had ever seen him
Lucas immediately turned his attention to Jawn, and I realized things were about to get real. Jawn was born with power which is something not even Lucas can boast. I feel myself being levitated off the ground as Lucas leads Jawn away from my father and the X-Men.