I was jittery as I boarded the plane. I couldn’t help but think that someone was following us.
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What if they were waiting for me in the washroom? Or hijack the plane and take everyone down? What if—
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“Talia,” Damian placed his hand over mine when he saw me shifting restlessly in my seat. “It’s okay, no one is following us.”
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“You don’t know that,” I whispered, pulling my hand away from his. After the washroom incident, I found it hard to speak to him or even look at him. He had become a stranger to me. Frankly, I felt like a hostage on the plane, and my brother was the terrorist.
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Damian sighed and pursed his lips. We sat in silence for a while, and when I found the silence unbearable, I took out my earphones.
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“Wait, hear me out.” Damian snatched my earphones away, to my dismay.
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“Give it back, Damian!” I hissed, lunging for my earphones. “Whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it.”
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“Just—please. Give me a chance to explain.”
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I glowered at him, ready to reject any chance of him explaining. But the moment I saw his pleading eyes that screamed with desperation, I relented.
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“Fine,” I scowled. “But I’m not talking to you out in the open; someone might think we’re crazy.”
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Once again, I closed my eyes and focused. A soft hum filled my ears—the familiar sound that always came with using my powers. To keep others from eavesdropping or noticing anything unusual about me and my brother, I needed to cast a subtle illusion around us.
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I will be listening to music, and Damian will be napping. Nothing complicated.
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As I wove the illusion in my mind, I could sense Damian rummaging through his bag for something.
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“I don’t need tissues anymore, Damian,” I murmured. Over the years I trained, I no longer had nosebleeds whenever I used my powers. I probably saved Mom and Dad a fortune from buying tissues when I stopped having them.
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“It’s going to be a long conversation. I’m worried you won’t hold out that long. Excuse me,” he suddenly turned to the passenger sitting next to him. “Do you have any tissues? I tend to get a runny nose in-flight.”
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I grimaced at Damian. Great, another complication. Casting illusions is tricky as it has to be perfectly intricate down to the last detail. Any reality changes will require the same changes in the illusions to prevent any suspicions.
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I have to get this done before he adds something else. C’mon, Talia.
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“You know, I snore during naps sometimes,” Damian said to the passenger. As soon as I heard that, I smirked. That was definitely going into the illusion. In fact, I’ll make him snore twice as loud.
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“Also, I—OW!” He exclaimed, gripping his left arm.
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“Are you alright?” The passenger, a middle-aged man wearing a cap, raised his eyebrows as my brother winced in pain.
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“Oh yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for the tissues.” Damian smiled weakly at the man and proceeded to glare at me. “You do know that it hurts when you pinch me.”
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“Please, you’ve been through worse. I’m done, by the way.”
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*
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One of the risks of casting an illusion on a moving transport was that it was cast on a moving transport. It required unwavering concentration to layer each illusion above the other so that the illusion wouldn’t collapse due to a sudden impact or turbulence. I thought I did a good job, but it was safer to double-check it.
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Damian glanced at the illusion shimmering around us. Once he confirmed that it was secure, he finally spoke.
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“I’ll let you have the first question,” he said quietly.
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“Okay, what the hell?” I was exasperated. I would’ve said something a little more vulgar, but at that moment, the only words that came out of my mouth were ‘what the hell’. Poor choice of words on my part.
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“I know you’re shocked—and probably scared—”
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“You murdered them, Damian. With a freaking butter knife! Who the hell does that?!” I was honestly horrified by the fact that he used a butter knife to slit the man’s throat.
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“It was the sharpest thing I could grab from the pantry.” Damian looked puzzled, which made me even more frustrated.
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“It was a butter knife! It’s not even sharp, and you slit a man’s throat with it!”
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“In my defence, a butter knife still has serrated edges–”
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“That’s not the point, Damian!” I slammed my hands on the armrest. “The point is, no normal person would do that!”
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“Only we are not normal!” Damian suddenly yelled. The words echoed between us, heavier than anything I expected him to say.
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I hated how true it felt.
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Damian sighed and said wearily, “I didn’t want you to see that.”
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“No kidding,” I muttered, turning to the window. Seeing the clear blue sky made me wish that I were the clouds that floated there, free of worry and burden.
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And secrets.
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“They were following us and even had a ticket for the same flight.” My eyes twitched for a moment. “They were planning to take the plane down with everyone in it. I had to stop them.”
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My chest tightened. “So you murdered them.”
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“I neutralised a threat,” he said flatly, but his eyes flickered. “You think I wanted this? If I didn’t do what I did and leave it to the airport security, the entire lounge would’ve been compromised.” He paused for a moment and continued, “That said, I shouldn’t have let you in my mind.”
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“No one forced you to drag me in deeper,” I shot back. “I was trying to end the link, and you know it.”
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He looked away, eyes clouded with thought. “I needed to know it was you. Anyone else poking around in my head would’ve died on the spot.”
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That stopped me from complaining any further. Damian wasn’t a pure psionic like me and Dad, but he had some proficiency in basic psychic powers. Hearing his warning made me realise that he was more than capable of breaking my mind if he saw me as an intruder. Suddenly, it felt hard for me to breathe, like the air became thinner with his presence.
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“What did you do to their bodies?” With two corpses that had their throats slit and one of them beaten to a pulp, it would be hard for people not to notice.
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Damian hesitated for a moment and uttered, “You don’t want to know.”
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Those words made my skin tingle with horror. Damian’s ability to manipulate the elements has always come in handy, especially with liquid. To try to assume what he did to the bodies was enough to shut me up. He’s right, I didn’t want to know.
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“They weren’t civilians, Talia. They weren’t even normal people. You felt it too, didn’t you? The fear in your gut? The constant worry that I won’t be able to take them on? That’s not adrenaline. That’s instinct. They were one of them.”
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I swallowed. My fingers were ice-cold. “…One of whom?”
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He avoided the question, but I could see him contemplating whether to tell me the whole truth. Instead, he leaned forward, lowering his voice.
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“I can’t tell you that yet. But I can tell you this—do you remember what Dad used to tell us when we were growing up? That we were being prepared for something bigger? That our powers weren’t just for protection?”
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“Yeah…”
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“This is it.” His voice turned grim. “The others are starting to make their move. And we’re no longer watching from the sidelines.”
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My breath caught in my throat. I wanted to ask more, but something tells me that Damian wasn’t going to let in more than he should.
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After everything he told me, I still didn’t know if I could trust him—but I was starting to understand him. And that was somehow worse.
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Ding.
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“Ladies and gentlemen, please remain seated and fasten your seatbelts. We’re expecting some turbulence,” the flight attendant announced just as the seatbelt sign lit up.
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“We’ll talk more after we meet Aunt Holly in Korea. You can end the illusion and get some rest.” Damian popped his earphones in and shut his eyes to rest.
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While he slept soundly for the flight, sleep didn’t come for me. I kept thinking about what he said. To me, the biggest question now wasn’t who the enemy was.
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Rather, it was whether I had it in me to become what Damian already was.
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