Chapter 5

ONE WEEK LATER...

"Please?"

"No."

"Please!!"

"No!"

"Come on, Brooklyn! Just a little bit?" Kai asked, hands in a pleading position.

We (Jax, Kai, and I) were sitting in my spot in the forest. Over time, this area became a place where we could safely talk about our powers without my parents or anyone else listening in. And this time, I had come to take some pictures and Jax and Kai decided to follow me. I was convinced that they came for the sole purpose of annoying me.

At this moment, Kai was trying to convince me to use my powers. I, clearly, was denying him.

"It doesn't even have to be that big! It can be simple! Please?!" he begged, getting down on his knees in front of me.

"Wow. That boy has no shame, does he? Plus, he clearly likes you," Khione said, "And would it be so bad to let off some steam?"

It was bad enough having to listen to Kai's insistence, but now Khoine was joining in. Just great.

"I would do it, but my powers plus a forest, equals bad news. So, you need to do it!" Jax exclaimed, throwing an arm around my shoulder.

He was getting way too much enjoyment from my annoyance. Sometimes twins are supportive of their sibling, always taking their side, but apparently Jax didn't get the memo.

"Both of you leave, or you're going to get a real show of my powers," I said, not once looking up from my camera.

"I figured it out! Your emotions make you lose control of your powers, so we just need to make you feel something really intensely!" Kai exclaimed, hopping up from the ground.

Oh, no.

"He really isn't that bright, is he? Now I'm rethinking the whole 'dating him' thing."

I gritted my teeth, but not because of Khione's comments, because of Kai's. He had started to ask a bunch of random personal questions. He knew that I didn't enjoy answering forced questions about myself, and he took advantage of that. He's a real sweetheart, ain't he?

I was able to ignore it at first, and keep taking photos, but it was inevitable for him to push the perfect button to push me over the edge. Today's special button was unexpected, but understood, "Why do you hate answering questions about yourself so much?"

Vaguely, I could hear Jax mutter 'Oh, shit,' before I let my powers breath. Really, I didn't do much damage. I just felt my eyes flash and the temperature suddenly drop about thirty degrees. I might not be affected by cold, but Jax sure is. He looked like he was about to pass out. And of course the regular human, Kai, wasn't doing so well either.

I wasn't going to let that stop me, though, "You really want to know? Ok. My entire family was tortured by an evil guy just so he could try to take our powers for himself! You happy?!"

A guilty look overtook Kai's face. He looked genuinely sad, so I brought the temperature back to normal and closed my eyes, forcing them to open back to normal.

"I'm so sorry, Brooklyn. I didn't know," he said, face scrunching up in worry.

He seemed like he was actually caring. Like, more than a normal person would. I didn't want to let my mind wander in that direction, but unfortunately, I'm not the only one who occupies my mind.

"He likes you, you stubborn idiot! Just accept it already!"

"Not likely," I thought back.

I could feel Khione's frustration seeping into my own emotions, so I fought to push it back. I wasn't sure why she was getting so worked up about it; she had never shown any interest in any guys before. She always called them crude names while I was attempting to talk to them, so I never even had a chance. But that's the life of a teenage girl sharing a body with another teenage girl.

I decided that the best option, considering Kai's health, was to leave right then, so I did. I started walking further into the woods, not caring in the slightest if I got lost. I never got lost. It's an upside to having two people using the same brain. One of us can remember stuff the other doesn't want to bother with. I would usually rely on Khione to keep us safe.

As I got farther and farther away from home and civilization, I felt myself getting more and more relaxed. When I'm isolated, with nobody around to possibly hurt, I can be myself fully. I don't have to constantly worry about slipping up. I can just...be me!

So I let myself merge with Khione fully, making us into one singular personality. That was one thing that Jax and my parents never knew about: I was strengthening my powers. Sure, I trained with them like usual, but I still needed my own training. It started as a way to let off steam, but then I realized that the more I used them, the less I feared losing control. Plus, Khione and I were on generally good terms if she wasn't stuck inside our head all the time.

We let out a sigh of relief. At first, it took either extenuating circumstances or extreme force to get us to merge, but now it was like dipping into a pool. We did it with ease. It also helped that we both wanted it.

When we were together, our powers doubled in size. Every shift in the temperature in a ten mile radius could be felt by us. It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time knowing we had control over this kind of power.

Just as we were going to start 'stretching' the muscle of our powers, we felt something. Almost like- fear. Somebody was terrified. Beyond terrified. Their body was letting off so much heat. At least, to us it was.

It felt like we were being pulled by an invisible string towards the person. Soon enough, without realizing, we were running and the edges of town were coming into view. Fully accepting that we were going to do something stupid, we followed the trail of heat until we heard the muffled screams.

When we got close enough, we hid behind a wall and saw that it was a woman, no, a girl. Around my age, maybe younger. A man, definitely older than her, had her pushed up against the alley wall. It was the darker side of this small town, so nobody cared or heard her calls for help. But we did, and there was no way we were going to not do anything about it either.

Making a split-second decision to not try to hide our face, we turned into the alley. The sun was almost completely down, so my shadow loomed largely. We hoped it made the man afraid. If not, we were about to show him he should've been.

"Hey! Get your hands off of her, you perv!" We yelled, taking a couple steps closer.

The man stopped to look up at us, but he didn't let go of the girl's wrist. With the grip he had on her, she was most definitely going to have bruises. That just fueled our anger more. This man was going to pay, slowly.

"Get going, girly! You don't wanna mess with me," the man said and straightened, probably assuming that his height would scare me off.

Ha. What he didn't know was that I was born into a family with superpowers. Height wasn't something that affected my confidence, that's for sure.

I took a few more steps at a brisker pace, "Back away from the girl...before I make you!"

He laughed. Like, actually laughed. We gritted our teeth and told ourselves that he would regret doing that later. For now, we just had to make sure the girl was safely out of his grasp before we attacked.

"I'm not going to tell you again. Let the girl go or I'm going to be forced to do something I REALLY want to do," We said, striding until we were only about two feet away from the man.

He hadn't backed down one inch yet, and he didn't look like he was planning to, so we gave a shrug and said, "Ok, fine with me. This way is more fun anyway."

I couldn't tell you what happened after that specifically. I vaguely remember covering our hands in ice and punching the man repeatedly in the mouth until he had more blood than saliva. But we weren't done there. We apparently decided that it would be a good idea to make an ice spike and stab it through his hand, into the wall, holding him there.

The girl had gone and cowered against the opposite wall, whimpering and crying, long before we had ever gone into major beast mode. When we turned to check on her, crouching down to her level, she flinched away from us. We were offended at first, but ultimately decided that she had a proper excuse. We HAD just pierced a guy's hand to the wall, beaten him bloody, and to top it all off, we had white hair, eyes, and cold basically pouring out of our hands and mouth. It's understandable for someone to be afraid of us, so we chose to take a more gentle approach the second time.

"Hey, are you okay? What's your name?" We asked, making sure our powers were under control before gently pulling her up by the arms.

"I-I-it's C-claire," she stuttered, eyes wide as saucers.

We tried a reassuring smile, "Nice to meet you, Claire. Are you hurt?"

She nodded her head, but it didn't look like anything was too serious. A quick trip to the ER to get checked out would most likely find a few bruises and result in a report to the police. We pushed that worry out of our minds for the moment, ignoring the obvious stress that would come later over the fact that this girl and man had just seen our face.

"Ok. Well, you should call the police, first of all. They'll take care of you," We told her. On the inside, we were actually debating staying with her, but we knew it was too big a risk after already saving her.

"O-Ok. Are you leaving?" Claire asked, giving us those big puppy-dog eyes.

And they almost worked, if we hadn't been prepared for similar experiences like this. We put on the professional face, and calmly replied, "I'm sorry, but I really have to go. Nobody can know who I am. I really don't want to ask you this, but can you keep my identity a secret?"

She nodded, so I started to turn away. Before I could though, a hand shot out and grabbed my arm in a tight hold.

"I don't even know who you are. At least let me have a name to thank inside my head," she said, voice surprisingly firm considering the recent trauma.

I tried to just walk away, but that girl had a death-lock on my arm, and it would be best if we didn't freeze her hand off after saving her. Therefore, we came up with the next best answer to our real names, "Call me Frostbite. Do you have a phone on you?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Call the police. I'll make sure you're safe before I leave completely." We told her.

Claire pulled out her phone and dialed 911, and then, before Claire knew it, we were gone. We climbed up onto the roof of the shorter building. Our training taught us how to use our powers as a tool to do stuff like this.

Once we heard the sirens coming, and the cars pulled up, we took off towards home. Even though I would pay for it later, I let a small smile grace my lips, confident that what I had just done was the right thing. I may have some explaining to do, but nothing was going to put a damper on my good mood in that moment. Nothing.