Raori's POV:
Standing at attention, I march into General Weatherly's office, anxious sweat dripping down my spine, adding to my nerves.

I knock formally on the door, and it slides open, revealing a rather displeased-looking general.

"At ease, Albrieght." I relax slightly, my brain still buzzing anxiously.

"I've heard that the mission was a failure." Gulping, I open my mouth to reply, but no sound comes out. I nod, then finally regain my voice and manage to force out a quiet, "Yessir."

"Did you search any houses? Meet any suspicious people?"

"No, sir. None that we could immediately identify as suspects."

"We? Do you have a little mouse in your pocket that I'm unaware of and shares your rank?"

I gulp again, resisting the urge to adjust my training fatigues.

"No sir."

He sighs and turns the image screen on his desk, showing me what he's been working on.

And I recognize the girl on the screen.

"This is Jordian Alexi Cohen, younger sister of Beorn Heorren Cohen. This was her, approximately seven years ago." He taps a few sections on a separate screen, and the picture changes.

I recognize that woman.

"And this is Jordian, or, at least what we think she would look like now. She hasn't come under our radar since her brother was taken into custody for testing—it's almost like she's dropped off the face of the earth. I'm guessing the only way she could do that is to live in one of the low-surveillance sectors of the city. One without constant high tech monitoring." He pauses. "Now, Raori, you were assigned the most low-profile areas of the city." He pauses again. "You do understand where I'm going with this, correct?"

I nod. "Yes, sir. I do,"

"Good. Did you see a woman who looked like that," he says, pointing to the screen.

I open my mouth to speak, and the words that fall from my mouth feel foreign coming from my own mouth, like it's not really me saying them. "I might have. I can't quite remember."

I did, I didn't say.

She even looks exactly like that, I couldn't say, paralyzed and unable to jab at the screen in emphasis.

I even remember the address, I wanted to scream, but couldn't, frustrated by my own inability to force the words out.

He nods, turning the screen back to him, then returning his attention to the screen. "I understand. However, you're going to need to do some scouting, though I suppose it might be more reconnaissance-based. I just want you to see if you can't find the girl. How does tomorrow, early afternoon sound?"

"Sounds great," I manage to make out, swallowing back anxiety once again.

If I find her and her brother is with her, I might as well go AWOL now before anything horribly tragic happens.

Weatherly nods, and I silently leave the room to go back to training, though my mind refuses to stop thinking about tomorrow, specifically the early afternoon.

It's already coming too soon for my liking.

Jordi's POV:
A loud banging on my door wakes me from yet another round of nightmares, and I grumble and throw off the blankets.

"Coming," I yell, the sharp edge of annoyance easy to hear.

The knocking stops, and I hear the creaking of the steps as someone steps or leans back.

Scowling, I angrily swing the door open, rubbing my face sleepily and yawning, leaning against the doorframe.

"I'm guessing Girl Scout cookies aren't too welcome, then?"

Rubbing my face one last time to clear my blurry vision, I shrug and look at the man. "Afraid so. Nothing but gluten-free for me."

Ahahaha no please just leave me alone, my inner voice groans.

"Well, I lost my card somewhere around here, and I was wondering if you might have seen it?" His handsome features twist a bit, into almost a pleading look.

"I'm afraid I haven't. Sorry." I offer an empathetic quirk of my lips, and he nods.

"Well, that's okay. Here," he says, scrawling something on a piece of paper and handing it to me. "Could you call me if you find it?"

I sigh and shrug. "This is kinda a rough neighbourhood... If you lost your card, there's probably already another...ah, what's your name?"

"Raori," he says, holding out his hand for me to shake.

"Well, Raori," I say, ignoring his offer of a handshake. "If you really did lose your card around here, there's probably another five people with your name and Life-Stats walking around."

He makes that pleading look again. "Well could you maybe just call me for the heck of it?"

I roll my eyes melodramatically and sigh, knowing I'll probably regret even getting out of bed soon. "Maybe."

Probably not.

He slowly nods, and I realize I probably snapped at him a little harshly.

"Well...if you want to come in, I probably have some tea or something I could offer to you."

His face turns into a smile and he nods. "I would really appreciate it."

He walks in past me, and something peeks out of the pocket of his pants.

A identification card.

That bastard, the little voice in my mind says.

Smiling again, I lead him into the kitchen and offer him a chair.

I grab a tea bag and warm up water in an outdated microwave oven.

When the timer beeps, I set the two in front of him, and he graciously accepts them, dipping the bag into the water.

Casually, I sit across from him, leaning my feet on the wall, watching as he brings the hot drink to his mouth and starts sipping.

"So, are you stalking me or do you just have early onset dementia?"

He quirks an eyebrow at me, and I point to his pocket.

He follows to where my finger is pointing, his eyes going wide, and he chokes on his tea.

Rolling my eyes, I watch as he pales, and I can see him trying to make up an excuse.

"Look, Raori," I say, rolling his name off of my tongue slowly before returning to a regular speed of speech. "If that's even your real name. If you just tell me why you're here, nothing is going to ha-"

A voice whispering in my mind interrupts me, and I stop talking in the middle of my sentence.

He's from the government. He's here for me.

Suddenly, "Raori" thrashes wildly on the seat, or tries to, restrained by an invisible force.

"Because of you, I might add," I grumble under my breath, turning to the unlit hallway and waiting for my brother to step out.

"Now that's no way to talk to me, is it?" My brother materializes beside me and annoyingly pinches my cheek before walking to the man thrashing even more animatedly in his chair as my brother walks up to him.

"Who have we here," Beorn says, plucking the card from the man's pocket. "Raori Albrieght, age nineteen—so I'm guessing you probably enrolled straight out of secondary school?" He waits for a second before bursting out into laughter. "Wait, I forgot you can't answer me right now."

The man's eyes narrow at him, and he thrashes again in his seat, aimed toward my brother, and probably spitting curses wildly in his mind.

"Beorn. Wees aardig¹," I warn in a scolding tone.

He sighs dramatically and walks behind the man, draping his arms over his shoulders.

"Aw, but sis, we were only having some fun. Isn't that right..." He checks the card slyly, having forgotten his name. "...Raori."

Raori narrows his eyes and stares at the blank ceiling.

"Beorn, laat de arme man gaan²."

"But Jordi!"

"Beorn," I say, pointing at the man and glaring. "It's my house anyway."

"Fine." He throws me a nasty look, and then glares at Raori. "There you go, army brat. Free as a white dov-"

He's interrupted by the man jumping out of his seat, landing a punch, and pinning him to the ground.

He starts to bind Beorn's hands behind his back, and I tackle him from the side, holding his windpipe under my hand.

"What...are...you..." He wheezes out.

"Doing? You just tried to arrest my brother after I made him let you go. Mind you, this is the brother who I haven't seen in seven bloody years!" I shake the man by his shirt, then see his face tighten in pain.

I move my hand to see a light cut on his neck bleeding from me scratching him.

I get up off of him and help him off, glad for all of our sakes that he doesn't make any move to arrest either of us.

Frankly, I'm just glad he doesn't know that I have "powers" too.

He meets my eyes and points at his own, making me spin and look at my reflection in a window.

Great. I must have used some little tiny aspect of my abilities, because now my eyes are glowing pink-red. I guess I jinxed it a little.

"Increased bioluminescence," a voice says from beside me. "A possible effect of increased cerebral activity resulting in higher than normal levels of certain chemicals in a test subjects' genetic makeup." Raori scratches the back of his neck and looks at me through the mirror. "I knew you had the same abilities as Beorn. And I don't want to arrest either of you, but I have to. It's my job."

I feel anger bubble up. "No you don't. Everything and everyone has free will." I turn and walk away, pacing through my living room. I see Beorn standing near the wall, glaring at Raori with pure malice.

Suddenly, I stop, turning back to face Raori. "And how did you know I had abilities? How do you even know me?! That I even exist?!" Frustrated, I throw a pillow off of the couch at him, and he easily catches it.

"I know you exist because I'm the leader of a Retriever squadron."

"You... You were the one in the full armor suit, the one who talked to me yesterday." Realization hits me as I finally recognize his voice. I knew it sounded familiar.

"I knew you had powers because just before you shut the door, your eyes flickered that same color. Did you use some kind of mind-control on me or something?"

"No."

He nods and checks the time on his watch. "I won't say anything about your two's whereabouts to my general at the moment, but I'll be back. And if he pulls anything else like he did today when I come back," he says, pointing at Beorn. "You two will have a much higher chance of being incarcerated in one of the lab bunkers or testing facilities. Is that understood?"

I nod silently, my throat feeling like someone stuffed it with cotton.

He nods once to me, then walks out the door, shutting it quietly behind him. I hear the porch steps creak as he walks away.

After a moment, I let out the breath I didn't know I was holding and flop down onto the couch.

My quiet time of letting the situation sink in is interrupted by Beorn's whining.

"Why don't I get glowing eyes?! This isn't even fair!" He throws a small temper tantrum and flips onto the couch next to me.

"Beorn, you really need to learn to control yourself. You're a twenty-four year old man. No one but me is going to be willing to hide you from the government if you throw tantrums like a twenty-four month old baby."

He turns to face me. "Well, if they can't buy me the ice cream it takes to calm me down, they don't deserve me." He pouts and adopts a stuck up expression.

I roll my eyes and curl up under my blanket. "It was too early for all of that."

"Jordi, it's 1:30 in the afternoon."

I jump up and stare at him with wide eyes.

"What?!"

"I know. You should probably get to work or someth-"

"That idiot woke me up before two PM, that's just not cool." I shake my head and flop back down on the couch. In reality, I only sleep until nine most days, but it's hilarious to watch my brother's face.

"Geez. And you thought I was bad." Sighing, he gets up and walks away, leaving me to catch up on my sleep.

★★★★★
Author's Note: Translations

¹be nice
²let the poor man go