INTRODUCING BEN AFFLECK AS SCOTT WILDE

   "I know, I'm sorry Smokey, but I have a bunch of family stuff for the next few days. I promise by Sunday I'll be totally free to come to the base like usual." Torryn explained over the phone as she laid in her bed, preparing to go to sleep once she got off the phone with Smokescreen.

   There was a huff on the other end before Smokescreen's disappointed and slightly anxious voice came through. "But Torryn, I don't even know where you live..." He spoke sourly causing Torryn to cringe, she knew she really needed to tell the Autobots where she lived and let Smokescreen do curbside duty at night. "And now I won't even be seeing you for four days! What if the Decepticons find you again?"

   "Then I will call you right away and you can come to protect me, I promise." Torryn crossed her fingers hoping Smokescreen would give in.

   There were a few seconds of silence, Smokescreen obviously deciding if doing what Torryn asked was worth the risk. "Grrr, fine. I can't believe I am actually allowing this to happen." Smokescreen groaned from the receiver while Torryn fist-pumped the air in victory.

   Tomorrow her dad was scheduled to arrive for the next four days and in that time Torryn would not be let out of his sight for anything other than school or cheer practice.

   That was how it was when her dad was actually home. Of course, because he was not home often Torryn did not mind his protective nature in the slightest (in fact she rather enjoyed it), but if he was home 24/7, Torryn knew his over-bearing nature would drive her crazy. Not mention when he was home he had the eery ability to practically sniff out when something was wrong; therefore, Torryn was not willing to risk doing anything out of line while Scott Wilde was home.

   "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Torryn cheered into the phone hearing a breathy but sad chuckle back. Torryn paused in her happiness, her face swelling with guilt when she realized Smokescreen probably had the wrong impression. "Honestly Smokescreen, I would much rather hang out with you, trust me, but I need to stay with my family for the next few days."

   Torryn had made sure not to specify exactly what she was doing with her "family", and rather than saying "her and her dad", she decided to allow Smokescreen to believe she was alike to most other humans out there with more than just one parent. Of course, her friend Jack was in a similar manner to her, as it was only him and his mom (Torryn was not sure what happened with his father), but it was also extremely different. Sure, June sometimes worked crazy hours at the hospital, but she was still around. Scott Wilde was around maybe once every two to three months if Torryn was lucky, not only that, but Jack did not need to worry about being a banshee.

     "I know," Smokescreen's voice cut Torryn out of her thoughts. "But what exactly is it that is so important you need to stay with your family the next four days straight?"

   By this point, Torryn was so used to lying she barely even blinked an eye when a phony answer came tumbling from her lips. "Oh you know, my dad's business get-togethers and my grandparents are coming into town for a few days."

   Oh, how Torryn wished that was the true answer. She wished she actually had grandparents coming into town, but the truth was that on her already late mother's side; her grandparents were dead as well. On her father's side, she had not spoken to those set of grandparents in years, neither has her dad as far as she was aware.

Now, her dad did have one younger brother; uncle Roger to her, and he worked with her father in the government. However, alike to her father, uncle Roger was extremely busy, and so she was only paid a visit by him every year or so. Thankfully, he knew of her banshee nature so she had nothing to hide from him when he visited. Unfortunately, he was also a huge advocate of Kavemen Academy (he was how her father originally heard about it), so she could be expecting a long lecture on how she should attend Kavemen Academy every time he visited. Uncle Roger was one of the few liaisons boarding between Kavemen and the government.

   From what Uncle Roger was able to tell her, there was apparently a secret society of people with enhanced abilities living right under everyone's noses. According to him, the society of those with "special gifts" ran far deeper than just little ole' Kavemen Academy; however, because Torryn still refused to even look into Kavemen, Uncle Roger was not permitted to tell her any more than that. Even if she herself was gifted.

   Smokescreen, the other Autobots, and her human friends still were not aware that Torryn lived alone most of the time. She knew that if they did, Smokescreen would only insist all the more that he needed her address.

   "Cool," Smokescreen acknowledged, but his voice gave away that he thought it was anything but. "What are grandparents again?"

   Shaking her head, Torryn smiled. "Grandparents are my parent's parents. In this case, they're my mom's parents." What a lie, those grandparents were very much dead.

   "Okay, and parents are like a carrier and sire?"

   Torryn narrowed her eyes, vaguely remembering that a carrier was the equivalent to a mother while the sire was apparently a father. "Yes?" It came out as more of a question, but Smokescreen did not appear to notice.

    "I got to get to bed, Smokescreen, school tomorrow. Tell the others I'll see you all soon."

   "Okay, bye Torryn."

   "Goodnight, Smokey." Torryn hummed, reminding herself to teach Smokescreen about "goodnights".

   The call ended a few seconds after, Torryn sighing while placing her phone on the charger. The truth was that she was not even planning on attending school tomorrow, something her friends would undoubtedly notice, but she was not concerned. She was doing online classes which she was acing, she could miss as much public school as she wanted. The only reason she even attended public school was for social reasons, lord knows how bored she would be sitting home alone all day.

   The only thing she worried about was how long it would take her friends to mention to the Autobots she missed, Ratchet would throw a fit and Smokescreen would immediately call her. Torryn knew as the days past that she was with the Autobots, they were all getting nervous as to her home-life. As often as she was around them, they truly did not know much about her.

   Smokescreen was not even allowed to do "curbside" duty which he was supposed to be doing. Torryn simply wondered how long until Optimus decided that her safety was at too much of risk for none of them to know where she lived.

✸✸✸

   "Daddy!" Torryn shouted with glee the next afternoon as her father walked through the front door in all his glory.

   Though she had skipped school, the girl had still been working all day as she had been cleaning the house making sure there was not one particle of dust to be seen. She knew her father would not care all that much even if she had not cleaned, but she figured she would do it just to be a "good daughter".

   Of course, during the school's lunch period, she had received a call from Miko wondering where the hell she was. Torryn then went to explain how she would not be around much for the next few days due to "family matters".

   Scott Wilde grinned as he lugged his suitcase and backpack in the house, dark sunglasses sitting on the tip of his nose. Scott Wilde was as most referred to him as "an ageless man". Yes, he was in his late forties and yet he looked not a day over thirty-seven. The man still had a full head a brunette hair with small wisps of grey (but they were not visible; at all) and he also made sure to stay in pristine shape as his job demanded that he was in the best physical condition possible.

   Setting his bags down by the front door, Scott closed the door behind him while taking off his sunglasses revealing a pair of caramel eyes identical to Torryn's. While it was true that Torryn Wilde had taken after her mother in most ways appearance-wise, she and her father did share the same eye color.

   Torryn smiled widely racing through the front foyer in order to get to her father. Loosening the tie from around his neck as well as undoing a few buttons from his suit, Scott eagerly engulfed his daughter. The redhead teen laughed as her father spun her around, his hand resting on the back of her head where surprisingly enough a do-rag covered the entirety of her head including her red mane.

   Kissing the side of her head, Scott smiled as he held who he still considered his baby-girl; even though Torryn was anything but a baby. However, his smile melted away into an amused look of confusion at the feeling of something covering her hair. Pulling away slightly but still holding her close, Scott let out a small snicker when he saw the red raggedy do-rag covering her hair. Not only that but Torryn was also wearing a holey tee-shirt which was four sizes too big and jeans which looked to be falling apart at the seams. Oh, and don't even get him started on why the hell is daughter currently smells of bleach?

   Setting her down leaving one last lingering kiss on her temple, Scott looked into the eyes of Torryn who was excitedly smiling back. It seemed every time Scott returned Torryn somehow looked both a little older and much more like her mother. In fact, Torryn reminded him so much of her mother; Elena Wilde, that he swore if a teenage version of Elena stood next to Torryn people would swear that they were twins. Though Torryn was taller than Elena ever was, she had her father to thank for that as the height ran from Scott's side of the family.

   Clearing his throat, Scott shook away the thoughts not wanting to think of his late wife. Those kinds of thoughts never brought anything other than depression, heart-break, and guilt. Even if he knew there was nothing he could have possibly done, Scott still felt guilty; he should never have allowed Elena to get on that plane all those years ago.

   "Why are you looking like a homeless-maid-wannabe?" Were the first words out of Scott's mouth, Torryn gaping in mock offense.

   Torryn knew not to take her father's words to heart as first of all, Scott was not exactly wrong and second, Torryn knew he was simply a blunt man. Besides, he would never say anything he might actually think would hurt Torryn's feelings.

   "Why are you walking in looking half-dead?" Torryn questioned right back as she stepped away, both her and her father moving toward the kitchen.

   "Well, to be fair I did just get off of a ten-hour flight."

   "Yeah, and I just finished cleaning the entire house," Torryn said right back as she made her dad a glass of ice water.

   Scott's eyes softened as he took in that fact that Torryn cleaned the entire house, a feat which was not easy considering the house itself was a borderline mansion. Hell, the place had nine rooms, seven of which were never even used.

   "Baby, you know you didn't need to do that." Scott sighed as he accepted the water from Torryn with a gracious nod.

   Now, Torryn was not this gracious for just anyone, her father was the one exception to this. Considering how much she loved the man, it only seemed fair that she did as much as she could for him. He was the one who provided her with everything after all.

    "Yeah, but I wanted to," Torryn grinned while leaning against the counter. "Anyway, how was Russia, that is where you're coming from, right?"

   Downing half the glass in one go, Scott swallowed the water before answering. "Cold."

   Torryn laughed at his response, the girl gazing at her father as if he were God himself.

   "Anyway, you go clean up. You smell like bleach and that outfit has definitely seen better days. I'm making my homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner." Scott grinned while turning toward the fridge and beginning to dig through it.

   Torryn's stomach rumbled at the thought of her dad's famous chicken noodle soup. It was one of her favorite meals he made, and that was saying something considering her dad was a rather phenomenal cook. Torryn rubbed her hands together while nodding her head.

   "Yes, sir!" She mocked saluted before beginning to sprint up the stairs, stopping when she was only halfway up at the sound of her father's piercing yell.

   "TORRYN!" Torryn turned around nervously, shifting her feet on the white carpeted staircase.

   The girl watched as her father slowly turned away from the refrigerator with a large bottle of bleach in his hands. Scott held a horrified look while Torryn covered her mouth desperately trying to stop the amused giggles from leaking through.

  "Oops," Torryn laughed, realizing she accidentally put the bleach in the refrigerator after thoroughly bleaching every toilet in the home. "My mistake, sorry." She shook her head at her own silliness, Scott watching his daughter turn and continue her trek to her bathroom with his mouth agape.

   Sometimes it truly amazed Scott that he actually allowed Torryn to practically live by herself with how careless she could be sometimes. He was astounded she had not managed to blow the house up yet.

   "Jesus Christ," Scott gruffly said while bending down and placing the bleach back where it belonged under the sink cupboard. "That girl will be the death of me."

   About forty-five minutes later, Torryn had showered and deeply washed her hair. No longer smelling like bleach, Torryn hummed while wrapping her hair in a bright blue towel, her pajamas hanging off of her body loosely.

   Scott and Torryn were never nit-picky on what they wore while eating dinner; after all, it was only the two of them. Most of the time, the two would simply eat dinner in their pajamas on the couch while watching some action movie. However, tonight Torryn had a feeling that they would be eating dinner at the table.

   Racing downstairs, Torryn held a wide-smile seeing her dad already sitting by himself at the large table with a steaming bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup in front of him. Across the way from where Scott was sitting was another steaming bowl of soup with a spoon and napkin splayed out next to it.

   Scott had yet to start eating, patiently waiting for his daughter to arrive.

   "Ooh, smells good." Torryn practically leaped into her chair causing her father to raise his brows, a small snort escaping him.

   The two wasted no time in digging into their food, both of them equally hungry.

   "So," Torryn spoke while swallowing a mouthful of food. "What's the latest scoop, and don't say nothing because considering you are an undercover agent who travels the globe I know something interesting must have happened." Torryn rose a brow daring her father to try and lie.

   Shaking his head, Scott decided to give in to his daughter's wish for information. "Well, just the other day this extremely expensive and highly advanced satellite technology titled Damocles was destroyed, now I don't many details considering its extremely classified information, but I do know it now has the pentagon in a frenzy."

   Torryn nearly spat out her food then and there. Coughing, Torryn slapped her chest as a piece of chicken traveled down the wrong pipe, her dad watching with concern from his place across.

   How else was Torryn expected to react? Her father just mentioned the very issue she and the others dealt with the previous day.

   "Sorry, choked for a second there. Thanks for the help by the way." Torryn's voice was dry now, the girl quickly taking large gulps of her glass of water.

   "You're welcome." Scott nodded earning a scoff from Torryn.

   For a second, Torryn debated on the fact that perhaps her father knew of the Autobots existence. In fact, she would not be surprised if he did, it seemed that her father was rather high in government-level security. She figured that while Scott may have never actually seen them in person (as he surely would have mentioned it to her), he knew of their existence thanks to his high-clearance level.

   "Sounds interesting," Torryn mumbled while taking another bite of her dinner, hoping that more than anything her voice stayed level.

   The last thing she need was her father picking up that something was wrong, and god forbid that he figured out she was working with the Autobots. The poor man would probably have heart-attack and then move them far away from Jasper. Bye-bye Smokescreen.

   Torryn shuttered at the thought, mentally pleading with the gods to not let her father figure anything out. The last things she wanted was to be forced to leave all her friends behind and Smokescreen.

   Raising a brow at his daughter's odd behavior, Scott simply shrugged it off labeling it as too much exposure to the bleach. "How is it holding up?"

   Torryn knew by "it" Scott meant the visions and the screams, and most likely the telekinesis if it ever decided to make a reappearance.

   The thing was that when Scott put her on Buspirone all those years ago, Torryn's abilities were still growing at the time. Because her powers were put on hold and Torryn had not used anything more than the visions and sonic-screaming since; realistically neither her nor her father had any clue as to what she was truly capable of. And Torryn was not keen on investigating it.

   For all she knew if she ever stopped taking Buspirone a whole other ability could suddenly pop out of nowhere. Not to mention the voices and everything else that had been held back for the past seven years would catch up to her all at once, there was no way she would be able to handle it.

   "Fine, like I said I upped my dosage on Buspirone and haven't had a vision since. I'm sure once my body begins fully adjusting some visions will begin coming back in the near future, but it should not be too many." She explained, Scott frowning at the news.

   He truly did not mean to get his daughter addicted to that drug, all he had wanted to do was help her. But now look where that got her, completely and utterly reliant on those pills.

   "Torryn," Scott started seriously making her cringe at the dead-note in his tone. Nothing ever went well when he spoke in that tone. "If it gets worse I am sending you to Kavemen Academy–" Scott started only to be cut off by Torryn.

   "What? But I don't want to go—!"

   "I think it will help you—"

   "I don't need any help, you are completely capable of giving me all the help I need—"

   "Torryn, you know I am not suitable to help you and—"

   "I would need to uproot my entire life to go to some shady boarding school—"

   "Just give it a chance, what if you like it—?"

   "No! I don't want to leave my life in Jasper, all my friends—!"

   "You can make new friends—!"

   "Dad!"

   Enough was enough. "Enough! I have made my point, while you are under eighteen and living under my roof you will abide by my rules. If this gets any worse you will be attending Kavemen Academy until I see fit!" Scott furiously looked to Torryn effectively silencing her.

   Torryn crossed her arms glaring at her father, her fists clenching. Torryn began growling and Scott rose a brow when he was able to hear the swear words she was mumbling toward him under her breath with no remorse. Scott nearly gaped, it was astounding how much Torryn looked like her mother and yet acted nothing like her.

   Elena Wilde was a tender and compassionate woman who had had trouble saying "no" to even the slightest of things. In fact, it was Elena's seemingly infinite kindness and shy-nature which drew Scott to her in the first place.

   Now, the daughter they produced was the complete opposite. While she may have resembled Elena to the smallest details (the only difference being the eye color and many freckles adorning Torryn's face), her personality was the absolute opposite. Torryn was brash, sharp-tongued, and impudent; nothing like Elena was. As much as Scott hated to admit, he knew she got it from his side of the family. The Wilde family was known for being, well... wild.

   Though it had been quite a time since he had last spoken to his parents, his mother had been a complete nut-case and his father was simply an insane extremist. Quite the pair if Scott said so himself. In his younger years, Scott had been the same; assertive, audacious, and insolent. Of course, when he met Elena, she seemed to be the best influence he had ever had and leveled him out. Though the same could not be said for Scott's brother; Roger, the younger Wilde was still as insane as ever.

   Sighing, Scott hated that Torryn's personality reflected so much of his own when he was younger. "It still amazes me how much you look like your mother and yet act nothing like her."

   Ceasing with her quick-witted insults, Torryn rose a glaring brow. "What is that supposed to mean?" She tsked.

   "She was nice and you're not." Her father teased causing Torryn's mouth to fall agape.

   "Fuck you," Torryn stood from her seat, Scott doing the same while backing away from his child with a taunting smile on his face.

   Behavior like this was not uncommon for Torryn and Scott Wilde if anything it was familiar.

   "Yeah, well come and get me!" Scoot laughed while racing out of the kitchen with Torryn hot on his heels.

   Pouncing, Torryn knocked her father down, the both of them rolling across the living room ground in a heap of laughter. And like that, the previous tension surrounding Kavemen Academy disappeared as if it were never there.