Kaitlyn was weighing the pros and cons of tearing off her own face.

The plan had several obvious benefits. For example, she wouldn’t look anything like the scarily accurate age-progressed photograph of her that Detective Wilson was showing everyone in the Mansion, looking for a kid by the last name “McCarthy,” who disappeared several years ago. She would probably be able to play herself off as a visible mutant and escape from the Mansion without anyone recognizing her. And it’s not like anyone would stare and point at her and say “holy crap, kid, what the hell happened to your face!?” because that would just be insensitive. She could get plastic surgery or something to get another face, and nobody who saw her picture on the FBI’s missing kids list would ever recognize her as the child formerly known as Kaitlyn McCarthy.

It was a genius plan. The only drawback was that she would have to actually tear off her own face for it to work. With that in mind, Kaitlyn decided that she’d rather not tear off her own face. In fact, she was kind of horrified at herself for having spent any amount of time seriously considering this possibility.

But she was getting desperate. If the detective recognized her, he’d probably try to reunite her with her real… no, her genetic father. And the X-Men would probably help him, because that’s just the kind of thing they did: they ruined people’s lives by helping enforce stupid laws. And then Kaitlyn would be in hell on earth again.

Her mind was flooded with memories she didn’t want, nearly drowning out any kind of rational thought she might be able to use to wriggle herself out of this. But she had to focus.

The detective’s current location in the Mansion cut her off from her room, so she couldn’t go grab her stuff. She couldn’t run out the back door and hide in the far end of the grounds; there were a lot of other kids outside, and they’d probably blow her cover. ‘Oh, you mean Kaitlyn?’ she imagined them saying to the detective, ‘she just ran crying into that hedge maze a couple minutes ago.’ Then she’d get her own little shock collar while they hauled her away to a fate worse than death.

And Mars might not even know where to find her. She only mentioned her genetic father around him once. He might not even know her actual legal last name, which would make it hard to track her down.

Maybe she’d have better luck if she hid somewhere inside the Mansion. Somewhere nobody else would be hanging out on a Saturday, where the detective wouldn’t think to look for a kid like her.

Kaitlyn walked into the library, careful not to make much noise as she closed the door behind her.

This was definitely one of those times when Kealey loved to be on Mansion duty. It was a Saturday, and there was sunlight streaming in the windows as she sat at one of the study tables in the library. The world was emitting calm, and she was soaking it up, along with the sunlight. For whatever reason, the library was empty, and there wasn't a lot of work to be done.

Everything was great.

At least it was great until the doors opened and a ball of emotion so....desperate entered the room that the cloud that was lazily making its way across the sun seemed like anything but a coincidence.

The empath instantly wondered if the visitor had come to find her, and rose from her seat. Students often wandered in when they needed emotional help. Around the shelves Kealey went, and found herself face to face with a student she didn't know.

The blond frowned, looking at the young girl and tilted her head slightly to one side.

"Can I help you?"

That was one of the X-Men.

“Uh…”

Kaitlyn froze in place, staring wide-eyed at Kealey. She tried to keep on a poker face. Her efforts were in vain; it wouldn’t have taken an empath to realize how terrified Kaitlyn was. Being an empath would, however, have allowed someone to understand the pain and despair underlying the fear. The girl was so full of volatile emotions it was a wonder she didn’t blow up the library.

She couldn’t just try to hide and wait for it all to blow over, now. One of the X’s just got a good look at her face. There would be no question that Kaitlyn was at the school. The redhead almost broke down and started crying on the spot.

Then she thought of something.

“Yeah,” she answered. “You can help me. There’s a cop here looking for me. Tell him… I mean, you can’t let him know I’m here.” Her voice was shaking.

The girl was young, and Kealey watched her face closely as she spoke. The desperation and fear had intensified tenfold when the girl had realized who she was standing in front of, and it was all Kealey could do to keep herself from pulling the student into a hug. The feelings were so intense that the blond was nearly shaking herself Something told the empathy that she'd make things worse if she tried, though, and she held back. Listening was a good plan at this point, the empath decided and did so, face betraying nothing but a raised eyebrow when she was asked to lie to a police officer.

This was an interesting, and delicate situation. The girl was obviously terrified, even more so at having been stumbled upon. She nodded her head slowly.

"Deal." she said, hoping to calm the youngster before laying down any stipulations.

"If you tell me why I need to lie. See, I take telling the truth very seriously, so, I need a good reason." The blond thought that was fair.

"But I promise I won't tell."

“Because…” Kaitlyn hesitated. Swallowed. Tried to decide whether she could trust this woman.

She didn’t exactly have a choice, though.

“I ran away from home several years ago, cause when my dad was mad at me, he…”

There was a good reason why Kaitlyn didn’t like talking about this. Every time she even thought about it too much, she had flashbacks. She could feel his hands around her throat, feel her legs kicking at the air, hear his voice telling her that if anyone found out she didn’t actually fall down the stairs, she wouldn’t live long enough to tell anyone else. He’d take that knife, the one with the wicked-looking serrated edge on it, and—

“You know what? I don’t need to tell you anything.” Her voice was louder, shaking more. “Your good reason is I have the power to blow this whole place to pieces, and I’d do it if it meant I don’t need to see my family again.”

She caught herself. “My genetic family,” she added, more quietly. Mars would never do that sort of thing to her. She really wished he was around right now.

Kealey could feel the fear and the panic welling up in the girl as she started to tell the story.... Immediately, the librarian's heart went even more out to the little girl standing in front of her who was so very scared about going back to her family.

Whatever had happened with her family, and Kealey had a few ideas about what those things might be, must have been really bad. In fact, she'd just been opening her mouth to tell the little girl that no more information was necessary when the threats started.

The little girl was desperate, and scared, and felt like she was backed into a corner. Kealey was scared now too, because she knew what it was like to be an impulsive child with powers that were bigger than herself.

"I'll bet you could." the blond said, frowning slightly at the girl. "But, you could also not."

Kealey shrugged, "I don't need to know anymore. I just thought you might need someone to talk to, and I'm a good listener." Kealey's voice was calm, and she was looking right at the girl.

"Do you want to wait in one of the study rooms until he's gone? "

Suddenly, Kaitlyn wasn’t so sure if she needed to threaten the X-lady like that. On an intellectual level, she knew that those X-types couldn’t be trusted, and she would have probably regretted showing any weakness. On the other hand, it felt unfair to turn around and threaten someone who was offering to stick their neck out for her like this. Even if the threats were perfectly justified.

“…Sure.”

Then, half-way over to the study rooms, she stopped. She imagined sitting in the small study room by herself for what could be hours, with only her thoughts to keep her company. She wasn’t on good terms with her thoughts, at the moment.

“I’m gonna grab a book first. Need something else to think about.”

She looked around for a few seconds. This library wasn’t organized at all like the one back at the Sanctuary. “You know where the history section is?” Mars didn’t approve of her reading fiction, because he thought it was a total waste of time. As far as nonfiction went, though, history had some cool stories.

Kealey's sigh of relief was far more mental than it was physical or discernible. The situation really was that desperate, she supposed, and decided not to judge the girl on her snap decision to hold the whole school hostage.

As she watched the girl's retreating back, Kealey resolved to find out more about her after all of this was over. The girl stopped and turned, and Kealey found her head tilted again as the young one asked for a book about history.

Kealey smiled. "Of course I do." she said, and led the girl in that direction.

"It's not as large as I'd hope, but I've been working really hard to update it. When I first started, there wasn't anything in here from this century." she said, staring at the shelves. "I kept all the old ones, of course, but I moved most of them into storage."

Kaitlyn’s hand hovered over a book about the Registration of 2008, then retreated back to her side. She definitely wasn’t in the mood for that kind of thing. She already knew about it, knew about all the shock collars and horrible treatment in concentration camps. Reading more of that would just make her feel worse. Nodding as Kealey talked about updating the section, Kaitlyn kept scanning the different book titles.

The word ‘counterintelligence’ popped out at her. That usually meant spies, which were always cool. She grabbed the book, and upon further inspection she learned that it was about World War 2, as opposed to the usual Cold War stuff. Interesting enough. She tucked it under her shoulder.

“Alright,” she sighed, ready to curl up in her hiding place. More than ready, actually; she darted off towards the study rooms as fast as her legs could carry her while still walking. The less time spent where the detective might see her, the better.

Kealey didn't miss the part where the girl's hand hovered over the book on the Registration Act. It had been a tough decision to even include that in the school's library, because the wounds from that awful time were still so fresh for so many. As always, the librarian felt a bit sheepish about the whole thing. She hadn't even been in the country at the time and hadn't been able to do a thing to help. It was beside the point , though, and Kealey turned her mind to the task at hand.

This girl was most definitely a mystery, and again, Kealey marveled that they'd never ran into each other before. It was strange to say the least and the youngster moved towards those study rooms, she once again resolved to find out more.

Now that the first crisis had been averted, Kealey found herself wondering exactly what to do next. The empath would keep her word if the police officer showed up in the library, she'd sworn to protect the children of this school. Whatever the NYPD's motives...pure or otherwise...it was obviously far better for the girl to stay right where she was..at least for the time being.

(OOC - Do I get to meet the police officer?!)

After about five minutes in the study room, Kaitlyn had started to calm down. She was reading an autobiography, and it was written like a spy novel. It was a good distraction from what could be happening across soundproof walls.

Meanwhile, Detective Wilson was certain he was on to something. The first time he worked on this case, he made the same assumption everyone else did: it was a kidnapping case. No sign of an actual bomb in the apartment meant a mutant was involved, the father was a regular old human, and the kid was supposed to be too young for an X-Gene to do anything to her, even if she had one (which she probably didn’t). So it was probably a kidnapping. But they couldn’t find any good evidence on the scene, couldn’t find anyone with a motive. The best they could do was assume it was a crime of opportunity by some wacko and move on. The girl was probably dead – or worse. The case had bothered him for months.

It recently started bothering him again. That assumption he made back then – that a kid her age couldn’t have been a mutant – turned out to be completely wrong. There were plenty of kids like that, and this school taught a lot of them. Many of them were runaways and orphans.

Maybe…

Wilson walked into the library, picture in hand. One of the X-Men was supposed to be in here. He considered calling out for her, then thought better of it; he was in a library, after all.

And...there he was...

Kealey tilted her head as the man approached her in the morning sun. The benefit of being an empath was that she could tell right off the bat that the detective knew what he was doing. There was a decision to be made here, one that Kealey hardly ever made. She had to decide how she was going to lie. A few more moments of study gave Kealey the basic measure of the man and she rose from the chair, making her way over to him.

It tended to weird people out when she acted like she knew what they were about, so she simply stopped in front of him, curiosity written on her features.

"Hi, can I help you?"

“Hi. Detective Wilson.” He would have tried to shake hands, if shaking hands with a mutant didn’t turn out so badly for him the last time he tried it.

“I’m looking for a missing kid. She’d be about 12 now, red hair, looks kinda like this.” He showed her the picture. “Her name’s Kaitlyn. She’s been missing for three years. We think she might be able to make things explode.” At least, that would explain the noise her neighbors heard, and the way the apartment looked.

Again, it was lucky that Kealey was an empath, otherwise she probably would have reacted more than simple raised eyebrows. A twelve year old who could explode at will. That was an interesting power. Kealey had assumed it was something like that though, how else would the girl have made her desperate threat?

The picture was close, Kealey decided, as she reached out and plucked it from the Detective's grasp. She'd been unimpressed by the lack of common courtesy from the man in front of her, and frowned over the picture for quite some time.

"In all honesty, children that young are fairly rare in our school." she said. "And unfortunately, I'm not familiar with the one you're looking for." She wasn't technically lying, before today she'd never met Kaitlyn...and had just learned the girl's name.

Lifting blue eyes to meet the Detective's, Kealey regarded him seriously, "I assume you've got a card to leave in case I see someone matching this description?"

“Yes ma’am.” He retrieved a card with his contact information from his pocket and handed it to Kealey. The man was disappointed, but not terribly so. After three years of thinking the girl was lost forever, he was used to disappointment.

Meanwhile, Kaitlyn realized something. The study rooms were soundproof. She was in a soundproof study room, unable to tell what was going on outside, while that untrustworthy X-Man could very well be spilling the beans at that very moment. For all she knew, they could be calling for an adapted to come and help take her in, so Kaitlyn couldn’t make good on her threat. And there was an adapted on campus. It was getting difficult to focus on her book.

“Thanks for your time.” The detective began to leave.