A trap.
I spun around, preparing to use my twin abilities, to give myself time to react properly. I saw the shadow of a person creeping up as I turned. But then they moved fast. My reactions were too slow, too simple. Easy to avoid.
Arms and legs swung through the air. There was a pinching kind of feeling by my neck. I lost my balance, my feet stumbling as I tried to catch myself. They came closer and I bit my lip to hold back a cry of pain as they hit me again, faster than I was able to block it properly.
I seemed to fall to the ground in slow motion, pain flaring up at all of the sites of impact, the ground hard beneath me, and then dying away as I felt my eyes grow too heavy to keep open. I felt hands lift me up, foreign hands, unfamiliar ones that didn’t care. There was a low chuckle from the body grabbing me. It sent chills down my spine. Squirming, I tried to get away from them but they only held on tighter and the pain came back, it was worse now.
“Mmgh…” I groaned.
Darkness seemed to creep up on me and my thoughts came by in a flurry, almost as if I were dying, on my last breath, and my life was flashing before my closed eyes.
I knew I’d be disappointed by what I’d see.
But, I didn’t have anyone to blame but myself. I wasn’t sure if anyone would truly care, beyond Will and maybe my twin sister Jo, if I went missing like this. Ma might get worried, but would Mom even care?
From a young age, Jo and I differentiated between our two mothers by calling one Mom and the other Ma. Ma was Miyra, who had a heart like she was truly the mother of the whole pack. Mom, well, she was Alpha Animiya Blakeley, the scary strong one. She was the protector and leader in more than just name… and the one I always looked up to as a kid. In a way, I still did. I admired her strength and intelligence. I had always wanted to be just like her…
But I hadn’t called her ‘Mom’ in years. Not for much longer beyond the realization we both had - that I was going to grow up with a face that looked exactly like hers, minus the scars. That it was going a problem, in more than one way, and none of them were simple or easy to solve. It would’ve been fine if I looked like her, had she not had an identical twin named Helena. And that still wouldn’t be an issue if Helena weren’t dead. But she was. And if her death had been simple and easy and peaceful, the problem would’ve been limited to just a look-alike. But her death wasn’t any of that. It was hard and painful and traumatic for Mom.
I didn’t always know that.
Just as I didn’t know the other problem, the one that came with my identical face.
Helena had powers over the wind and air.
And so did I.
And that was the real problem.
I was the spitting image, and held the same powers, as her identical dead sister. The one she’d failed to save.
Certain situations, as I didn’t realize until years and years later, fitting more into the category of a recent discovery, with my face and abilities that matched that of my dead aunt, were triggering her memories of the past and sparking these flare-ups.
Her sister’s name fell from her lips when she looked at me a few times. The time I scraped my knee sprung into my mind as quick as it could.
“Ma! Mom!” I shouted, clutching my knee. There was a gash on the top from where I’d scraped it on some rocks hidden in the grass and blood dribbled a line down my shin. I’d tripped and fallen on the rocks, blaming my own clumsiness on how I managed to trip over air, yet again.
In the distance, I saw Mom running over to me. The sight her headed my way filled me with relief.
“Lynn?! What’s wrong?!”
“Mom!” I turned more her way, not knowing that in moving just that small bit, my mother now had sight of the blood on my knee. Maybe it was a product of seeing my Mom rushing to my aid, or the pain on my knee finally getting to me, tears started rising in my eyes.
Through the blurry vision I was beginning to have, I saw her move faster, sprinting harder, only to fall to her knees before me, sliding a bit on the grass before I could even warn her that I’d hit my knee on some rocks that were hidden somewhere in the green. I glanced at her pants, thinking that the grass was going to stain them. I knew first hand that grass stains were hard to get out of clothes. Most of my pants had green tinted knees from my numerous greetings with the grass, albeit on accident.
“I…”
My eyes stared up at my Mom and I couldn’t find the words. Her hands were shaking as they slowly reached over to lightly examine my knee. A featherlight touch, something Mom wasn’t known to have. Her eyes were wide and fearful. Panicked.
It took me years before I could place those emotions on her face. Why? Because they didn’t belong there. How could Mom be afraid? How could she be panicked? She was a superhero in my young mind. Heroes like her didn’t fear, they didn’t shake.
“…to Helena…” came mumbling through Mom’s lips, so quiet I almost didn’t hear it.
I was confused.
I was Lynn. Not Helena.
I told her as much, my tears and pain somehow forgotten as I looked into her eyes.
She froze before looking into my eyes. She swallowed hard, I saw as she did. And then she gave me what looked like a failed attempt at a smile, picking me up and carrying me back home.
“No, of course not. Of course, you aren’t. You’re Lynn… You’re my baby girl…”
I didn’t say anything more, even as she cleaned the wound and bandaged it up before leading me back to the door, brushing my bangs aside and giving my forehead a small peck before sending me off to go play again.
I remembered glancing back to see a sullen look on her face as she turned and went back inside the house. And still, that face hadn’t fit her either, so I still didn’t get it.
Most often, while I was still growing, when I went and thought back on that moment, I only remembered her mix-up of my name with her sister’s name. I forgot all about her fear showing up plainly and very physically.
I had been stupid and angry about it. I didn’t know how hard it was for her. I corrected her without much thought to it except my own feelings on the matter. Stuff like ‘how could she confuse me with Helena’ or ‘I’m her daughter, and her sister is dead, logically, how could I be her sister’ or just a plain ‘how could she’ ran through my head whenever I’d thought of it. And it only made me lash out after I’d held everything in for far too long.
When I realized that maybe I was the burden? I tumbled down and down and down into this hole of avoidance. We stopped talking most of the time, unless it was necessary.
And the inevitable anger-fueled words came out when we couldn’t avoid it any longer.
And I couldn’t take them back once they left me.
Even if I wanted desperately to do so…
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