Liquid Metal: An X-men & QuickSilver Novel

Chapter Twenty Four: More Than a Friend

My little sister's face absolutely lit up when she saw me. She must not have heard my comment. Her book was instantly forgotten and I was soon being engulfed in an enormous hug.

"I told you." Lorna said to Chris triumphantly as soon as I let her go, "I told him that you'd come" she said to me now.

"You, my dear, have a lot to tell me about, don't you?" I said in a light manner.

Wanda had followed Chris into the hall to tell him we'd be going soon and I nodded a thanks to her as she did.

"It's really complicated" Lorna replied miserably and I tutted, smoothing out her emerald hair.

"You don't have to talk about it if it's that bad okay?" I told her quietly as she wedged her self under my arm next to me.

"How about we get out of here?" I suggested and I felt her nod against my coat.

At the door, I heard Wanda still apologizing for earlier to Chris and I sighed. I gave my medicinal friend a hug. "Take it easy man, you know where I should be if you need anything."

"Likewise."

Lorna had put her hair up and in a hat to hide it from prying eyes.

"You know, I think green really suits you" I said nudging her after I noticed the silence that surrounded the three of us as we made our way back to the school. The whole walk would take a good thirty minuets so I figured silence would really make it awful.

"I'm just some freak now" she muttered, not meeting my gaze.

"And what does that make me?" I scoffed, pretending to be enormously offended.

"I'm serious Josie" she whined "and you don't even look like a mutant, you look normal."

"What about Peter?" I retorted in good humor, "his hair is freaky-old-guy colored" this made her laugh and it earned a much needed smile from Wanda.

"See? just because you've got physical mutation doesn't mean that you're any worse than any other mutant. I mean wait till you meet Warren, that kid literally has wings."

"Really?" I could see her attitude about the whole subject rising.

"You bet he does. That's why we all call him Angel."

"What do they call you?" Lorna asked suddenly.

"I don't know, I've been too busy looking for you to get a cool nickname." I said sticking my tongue out at her earning another giggle.

"Can I get one?" She asked brightly.

I paused for a moment as we were walking. Realizing that I didn't even know what her mutation was, let alone that she was a mutant until she was taken.

It's not that I couldn't read her, it's just that I never did. I always just assumed that I knew her well enough because she was (or I thought she was) my sister.

"Well what can you do?" Wanda piped up.

"I can control magnets and metal and stuff" she shrugged, walking beside Wanda now.

It felt like someone dumped a bucket of ice water into my stomach. I had been denying what I had seen in the mind and memories of Erik but I couldn't ignore it now. That man's name hadn't been Erik Lensherr when he was born it was Max Eisenhardt, the name of the man who I had seen in my mothers past. It made my stomach twist knowing that the two people that walked slightly in front of me on the two-person path that let up to the mansion were biologically siblings but neither of them knew it.