Hi. Exams are done! Please join me in celebrating by reading chapter 32! Enjoy!
Erik wasn't allowed much time to react before Laurien strode purposefully over to him and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. She dragged him over to the bathroom and used her powers to open the door with a loud clang before pushing him in.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" She demanded the moment that the door had shut behind her of its own accord.
Erik winced as his back hit the wall hard from the momentum of her shoving him into the washroom, his body sinking down to rest on the closed toilet cover. "What's with you all and hurting me? First Charles, then that man, now you."
Laurien couldn't help but frown in confusion, her mind being jarred from the matter at hand. "What did Charles do to you?"
"You see this?" He jutted out his jaw, drawing her attention to a blossoming bruise that was slowly staining his skin. "Charles' work when he first laid eyes on me in the kitchen of the Pentagon."
"I don't doubt you probably deserved that one." Laurien muttered bitterly, not meeting his eyes as she experimentally tapped the wall with her shoe.
"Hurt a lot more considering he's wearing that ring." Erik mentioned, prompting him to receive a dirty glare from Laurien as heat flared in her chest. "Which begs the question, where's yours?"
She smirked bitterly, shaking her head. "Logan's right, you are an asshole."
"I asked a simple question that demands a simple answer." Erik reminded her, pushing her buttons even further. "And yet, you call me names."
"Then you shouldn't ask questions you already know the answers to." She advised, suddenly thinking that it was a mistake to talk to him, but still continued against her better judgment. "Now, tell me, what the hell was with the tantrum you just threw out there?"
"Laurien…" He started, his voice infuriatingly calm. She knew he was going to try to divert from the subject, but she wouldn't let him.
"No, tell me." She said, leaning forward and lowering her voice, as she was sure that the others outside were likely attempting to listen in on their conversation. "Who in their right mind would intentionally cause a plane to plummet from the sky over an argument?"
He paused, as if taking the time to choose his words carefully. "I was defending you."
"That is one sorry excuse. I don't need defending, after all these years, I'm so tired of people screwing things up because they think that they're helping." She growled, her previously repressed temper returning in full force as her eyes flashed bright red. "What I really need right now is for you to shut up and listen for a fucking moment."
He just stared at her, his blue eyes glistening with something that even she couldn't make out. He finally nodded, a flicker of readable remorse and guilt registering on his face.
"You've left it too long." She commented, suddenly self-conscious as to how much her hands were starting to shake.
He frowned. "What?"
"You've put off your talk with Charles for too long. You could have stayed when we got back to the mansion after Belgium, everything would have been so much simpler if you had–"
"Had what? Stayed to play house with you, Charles and Hank?" He demanded, his brow furrowing. "He would never have let me leave, I would have hated being cooped up in that house, and in the end it would have hurt our relationship. I didn't want that, Laurien, and I know you wouldn't have either."
"Charles wouldn't have done that to you."
"You know that he would have, and he has. What was his reasoning for injecting you with the serum without your explicit consent? How was he not controlling you like he has everything else that he's gotten his hands on?"
"Is that what you tell yourself to help you sleep at night." She murmured quietly, her voice barely rising above a whisper. "He helped you, he saved you, and in return, you crippled him."
"You're defending him, after all he's done to you?" He asked; his eyes narrowing disbelievingly.
"Oh please, I've defended you so many times for so much worse." She snarled. "But no more, I am finished with your bullshit. You are going to step out those doors and talk to him. You are going to apologize for all the harm that you have done and left unanswered for ten years."
The fight seemed to drain out of Erik. His shoulders slumped and he ran a weary hand through his hair. "What the hell happened to you, Laurien?"
All air in her chest seemed to exit with a forceful exhale as she gripped the counter of the nearby sink. "What do you mean?"
"You never used to be this… angry."
Laurien felt her jaw clenching tightly, only to loosen it quickly when she found that it solidified his point. She opened her mouth to apologize, but then realized that she didn't owe him one and stubbornly crossed her arms over her chest. "Ten years does a lot to a person."
"I can see that, but what happened?" He asked before glancing at the door. "Who is that woman out there?"
"I don't–" She stammered, as her head began to feel overloaded. "Don't turn this on me."
"What happened?" He repeated, more forcefully this time, but she still didn't respond. "Laurien."
She finally looked directly at him as she took a deep breath, her jaw clenching tightly as her surroundings turned a sickly shade of green. "That is none of your business."
Erik then stood up and made to touch her arm but she snatched up his hand before it could reach her, gripping his wrist tightly with her slender fingers. She realized that it was a mistake to touch him, as she felt the heavily potent emotions transferring through the contact, leaving her unable to decipher which feeling were his and which were her own. She released him, a strange calm coming over her as she let his hand fall to his side, though a moment later, a question suddenly appeared at the forefront of her mind.
"Was it so terrible to even consider a life with us, people who loved and accepted you?" She asked softly, her brow furrowing in fatigue as the emotionally draining events of the day seemed to be catching up with her. "Was it so unappealing for you to imagine living a life where people weren't trying to kill us in retaliation for some narrow-minded agenda that you had in that head of yours. Did you not want a normal life?"
"Nothing about us is normal, Laurien." He stated, his eyes desperately searching hers. "And for that reason, society won't allow us to live in peace. Besides, I always thought that you didn't want to settle down."
"Things change."
"Yes, they do." Erik agreed. "I'd be lying if I said that staying hadn't crossed my mind. Our time in Belgium, it felt like something out of a dream. I would wake up with you in my grasp and I– I don't know how to describe it." He murmured quietly, his affectionate blue eyes suddenly turning hard as he shook his head. "It wasn't realistic with the world that we live in. The humans will never accept us."
"They can, and they will with time." She urged. "You must have a little faith in these things."
A subtle smirk crept onto his face. "You know, you're starting to sound just like him."
Laurien faltered, but recovered quickly as she quelled the sudden clinching sensation in her stomach and continued. "All I'm saying is that they're not all bad." She reasoned simply. "You've met Adela and Franz."
"That's different, she grew up with you." Erik pointed out. "The others, they seem to be getting worse and far more numerous as time goes by. You haven't seen first-hand the terrible things that they can do."
"Believe me, I have." She sighed, wincing as she pushed away an intruding memory. "But you are not going to further your cause by alienating them all."
He frowned at her words as waves of striking concern and despondency roared off of him. "Even if there are good ones, whenever I returned from a mission, and saw you sleeping on the bed waiting for me, I lived in constant fear that, one day, I would enter that bedroom and they would have taken you away from me. And I'm still afraid that after all this time, we can never regain the feeling of security that they stripped us of until they disappear."
"The absence of humans isn't going to bring back what we once had." She admitted, forcing herself to face the swell of hurt and disappointment that flashed in his eyes. "We had a few good months, but it's over now, and it has been for quite a while."
His gaze fell to the space between them. "He really has taken you from me, hasn't he."
"I was never anyone's to take. You always knew that." She murmured softly, reaching out a gentle hand to squeeze his arm. "Now, you know what you need to do."
He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "It's been ten years."
She shrugged tiredly. "Better late than never."
"What should I do?"
Laurien searched her mind, but didn't have to look far for a solution. "Try a game of chess, after he's cooled off." She suggested, forcing herself to give him a small encouraging smile before turning to reach for the door. She felt like a complete asshole and a fool for reacting the way she had, the most frustrating part of it being that she wasn't even sure she was justified in saying what she had to him. The only thing she knew for sure was that she was glad that she said what she needed to. "Remind him of old times."
"Did you love him?" Erik suddenly asked, causing Laurien to freeze in her tracks.
She blinked; surprised that he would bring it up now. "For a time. We were engaged for four years before I left, so I suppose love had something to do with it at the time."
"You weren't married?"
She shook her head. "It wasn't really a priority, what with us being so busy with the school and all."
Laurien felt a peculiar stirring against her chest and looked down to see her necklace floating before her, freed from the confines of being tucked beneath her black shirt. The long simple chain held a single item upon it; a silver antique wedding band, tastefully decorated with engravings of soft swirls and seashells. The ring rotated slowly between them, allowing the both of them to quietly observe the artistry before Erik let the necklace drop against the front of her shirt.
"What made you leave?" He wondered aloud, genuine concern in his eyes as he sat back on the closed lid of the toilet. "Was it when you found out about the serum."
"Yes." She uttered, tucking the necklace back beneath her shirt. "But, unfortunately, it's a little more complicated than that."
December 20th, 1969
Faint moonlight filtered in through the crack in the curtains as Laurien turned over in her bed, sighing quietly as she nuzzled her face into her pillow. The sound of Charles' soft breaths filled her ears as he snored next to her, something that often occurred when he slept on his back. Laurien blinked sleepily and propped herself onto her elbows as she observed him in the darkness, gently sweeping a strand of his floppy hair away from his brow with her delicate fingers, being careful to not wake him from what appeared to be a rare dreamless slumber. She felt a small tug at her lips and she rested her head against his shoulder, breathing in his pleasant scent as she settled herself in again to sleep, only to flinch when a loud series of barks erupted from somewhere in the mansion.
Charles stirred at the noise and rolled onto his side to face her, his eyes still shut. "Hmm? What's that?"
"It's Shasta." Laurien groaned, each burst of barking setting her further on edge.
"She must have found a mouse or something again." He slurred lazily, still half asleep as his hand blindly searched for her until he grasped her hip loosely. "Don't worry about it."
"Yeah, maybe." She murmured, but couldn't stand the thought of Shasta waking Hank from some well-deserved rest. "I'm going to go get her." She stated, making to roll over and swing her legs over the side of the bed.
"No, no, no, no." Charles blurted, grabbing onto her waist and pulling her in close to prevent her from getting out of the bed. "Stay with me." He said; his voice muffled against her skin as he kissed her neck. "She'll stop eventually."
"You make a compelling argument." She mumbled drowsily, his kisses intoxicating to the point of deliriousness. "But I really should get her."
Charles moaned into her collarbone and she gave him a quick peck on the forehead before leaving the warm comfort of his arms and dragging her feet over to the door. The moment she opened it, Shasta's barks grew louder, ringing in her ears as she made her way down the hallway and wrapped her navy robe snuggly around her.
She'd soon made it to the main hall, which was tastefully decorated for the holidays, when the barking halted abruptly. Laurien was left in utter silence as she slowed to a stop, her hand hovering an inch away from the staircase banister. Frowning, she glanced down to the lower level, not spotting anything out of the ordinary, which prompted her to turn on her heel and return the way she came.
The only sound that greeted her now was the one of her pajama pants swishing as she walked, her bare feet treading silently along the carpeted floor. She rubbed her eyes tiredly, itching to get back to bed as soon as possible, but the walk seemed to last forever.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when she turned around the corner and saw a mass of people making their way down the hallway from the other end, blocking her way back to Charles. It took her a moment to fully register what was before her, but when she did, a wave of alarm flashed through her entire body as if she'd had a barrel full of ice water poured over her head as she noticed how heavily armed the men were.
Laurien bolted to the side, narrowly avoiding a half dozen darts that buried themselves with dull thuds into the wall that had been previously behind her. She reached out with her powers to grab onto the men's bulletproof vest and push them back, but was confused when nothing happened. With a rapid change of plans, she dashed back down the adjoining hallway and hid behind a pillar, breathing heavily as her brain worked a mile per minute.
She batted all the racing thoughts away with difficulty and tried to focus onto the nearest object, an enormous hardcover copy of War and Peace that Charles seemed to leave everywhere, but she was horrified when again nothing happened. She glanced down at her hands, flexing them in an attempt to see if they just needed a stretch, considering it had been a while since she'd used her powers and tried again, but nothing, no fire clawing up her arms, no ice in her veins.
With her heartbeat quickening rapidly and panic starting to set in, she clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound of her breaths, her fingernails digging into her skin painfully as the sound of multiple soft footsteps could be heard from the other side of the pillar. Laurien squeezed her eyes shut as they passed, her heart beating so unbearably loud against her ribcage that she feared that it would give her away.
"How many of 'em?" A gruff, yet quiet, voice demanded authoritatively, startling Laurien as it broke the terrifyingly still silence.
"Our intel accounts for three residents, sir." Another voice responded, obviously trying to match the strictness of the other's, though ultimately failing as his voice broke on the last syllable. "The girl that we just spotted, the telepath and the blue freak."
Laurien stifled a growl that had begun to rise in her throat at the mention of the word 'freak', straining her ears to hear what was being said afterwards.
"All of them are specified to be of extreme importance to obtain alive and without extensive injury to the specimen. You hearin' me?" The first man said to the rest of the group, cocking his gun. "She's already seen us, so we need to move quickly, seein' as she's probably on her way to warn the others."
'Specimens', Laurien thought, rolling the word around in her head as a chill ran down her spine. Usually that was a word for a foreign entity or a reptilian creature, as it had been used to describe many such creatures in Bastijn's science fiction novels, but never humans, though she guessed that they most likely weren't humans in the government's eyes.
She waited for them to pass fully into another hallway before cautiously stepping out from behind the pillar and creeping toward where she'd left Charles. She burst into the room and was surprised to find that the bed was empty, the covers pulled back and exposing the fitted sheet that covered the mattress. Suddenly fearing that they had hit him with a dart as he slept and had already taken him away, she scrambled over to his side of the bed. Her fears were stemmed by the absence of his slippers that he usually kept at the foot of the bed, reassuring herself that the intruders most certainly wouldn't have snatched up his slippers with them if they had taken him.
She allowed herself a moment of reprieve as the weight of all of it hit her like a truck. There were people in the mansion with the intentions of rounding them up and taking them away, and all the while, Charles, and now Laurien, didn't have their powers.
She cursed under her breath, raising a shaking hand to her forehead as she tried to figure out what to do. Her chest heaved spastically, a wave of intense panic overtaking her as she paced the room, running her fingers through her sleep-tousled hair, suddenly feeling the desire to rip chunks of it from her scalp as if it would help the situation. Laurien lifted her hand and stretched it tentatively toward the bed, trying with all her might to move one of the pillows. She strained her mind, searching for a small hint of her departed powers, but yet again, nothing came of it.
Laurien wanted to scream, but sank down to her knees and stared at the aged hardwood, tears rising to her wide eyes as she clutched her stomach. Ever since Erik had told her about Angel's death a few years ago, she'd had nightmares of faceless beings experimenting on her, ripping her skin apart with scalpels and injecting her with needles, and at the moment, her fear seemed to be getting the better of her. Her fingers clasped the ring on her left hand, spinning it round and round feverishly before her movements finally ceased and she gripped her hand into a tight trembling fist.
Thoroughly angry with herself, she wiped her tears away with the sleeve of her robe and interrupted her haggard breaths with one deep inhale and exhale before getting to her feet.
She crept back over to the door, her hand firmly grasping the handle as she rested her head against the solid oak, willing it to calm her and give her strength. Creaking it open a sliver to see into the hallway, she found it to be empty, but she knew that the group she'd run into couldn't be working alone. Making a quick, yet reckless decision, Laurien quickly grabbed the flashlight from one of the drawers of the desk, gripping it tight in her shaking hand as she would a weapon, before slipping into the hallway.
You guys are all in for an intense next chapter. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and please leave a review!