I returned to the house, only for her to be waiting, anticipating my arrival. She looked tired and annoyed.
“Where were you all night?” she scoffed, turning on her heel and waltzing in through the door, gesturing with her hand for me to follow.
It was a rhetorical question, I assumed, as I couldn’t really give her an answer, and this time, I didn’t want to. But, when we were inside, the door shut against the cool outside air, she turned to me with her arms crossed over her chest, eyebrow raised.
She expected some kind of response.
I shrugged, pretending I hadn’t been crying only a short while ago, pretending that I’d just wandered around and lost track of time instead of walking around with someone they saw as an enemy.
She stared at me a moment longer and then sighed, rolling her eyes.
“I told you to come back.”
I lowered my head and shoulders in a bow, closing my eyes. Obedience. This was… necessary. I forced my hands not to curl into fists at my sides.
“Stand up straight.”
I did, opening my eyes to find her standing right in front of me, hand reaching up to ruffle my hair. I didn’t move, allowing the connection, feeling uneasy. When she patted my cheek, I just stared back at her.
Stared, even though I felt like hurling at her touch. This was much worse than it had been in the past. Ignoring it, best that I could, I forced my muscles not to tense up under her fingers.
“I forgive you.”
One more pat, and she was off. Over to her father.
I followed her movements until my interest sparked on her father. What was he doing? I could faintly smell herbs or plants in the room, spotted a small mortar and pestle on the table near him, with some kind of paste in it. I wasn’t sure what it was, but he was putting a coating of it on darts of some kind, while wearing medical grade gloves.
I didn’t think much of it. They were always doing things. Sometimes, they made things and gave them off to other people for money.
My mind drifted off to things I did know.
Things really were different with Kat. I didn’t feel sick or nauseous around her. I almost… craved her touch. Where this girl repelled me, Kat drew me in. I glanced down at my hand, willing it not to close tight. Why was it getting so hard to resist the urge to pull away from this girl, even if I knew the consequences of doing so? Why was I willing to risk them, just to keep her away from me, to be free of the touch of her skin?
‘How am I even supposed to find him?’
I froze.
That had been Kat’s voice.
But she couldn’t be here.
She couldn’t be here, right?
I discreetly took the chance to turn and look around, mostly with my eyes, not my head, not wanting to alert the two of them. But I checked them too, and despite their quiet conversations as they worked, one that I ignored, they didn’t appear to have heard her, like I had.
How was I able to hear her voice? I pondered the question. She clearly wasn’t here. So, somehow, I was able to hear her clearly over a large distance.
Maybe I was simply imagining it, testing my resolve not to see her again, not to get so close, not to get hurt by what was bound to happen…
We were bound to get separated.
Whether it was her just leaving… or…
I pushed the thought out of my mind. The longer I strayed from Kat’s side, the more I wanted to return to that very spot, no matter the location. I looked around this house again, my eyes catching and staying on the wall.
This time, instead of ignoring the pictures tacked there, I observed them closely, stepping closer, and suddenly, it was like a whole other feeling, looking at them. Seeing a now familiar face, a comforting one hanging up there, with the rest of the targets, new and old and just plain maybe, it made me feel sick all over again.
Katherine.
Kat…
If I didn’t know her name…
If I didn’t know a little about her…
If I hadn’t spent that time with her…
If I hadn’t stepped in and helped her…
I wouldn’t feel like this.
I wouldn’t have this picture of hope and innocence and warmth surrounding her. I… wouldn’t be worried for her.
If I hadn’t felt drawn to her by some kind of inexplicable feeling, then maybe I wouldn’t feel like the foundation of my life was crumbling beneath me now.
And yet, despite this horrible, gut-wrenching feeling that was only held back by the fact that her face remained unmarked, it was something I wouldn’t take back.
To get a glimpse of her or not at all… How could I ever take back what I know of her now? Of her kindness? Of her questions? Of her eyes and time she had used to understand me, even if we weren’t speaking in the same way?
Nobody had felt closer to me than my brother. Now I had two of them. Kat and my brother. Only, Kat was here. Kat, who could be in danger in the near future, was someone I could try to save.
Given the chance… I would. I knew that. I would do it, no matter the cost, no matter the change it would force upon me.
As I decided that, I stood up, walking from the room. I needed to leave this room. I couldn’t sit in a room where her pictures weren’t on the wall for the memories, but for sinister reasons. My hands couldn’t take her picture from their wall which seemed so far from me to begin with.
Had I not been lost in my thoughts, not walked from the room without a second glance back, maybe I would’ve gotten a clue… that my thoughts weren’t so silent in the quiet room I’d left. That my expressionless face hadn’t been so lacking in expression. That the second I stood up, the second I stared at those pictures for too long, I had already shown my hand of cards… cards that I hadn’t even looked at yet.
Because without realizing it, I’d become the center of attention.
I was so lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t seen or felt her glare.
I hadn’t heard the impenetrable silence.
...
I decided to take another walk, to soothe my thoughts and just work off some of the nervous energy I’d gotten by looking at those pictures again. I went through the trees and brush slowly, wondering about everything and nothing.
I kept occasionally hearing Kat’s unmistakable voice in my head.
There was something to it, I started to realize. It hadn’t happened once the whole night we spent together, and she wasn’t a twin, so it couldn’t be her powers, since she didn’t have any. I knew I didn’t have that kind of ability, and even if I did, how could it work to hear her thoughts?
I wasn’t sure, but I’d pinpointed the change at the kiss we’d shared. Something had changed then. Even if I wasn’t certain, it was what I told myself.
Not that I minded it… hearing her.
It just…
Every single time I heard a stray thought, about me or about something else, I wanted to see her. It was a growing, burning desire in me and I fought with myself to control it, to stop thinking about her.
But I couldn’t.
I spotted a plant on my walk and I reached down to touch a petal. It was similar to one of the plants I’d grown for Myrus and his daughter.
Only this one wasn’t…
I froze, the petal barely felt against the tip of my finger. And then it started to shake. I was shaking. I pulled back, staring down in horror at the plant.
Something I’d noticed, on the way out of the house, came back to me. Some of the plants I’d grown were missing leaves and flowers.
The plants I was growing.
The mortar and pestle.
The distinct smell of plants and herbs I’d smelled.
It was the smell those ones would give off when touched or cut…
Cut.
The darts.
My feet were moving, faster and faster.
I ran toward the beach, my intense desire to see Kat added to the adrenaline running through me.
I just had to make sure.
I just had to check.
I wanted… No. I needed to check on her. Just from a distance. I didn’t need to get close.
Standing at the edge of the trees, to peer at the house I’d dropped her off at, the place she’d rented, I waited for any sign of her.
When I spotted her, in the distance, headed to the front door with two other girls, Jane and someone else. I didn’t recognize her at all… which was strange. She wasn’t in any of the pictures. Why? Who was she?
I decided against wandering further into that question. Maybe it was best Myrus and his daughter didn’t know of this girl. She looked younger than Kat, by at least a few years.
Somehow, I found myself sitting down, watching them disappear beyond the doorway, out of my sight. I kept my eyes trained on that door, almost waiting to hear Kat’s voice echo in my head, only to have no such luck.
I glanced down at my hands.
Would I be the cause, I wondered faintly, would I be the reason she’d die?
I’d grown those plants.
Those plants… some of which contained harsh and painful poisons and toxins. Things that could definitely kill. The ones with the worst poisons were the ones missing leaves.
He’d been putting poison on those darts.
Poison.
I inhaled deeply, trying to settle my nerves, to stall my restless and bouncing leg.
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