unMoored II

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"Hey Lorna," I spoke, "have you seen Andy?"

Lorna was rocking Dawn, her newborn daughter, back and forward, with a pacifier in her mouth.

"Sorry, haven't seen him lately."

I only nodded my head to leave, but the woman stopped me in a track.

"Are you doing okay?"
"Yeah, I'm pretty good."

The green-haired woman rolls her eyes. "You sure? Because you don't seem fine."

I wasn't.
The more I thought about Andy and Reeva, the more I was freaking out about it; the cycle was on a loop.

Walking back into the room and closing the door behind me, I explain, "I-I think Reeva is doubting Andy."

Lorna snapped her head to me, before setting her daughter down in her crib. "What are you talking about?"

"I mean, after my training yesterday, she just started questioning me about Andy, about his distraction. I don't know what else is there but Andy is walking on thin ice right now."

Before Lorna could say anything to me, Esme walked into the room.

"Lux, Reeva wants you and Andy for training, right now."

I gulped but reluctantly walked out of the room to go to training, which would end in, what I could feel, terrible.

❅   ❅   ❅

Both the Strucker boy and I were standing in the middle of the room, looking up at the glass balcony room, to see only Reeva and Sage.

"Lux, Andrew, your task is to protect each other from the oncoming holographs. As time proceeds, the more difficult it will become," Reeva explained briefly.

Andy and I look at each other with a confident smirk, knowing that this training would be a piece of cake.

When the countdown ended, the holograms came to suit, starting the training course.

Left and right Andy and I blasted the technology at ease, with him covering my left and me with his right.

Of course, it would increase the difficulty but nothing that we couldn't manage.

Every time I shock a sharp icicle or a blast, a voice whispered in my ear, almost as a distraction from reality.

'He's going to fail'
'He's going to fail.'
'He's going to fail.'

That was all that I could hear, and automatically I could recognize it to be my ancestor, Simone Mycroft.

I only had to ignore it, despite my initial instinct was to look over my shoulder in check on Andy.

It was almost of a battle with myself — me fighting with my natural reaction.

It didn't help that the difficulty was going up, having me work twice as hard as to balance out everything around me.

When I shot three icicles from my palms, I felt a blow to my back, having me fall to the ground hard, with a groan.

Wincing to get myself back up, I look up with a slight burr of vision, a hologram with a gun pointed directed in the middle of my eyes.

Out of pure reflex, sharp ice sprang around me, flying every which direction, 'killing' the hologram in front of me.

Getting up, I stared to Andy, I didn't understand why but this got to me.

I felt frustrated, knowing that there was a problem with him, that he couldn't talk to me about.
It affected him so much so that even when we are tasked to protect each other in training, he failed to do that.

I shouldn't be putting the blame on him, but by looking up and seeing Reeva's disappointed face, she surely could point the blame.

Immediately walked out of the training room, heading straight to change into my regular clothing and spending the day by myself.

And unlike Andy from before, he didn't go after me.

❅ ❅ ❅

Saying in my room, I lifted my shirt to reveal a light bruise on my back, where the pressure that knocked me down was at.

Stupid high-tech bull crap.

My phone rang to reveal that Jack was calling me, so I answer, "Hey Jack."

"Listen, Reeva needs Andy for more training, so go get him for me," He tells.

"No, she assigned you with that task for a reason."

"Wait, what the hell happened? What did he do?"

"Nothing, we're just in some petty drama," I sigh, "I'll get him for you."

Ending the call, I walked out of my room to check his bedroom, which was empty.
As I went around the corner, I saw Andy - still on his training clothes - bouncing a ball on the wall, which he only got annoyed by, breaking the ball as if it was nothing.

"Hey," I spoke, "they're ready for you downstairs."

When I wanted to walk away, he got up from his chair.

"Wait," He calls, "are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, why would I not be?"

"Well... you seemed really mad from earlier and... I never got to apologize about messing up."

I shake my head. "It was one mistake, I think I can spare you."

But for some reason, Andy saw right through me.
"Can you please just stop with the act?"

"What act?"

"Lux, you have been acting weird, all day yesterday and today. Can you please tell me what's up?"

My body changed.
My chill postured turn defensive, the calm look on my face was erased and I went off.

"I'm the weird one? You are the weird person here! You won't sleep, you won't tell me what's the matter with you, and you fucked up massively during training. And you have the audacity to talk to me about being weird?"

From the look on Andy's face, I knew I was pinning him to a corner.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," stutters the boy.

"Can you stop it?"
"Stop what?"

"Pretending like you are okay!" I raise my voice. "You've never pushed me away from something that's bothering you. You've never done this type of crap to me, ever. Every time I try and help you, you act as if you are okay and that you don't need help——"

"Oh, my god, I don't talk about one thing in my life and now you're suddenly some parent now. I don't need you to know everything about me 24/7! I need the privacy, I don't need to tell you what's happening to me, all the time."

"Andy, I'm not trying to be possessive or anything like that. I'm worried for you."

"Worried about what? I can take care of myself."

"About your mental state you asshole. Because I genuinely care for you and want you to be happy."

"Great. So what would make me happy is avoiding this conversation."

The von Strucker walked away from me and the situation at hand, leaving me to have to pick up the pieces, as per usual.

❅ ❅ ❅

Reeva had asked of me to watch Andy, so I stood beside her when Andy started his training that he stumped on.

There were three walls, each thicker and harder to break than the last, Andy would have to break through them.

When the three beeps came of alarm, without hesitation, the von Strucker boy breaks through the wall, with ease.

"Kinetic energy is back to its original level," Sage informs, looking at the chart on her tablet, "Moment of inertia is climbing.

Still looking at Andy, I could feel the tension coming from Reeva, but I still had faith in Andy.

He broke through the second wall, running straight to his last wall, making me crook a grin.

"He's doing it."

"He hasn't done it yet," Reeva corrects, staring to the third and final wall.

Suddenly, his abilities didn't work, having him slam face-first to the wall.

"Crap," I mutter.

Reeva turns to the Frost sisters, who were right behind us.
"Well? What's his problem?"

Turning their eyes glowing blue, they answer, "It's the sister."

❅ ❅ ❅

I didn't even bother to talk to the Strucker, from the fight we had, I just needed to cool off.

I heard talking in the main lobby, having me stop in my trains to turn into the other direction, but something is said got my attention, as I peek over the corner.

There was our boss and the triplets, as the blondes all telepathically talked back and forward with each other.

"Girls, in here we speak with our mouths," Reeva scolds, as she passed in a way of concentration.

"Sorry, Reeva," Phoebe apologized.

Sophie explains, "We were just trying to let you think."

"So, what you are gonna do about Andy?" asked Esme.

"What would you have me do if he's making calls to the Underground if he's told 'em where we were?"

I held back any reaction.
I knew that he missed his family, but to call the Underground?

"Fade and Jack said he made one call and hung up," Esme reasons.

"You saw what happened in there yesterday and today. He didn't even make a dent in the boron carbide. He couldn't even protect Lux in the simulator. If he can't get through that, then this operation fails and our dream dies," The woman sighs, "I assumed it was about Lux, but perhaps his family connection is stronger than we realized."

"His family is why he's here. He's a Von Strucker. You know what that could mean for us."

"I know what it means if he's on our side. But if he doesn't trust us..."

"Then we can't trust him," Phoebe finished her sentence.

Oh shit.

"I'll talk to him. Assess the situation, where he's reliable."

Esme stuttered, "What——and if he isn't?"

"Well, we can't keep him here if he's not ours, and we certainly can't let him go."

My breath collapsed on me.
My body felt like running to warn Andy about this, but my legs couldn't move, out of pure terror.
They wouldn't outright kill him... would they?

"He's 15."
"Do you think I enjoy this? We have a problem. It needs to be solved."

"What about Lux?" Phoebe brings up. "The only reason why she's here is for Andy and Jack's protection. If Andy's gone, we will only have Jack to rely on, to keep her here."

Reeva stopped and thought for a moment. "What she doesn't know won't hurt her. We'll only say he ran off back to his family."

I couldn't take this anymore, so I ran out and to Andy's room, to warn him about everything.

As I was getting close to his room, Jack came into the picture, stopping me in my tracks.

"Hold up, where's the fire here?" He joked.

"Get out of my way, Jack," I growled.

Looking between his shoulder, I saw Reeva strongly walk to Andy's room, coming inside to talk to him.

"Lux, what's going on?"
"None of your concern!"

No matter how much a tried to push, he wouldn't moved, until I had to tell him what's wrong.

"I'm not kidding, Jack, let me through!"

"Tell me what's the matter!"

I stopped the fight and stepped back, disgusted by my failed attempts.

"I just need to talk to Andy——"

"Aren't you two in some fight?"
"Yes! And I'm going to talk to him about it."

With a final shove, I finally got him out of my way. I ran to his door but stopped when seeing Reeva opening it, for her way out.

Swallowing the fear I had, I stepped aside for her to leave, which she did, having my storm in, with sweat starting to form, only to see Andy.

"W-What's the matter?"

I looked to him, with my heavy breath. He seemed fine, nothing bad must've happened.

"N-Nothing... nevermind."

Before I got to walk out, Andy says, "Wait, can we talk?"

Turning around, I nodded my head. Our fight was quite the big one: He knew I could be too worried about people and I could be snoopy in trying to find out. I knew Andy, he does like his privacy.

"I'm sorry," He talked, "I-I know you were only trying to help. You shouldn't have to apologize, 'cause you didn't do anything wrong."

"No worries. Now I learned, some stuff should just be left unsaid. I should've never pried."

"No, no. I should've told you. Because... it feels like weighs were taken off my shoulders."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "You told Reeva?"

"Yeah," He explains, "I've been having dreams about Lauren and me. It's at a home building here, every time I ask her to join us and our cause, but she denies it every time. The dream I had... I held her hand, glowing with that power we have, and she was trying to break free, so much so that, when we let go... she fell off the building."

I didn't reply because I was trying to process what he was saying, about his dream.

He continues, "I-It's not a dream. It felt too real for it to be some kind of lucid thing, either; I-I just want to stop."

I walked to Andy, watching his eyes holding in the lost emotions that he was trying to hold back.

I cupped one side of his face, which he lean-to, even kissing it softly.

"Andy..." I softly spoke to him.

He only reacted by hugging me tightly, as he lets out just a few significant tears, to release the tiredness he had been holding onto.

❅   ❅   ❅

After the talk, it was Andy's final trial of training, his final chance at showing everyone that he still has it together.

As I watched, I did my best to keep my guard up. Knowing about the plan Reeva was willing to take, behind my back.

He broke through the two walls, like always, and the third wall that he had trouble on, was coming up.

I was at the end of my seat, holding onto my hand a little too tight, and short breaths for myself.

Andy ran and was filled with a fire of determination, as he stares at the wall; the boy broke and ran through the entire border, making both me and Reeva clap for his success.

Before any of us, could say a word, Esme runs in, panicking for Reeva.

"It's L-Lorna..." She gasped, "The baby isn't okay."

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