Yep. Late again. School, work, etc etc...basically, I just suck at getting things up in a timely manner, guys. I'm sorry. At least this chapter is long-ish. Let me know what you think of it, okay? I'm not sure if I like it or not.

“Jayden.” My tone of voice comes out much more impatient than I’d intended, and I soften it and try again. “Jayden. Come on, dude, I need to talk to you…”

Still no answer from the very clearly shut-and-locked bedroom door. I glare at it and its chipping white paints smirks at me mockingly. I always thought doors had way too much personality for their own good.

“Are you sure he’s in here?” I ask Liana. She nods, pouting at the door as if it’s personally offending her. It probably is: Jayden doesn’t seem to shut her out of his life most of the time, so this is probably pretty disconcerting for her.

“Well, unless he somehow snuck out the window or something…I’m really worried, Tay. He didn’t come out for dinner or breakfast, and he usually eats a ton. He’s kind of a pig.” She pauses, as if that’s supposed to elicit some response. Nothing happens. Her pout turns into a frown, and she calls through the door, “Jayden, I’m telling him bad things about you! Come out and get mad at me! Please?” I can’t even muster a laugh at this so-typical sibling behaviour, because Liana is so obviously scared: her eyes are wide as if she’s trying to stare straight through the door, and that combined with the way she’s biting her lip gives her entire face a child-like air. I can see her hands twisting themselves together in her skirt.

Okay, Jayden, this is really not cool. You’re scaring your sister, and I can’t help you with whatever this is about if you won’t let me in the room. You realize that this is such a teenage reaction, too? Immature, antisocial, selfish…way to be a cliché, man.

Nothing. I thought that if anything would grab his attention (and spark his anger) it would be a deliberate sending of thoughts like that, but just this blankness of response…okay, now I’m worried.

“Liana? I’m going to need to ask you for a favor.” I’m ready for suspicion, but she just nods instantly, as if she doesn’t even have to think about it. I’m kind of gratified and kind of worried for her self-preservation instincts. “I need you to look away for ten minutes and then not arrest me.”

“…okay?” Yeah, there’s some suspicion there after all, but she obediently turns her back, and I crouch down near the doorknob where I hope the lock is.

Deep breath, in and out...and I remember.

I remember centuries. Eons. I remember roots stretching down, pushing through rock, cracking granite with a solid, inexorable force that nothing fast-paced, short-lived, could possibly understand. I remember power, and age.

You are so old, I tell it, this fibrous, sturdy wood that belongs in the earth, not held in the air and strapped in by metal. You are so old and tired, and you did not ask for this. Crumble. Rest. Remember your centuries with me, and succumb.

I come back to myself as the doorknob falls from now-crumbling wood and hits my foot with a muted ‘thunk’. I swear softly, straighten up, and tell Liana, “Okay, now, remember the not-arresting-me part. Because I can totally fix that.”

I might be lying about that last part.

“How…how did you…” she stares at the door and, if anything, looks even more frightened, and though I admit that’s a fair question this really isn’t the time or place.

“Let’s just focus on Jayden for now, okay? Do you want to go in first?”

She isn’t distracted. Her eyes are narrowed, studying me as if I’m a puzzle that she just realized is missing the corner pieces. “Why do I get the feeling you want me to say ‘no’?” Woah, that came out of nowhere! Maybe the whole ‘psychic’ thing is more genetic than we thought, because Liana meets my eyes squarely with the exact same ‘I dare you to bullshit me’ look Jayden gets, past fear and into something deeper and a lot stronger. I sense that we are swiftly approaching the point where I won’t slide by on acting and goodwill anymore, and where her unnatural understanding and acceptance finally stops. I would really like that point to not be right this minute, though.

“Too bad. I’m his sister. I’m going in first.”

And she does. Without even waiting for a reply—but really, what could I say?—she pushes open the door.

Jayden is sitting on the floor, knees pulled up almost to his chest and arms looped around them loosely. His feet are bare, and for some reason that catches my attention before I glance at his face. Eyes closed, lips slightly parted and breathing regular, I would almost say he’s asleep, if it wasn’t for the odd position and the way I can see his hands clenched around each other, obviously exerting strength.

Liana walks towards him as if she’s afraid he might startle and bolt, but all that happens is that when she gets close enough to touch, his eyes flutter open. He has ridiculously long eyelashes, and I wonder why I never noticed that before.

*I said I wanted to be left alone,* he unclasps one hand from his knees to inform her pointedly, but the movement is languid, sluggish, as if he really has been pulled from sleep.

“You said that over fifteen hours ago.”

There’s a pause, and a slow, sleepy blink. *Okay* his fingers slide from the ‘o’ to the ‘k’ instead of snapping like they usually do, but he seems to be waking up, and his next movement do have a bit of a snap, annoyance and defensiveness bleeding into his gestures. *I’m saying it again. See you in another fifteen*.

“That’s it? Jayden, what’s going on?! This is totally not like you at all…” she reaches out as if to touch his shoulder. He flinches back, away from her fingers, and then freezes as he realizes what he’s done. They stare at each other for a long, still moment.

“Are you…are you hearing the voices again?” Liana’s soft tone dips into something careful and scared, and point below my chest clenches, hard, as Jayden’s back tenses like a strung bow.

*I need you to leave now.* His hands cut down through the air in the sign for ‘now’ with the finality of a guillotine.

I expect her to fight, or at least hesitate. But she just stress for a moment, eyes welling up with tears, and then pushes past me out the door. Jayden doesn’t even watch her leave before he turns to me.

*And you.*

“If you were in my head, you’d know I’m not going to. Why aren’t you?” I’m a bit pissed off now, so that wasn’t the well-thought-out response I intended. It certainly does nothing to relieve Jayden’s tension; his gestures get wild and with a bit of a desperate tinge to them, and my head is still disconcertingly empty of any thoughts but my own.

*Because being in your head was where this whole problem started! Or did you just not notice that I mixed our thoughts together so far we almost didn’t get sorted out again?* He tugs his legs closer to his chest, posture very clearly defensive. I consider sitting down so that I’m not looking at the top of his head right now, but decide to wait a bit first. Years and years of analyzing human interactions may in fact have taught me a few useful things.

“I noticed.”

*So you just don’t care? I almost lost both of us—turned us into some ugly, hybrid thing! Why doesn’t that scare you?!*

“Good question. Maybe because I thought my divine connection would keep me safe. Or maybe, Jayden, I just trust your abilities. Sure, you got a little out of control, but it isn’t as though anything really bad happened…so why are you acting as if it did?”

Stillness.

*You trust me.* Usually, people seem gratified of happy when they say that sentence. Jayden doesn’t: he looks furious. *Of course. Of course you do.*

“What’s that supposed to…“ I crouch down next to him at last, a safe distance away, but my confused question trails off as he shoots out a hand and grabs my arm.

You want me back in your head? Fine. Here.

Confused images slam into my head, as if I just got kneed in the face with a memoir. Jayden as a child, all wide eyes and dark hair, always with Liana less than a step away. Waving hands instead of babbling mouth, and procession of women who his memories tell me-him-us are nannies, stand-ins for absent parents. The two children play and fight, messy hands and sticky faces and a warm blur of this-is-life-before-I-knew-how-to-say-it.

We watch as someone, one of the many sweet-faced women, realizes that these children don’t use words to talk to each other. And that while Jayden doesn’t seem to be learning to talk, Liana seems to be forgetting how.

We were Jayden-Liana-creature. No words. No voices. We didn’t need anything but us.

I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to.

The twins are turning in on themselves. When one moves, the other mirrors the motion, as if tied together by invisible puppet strings. When one bumps her knee, the other starts crying. The nannies get nervous, worried. There are phone calls and a visit to a doctor who takes x-rays and tissue samples.

By the time the twins are taken to a psychiatrist, you can’t tell one from the other anymore. They make you want to rub your eyes, as if the two bodies are simply a trick of the light that will coalesce into the single being they so obviously are.

The psychiatrist gets down on one knee, so he can look Jayden/Liana in the eyes, and tells them very seriously “You are two people.”

I watch as Jayden realizes what he’s done to his sister.

She cries when he rips their minds apart. He isn’t sure even now how many pieces got mixed up or left behind. He just knows that after that he reminds himself every moment of every day where he ends and the rest of the world begins, and he draws a stark, bright circle around himself to keep him where he belongs, so that he can’t ever hurt someone like that again.

The memories spit me out at the end of this rollercoaster, and I realize I’m gasping, breathing hard. Jayden’s hand slowly peels away from my arm, leaving stark white fingerprints of pressure behind. His eyes are very wide, pupils blown without any iris showing, and his hands shake a little as he tells me *Do you get it now? So take your fucking stupid ‘I trust you’ and get out.*