Chapter 1

The twins discover there is more to the world.

Another small town. It was almost worse than the big cities really, though one would think with fewer kids there would be less ridiculing. Not so. There were still the usual cliques but they were smaller and the lines between them were more blurred. Kids in a small town were able to float between cliques like rogue bumblebees. If one clique decided they didn’t want to be seen with the strange new kids it usually quickly spread to the other cliques. On top of that 3was the apparent slowing of time and space in hick towns. It seemed that the smaller the town the farther behind they were from the rest of the world in pop culture. If for example, a designer in New York came out with the year’s hottest jeans in February, by Christmas they should be hearing about them in North Dakota. Essentially everything that was new for the kids here would be like a bad rerun for us, having just come from San Francisco.

     Our father was an officer in the Air Force, which means we move around a lot. Our new home was now Little Falls Minnesota. Some where in the middle of the backwoods I believe. The only things I know about Minnesota are from episodes of Little House on the Prairie. With Satellite television our mother would watch her beloved childhood favorite seen times a day. In between episodes she would attempt to clean the house and maybe even make a meal or two. All I knew was that somewhere between our father’s obsession with orderly, structured lives and our mother’s lack of interest in…anything, my brother and I were special. We didn’t know if it was manifested from desire, hopelessness, or just plain boredom. I only knew that we were different than other people.

     We seemed to attract attention and our share of trouble for some reason. I’ve never been sure why. Other than the fact that we are twins there was nothing extraordinary about us. We had the same plain mousy brown hair, the same dark eyes, and the same thin build. My brother tended to dress a little loud sometimes but usually our wardrobe of choice was t-shirt and jeans.

     I dropped my cigarette into the butt can as my twin brother, Argil, came out of the convenience store with two cokes. Most of the towns in Minnesota had rallied together with no smoking bans in public places. This led to most establishments putting out some kind of cigarette receptacle. Whether that be an old coffee can, a half-barrel filled with sand, or one of those beige plastic containers that had a tendency to combust if too many hot butts were left to smolder.

     I took a coke from Argil, spun the lid off and took a swallow. I looked inside the cap, figures, not a winner. Across the street several kids were gawking inside the window of the local Wal-Mart. I lit another smoke and watched them as they continued down the street. Being one o’clock in the morning this was obviously the local rebel kids out for a good time. The large kid in front of the group was obviously the conductor of the rabble. Not only because he was the largest but he was either pushing somebody around or telling someone what to do. I could only assume the large had gotten his sense of style from some kind of biker father who was stuck in the eighties. The large kid wore ripped blue jeans, a black t-shirt with a denim vest, and untied hi-tops. His thick greasy hair was perfectly styled into a mullet. I would not ever see this kid on the cover of GQ. There were a couple of other boys in the group eagerly vying for the bullies attention and two girls trailed in the back of the group not paying any attention to the boys at all. One of the girls in particular caught my attention. Her skin was pale and her hair was dark, too dark to be natural. The pigtails sticking out either side of her head bobbed as she walked and the smile she wore seemed to be permanent. She wore a black t-shirt that was just slightly too short showing the pale skin of her navel above her black jeans. She wore three leather belts around her waist and so many bracelets it was amazing her thin arms could bear the weight.

     My gaze had apparently lingered too long on the dark haired girl as the lead boy nudged his friend and the group was suddenly headed in our direction. Crossing the road here didn’t seem like the brightest of ideas to me. First Avenue was the dividing line between the north side and the south side of Little Falls. It wasn’t a large town but First Avenue also happened to be Highway Twenty-Seven. The group came on anyway. The large bully could apparently smell fresh meat and had some bullying on his mind. Argil and I were not large kids. In fact we were rather spindly, though this seemed to give Argil an unnatural quickness. The kid heading for us now could probably take both of us at once in a fistfight and he knew it. What he didn’t know is we would never let it go that far.

     The bully came straight at me without ever slowing. As soon as he was within arms reach I held out my arm palm forward and the kid stopped dead in his tracks. With a grin I looked into his eyes and was surprised at what I saw. Instead of the expected shock at being held in place by a kid half his size I saw anger and loathing. I held him there with my power though no one else seemed to notice I wasn’t even touching the bully only that I was somehow holding the large kid at bay. The shock at having seen their leader stopped was plain on the faces of the rest of the group. Withour words I charged up my hand and pushed forward as hard as I could sending the bully backward several feet and sprawling to the ground.

     I quickly flicked my gaze to the dark haired girl. She looked at me strangely though not with the same look I usually received from girls.

     “You asked for it now.” The bully hollered. He slowly regained his feet and started toward me again.

     I heard my brother moan and I stood ready for another charge.

     “You kids get out of here now!” We heard a shout.

     The clerk of the Holiday station had come outside and witnessed the altercation. “I don’t care where you go, but get away from my store.” 

     I grabbed my brother’s arm and walked past the clerk keeping my eye on the other group of kids. The dark haired girl locked gazes with me for a moment but I had to break the contact to keep an eye on the bully. Fortunately he seemed to think better of continuing our scuffle in front of the store clerk. I could tell by the look on his face that this wasn’t over and our next meeting he would again trey ot pound me.

     Once the other kids had walked off in opposite direction I relaxed a bit and took another swallow from my coke.

     “Why must you always start fights? Someday we’re going to push around the wrong guy.” Argil complained.

     My brother didn’t speak much, so you would think that when he did he could say something intelligent. Unfortunately the statements that usually came from his outh were less than profound.

     “And exactly how didyou come to the conclusion that I started that fighty?” I asked.

     “Well, you must have done something to make that kid come rushing across the street like that. I certainly didn’t do anyting”

     I flicked my cigarette into the street where it landed and rolled back toward me for the gutter. It stopped just short of the sewer drain getting hung up on a leaf. With a twitch of my finger I gave it the nudge it needed and the butt fell down into the abyss that was the sewage system.

     “What you should have done was finish that kid.” Argil went on. “Who cares about the stupid store guy? That kid was asking for t. You know he’s gonna come at us again if he ever sees us?”

     “Yea, I know.” I said. It was the only answer I had to offer.

     I wasn’t thinking about the bully. My thoughts were on the dark haired girl and the three and a half seconds I had been able to gaze into her gray eyes.

     We left the convenience store behind turning around the corner and going up a side street. Argil was quiet. He didn’t like confrontation and the bully had come too close to connecting. My brother would have preferred it if I had shown off my power a little more and given the bully a real lesson. I usually kept my cool a little better than my twin in such situations however. Anyway, I wasn’t sure it was a lesson the bully needed. There was something not right about the whole thing, something not right about the bully.

     I pulled another cigarette from the pack in my shirt pocket. “Damn.” I swore as I looked down to find the cigarette broken. I cradled the broken smoke in my palm and concentrated. Paper was fibrous and easy enough to repair and soon I was pulling a drag off the newly repaired smoke.

`    I looked over to see my brother rolling his eyes at me.

     “You use your power to repair one of your precious cigarettes but you wouldn’t send that damn kid running with his tail between his legs. I just don’t get you.”

     “Well, if you’re asking me Argil, you could use a little more discretion. One of these days someone is going to be asking you questions you don’t want to answer.” I retorted.

     “Someday, maybe.” He said.

     We waked down a couple of more blocks in silence. Regardless of the earlier confrontation neither of us wanted to go home. We knew what waited for us there. And angry father would be waiting on the living room couch for us and a morose mother wouldn’t interject when it came time for our punishment.

      We turned back up to First Avenue, the street we had originally been on. There was a Burger King up the road that was open late and except for the bully and his cronies the streets had proven to be very quiet. Since there was nothing else to do we might as well eat something.

     As we came up alongside the burger King I stopped suddenly staring through one of the large front windows. Inside sat the dark haired girl and once again I found I could take my eyes off of her.

     “Well, I guess we aren’t going in there.” Argil said.

     I wasn’t sure what he was talking about until I pried my gaze from the girl. In the booth with her was the other girl but across from them sat the bully and another boy. For once I had to agree with my brother. One confrontation with this boy was enough. We would have to skip burgers tonight, that only left going home and taking our punishment.

     I looked in to take one more look at the dark haired girl. Why I couldn’t have just left I don’t know. At the same time I looked in the bully looked out at me.

As soon as he saw mw he was moving to get out of the booth. Argil reacted quickly thrusting out his palm and sending their trays crashing to the floor in front of them. This caused both boys to slip in chocolate milkshake and tumble to the floor. The bully would be really mad now. This would be the second time we’ve sent him down.

Argil turned on me. “Can we finish this now and teach this guy a lesson?””

I still didn’t know if it would do any good but we weren’t left with many options. This boy would just keep hunting us now.

“Okay, Argil, but not here. Legion Park is a couple of blocks up. We’ll let them chase us there and then we’ll make our stand. I hope.”

Argil nodded. We waited for the boys to regain their feet and reach the door then we took off for the park. The girls had just been leaving the booth and I couldn’t help but wonder if the dark haired girl would follow us to the park as well.

We easily out ran the other two boys. The bully was husky and severely out of shape. His breath came hard when he finally caught up with us at the park.

“You guys are getting’ it now. There’s no adults around here to save you from a beating this time.” The bully rasped.

He didn’t have any clue he had been set up. He had no idea we had stopped at the park and now we had him where we wanted him. Not the other way around.

The bully advanced, though a little more cautiously this time. There was hatred in his eyes. Not the kind of passing hatred he might show for any one of his victims but true hatred. He didn’t even know who we were and for some reason he already hated us.

The smaller boy kept his distance letting the larger boy do the dirty work. “Go ahead Jimmy, get ‘em!” He hollered.

I thought maybe just start out small, trip him up with a rock or something until I could come up with a plan to teach him not to mess with us. Once again I spent too much time thinking while my brother reacted.

I felt the manipulated air fly past my shoulder and watched as it his Jimmy square in the chest knocking him hard to the ground. The bully was more resilient than I would have guessed and was slowly regaining his feet. Most boys would have stayed on the ground but this boy was different. This boy wasn’t just a bully. He had hatred and evil boiling in his blood. When Jimmy regained his feet he somehow looked larger than he had before but that was impossible. The dim light in the park and the long night was playing tricks on my eyes.

I pulled my arm back ready to give Jimmy a blow of my own. I was curious now about how much this boy could take. Jimmy was running at Argil and I focused my power into my fist.

“Stop it, stop it now!” The scream came from the park entrance.

     I looked to see the dark haired girl standing on the sidewalk coming into the park. I also noticed Jimmy’s lackey was gone.

     The scream had been enough to stop Jimmy’s charge as well. He turned to look for the source of the screaming as I had. I could see by the look on his face he had noticed the other boy was missing as well.

     “Stay out of this Parker.” Jimmy growled.

     I just couldn’t understand why this kid wanted to take us down so badly. We’d run into bully’s, show-off’s, and jocks with nothing better to do before, but it was more than that with Jimmy. At least now I knew the dark haired girl’s name.

     Parker ran up to Jimmy and pulled on his arm. “Don’t do this Jimmy. You don’t even know these guys. They didn’t do anything to you. Just stop it.”

     Jimmy didn’t say anything. He threw back the arm she was holding on to and easily tossed her to the ground. Parker hit the ground hard knocking the wind out of her.

     It was enough for me. I was ready to finish this. I didn’t know what this kid’s problem was but I wasn’t going to let him get the best of us and I certainly wasn’t going to let him toss Parker around. In less time than it takes to blink I closed the twenty-foot gap between us and released the energy I had stored up in my fist. Jimmy went down harder than a sand bag. He was out cold but within seconds was already beginning to stir.

     “Yes!” Argil yelled.

     I motioned to my twin. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

     “What do you mean let’s go? We’ve got the best of him now.”

     I shook my head. “There’s something not right here Argil. This kid isn’t normal. That punch should leave him out cold for hours and he’s already recovering. I say we leave it be for now.”

     “Fine, let’s go then.” Argil said. He headed for the park entrance dragging his feet.

     I walked over to Parker who was looking up at me as if I had just performed a miracle. I held my hand out to help her up. She took my hand and got back to her feet, though a little wobbly.

     “How did you do that?” She asked. “No one has ever knocked Jimmy to the ground.”

     I shrugged. “Let’s just say I’ve had a bit of practice. Let’s go, we’ll walk you home.”

     Parker hesitated. “But what about Jimmy?” I can’t just leave him here.”

     “He’ll be all right. I have a feeling he can take care of himself. He is dangerous though and I don’t want to be nosy but you might want to rethink your friendship with him.”

     She didn’t answer only turned away from me and started down the walk after my brother. I skipped forward a couple of steps to catch up to her.

     “Look, I didn’t mean to tell you who your friends should be.”

     “It’s okay.” She said. “We aren’t really friends anyway. The boys were out and so were we so we just decided to hang out with them. I like being out at night but girls have disappeared before so it’s nice having a big boy like Jimmy around.”

     Argil walked along ahead of us flashing me dirty looks every once in a while. Argil didn’t talk well with girls or with strangers at al. Moving around all the time had been hard on him. I could tell he was upset with me for focusing all my attention on Parker and I knew I would never be able to talk him into dropping back and joining the conversation.

     I couldn’t help but offering to walk Parker home however. I wasn’t really much with the girls either. Usually they found me weird, or nerdy, or whatever. I wasn’t Tom Cruise but I didn’t think I was ugly either. I just seemed to be better at making friends with girls rather than having girlfriends. It probably didn’t help that no matter where I was my twin was probably not far away.

     I looked over at Parker and our gazed met again for just a moment. It made my stomach lurch every time.

     “By the way, I’m Austin.” I said.

     She didn’t look over at me again but I could tell she was smiling. “I’m Parker.”

     “I know.”

     We waked Parker home or to the place she said ws home anyway. I never actually saw her go into the large yellow house. I didn’t really have any reason to believe it wasn’t her house. I just had a feeling. It didn’t really matter. It wasn’t a large city and as long as I could see her again I didn’t care where she lived.

     The rest of our walk home was quiet. Argil was still upset. I had ousted him and turned my attention to Parker. I couldn’t blame him but at the same time the opportunity to talk to the dark haired girl had to be taken. Her lure was too much for me to resist. When we finally completed our journey we just stood on the walk staring at the front door of our house. Dad was more than likely waiting for us. The light in the living room told us that much. It was three in the morning and he wasn’t going to be happy. We would probably spend the rest of our morning being treated like to recruits to camp.