18 Freaky Cousins and Past Wounds (A)

Claire

When I awoke, rays of sunlight were already peeking through the curtains. I sheepishly yawned and stretched on the bed, absentmindedly reaching for Antonio. He wasn't there.

"I might as well get up." I turned to the bedside clock, it was already past 7 am.

I went to the bathroom to wash my face or maybe shower, but I didn't want to wear my old clothes on a clean body. Luckily for me, there were clean clothes on the bathroom sink with a sticky note on it. It wrote: 'It's a good thing we're the same size. You won't mind me lending you this, right? Tyler'. How sweet of him! I held up the tee-shirt and skinny jeans; definitely guy fashion but they would do. With little touch ups here and there, no one would guess they belonged to a guy.

I took a quick bath and dressed up; I knotted the tee shirt at the side to fit me more and pulled up my hair in a loose ponytail. For all it's worth, I looked ready for a jog at the park.

It was after I was done and looked myself up in the mirror that my senses returned to me. I put up my hands and looked at them. My palms were supposed to be sore with burns and my left arm was supposed to be broken; but my palms were free of burns and looked like a baby's, even my arm had no pain and no numbness.

How it that possible?!

Why didn't I remember?

When did the burns heal? When did I use my hands for the first time after that?

Come to think of it, Emma didn't feed or bathe me yesterday. No one even mentioned anything about my hands. I didn't even apply medication!

What the heck was happening?

Normal people don't heal that fast, right? Am I normal?

"Definitely not." I jolted out of my thoughts immediately I heard Antonio's voice right beside me. He was dressed in clean clothes; could be Tyler lent him those too. When did he come in? Was I so lost in thought that I didn't notice or did he just appear out of nowhere?

"I'm not a magician, I can't appear or disappear. You were clearly thinking too hard and Tyler didn't give me these clothes, SM did. Hurry down, your Dad's waiting." He said nearly in one breathe and walked away before I had time to react.

There's no way I was going crazy, Antonio actually replied to my thoughts! Thoughts I didn't say out loud! Could he read minds? Jacey also, she could read my mind! Could they heal too?

If I could remember correctly, when I told Emma I would definitely use my hands even if it killed me, Jacey had that smug smile on her face as she agreed with me; could that mean she healed me? And what about my arm? Antonio was the only one with me, he must have healed me too.

What am I thinking? That's not possible, right? I mean, right? One thing is for sure, I'm definitely getting answers today, no matter what.

"Claire...?" I collected myself and turned to answer Uncle Mark. We talked briefly; he just wanted to know if I'm okay after my near death experience the day before and if I'm ready to say goodbye to my Mom finally. Well, I was ready; so ready that I agreed to have the funeral by the next weekend. Of course my Mom died tragically, but it wasn't fair to her to have her funeral delayed more, so I had to agree. Maybe it'd give me a little bit of relief when she's laid to rest.

He gave me his sad reassuring smile before leaving, saying he had somewhere else to be; then he left.

I waited for a few seconds before leaving the room too. I would have headed downstairs first, but had a serious urge to speak to Jason. I went over to his door and knocked, no response the first, second and FIFTH! time before he finally said a reluctant "Come in". Oh, I did go in and I had already worked up a rage.

He took one look at me and turned away to his phone, deciding to ignore me.

"W..."

"I know what you want to ask and I have nothing to tell you." He cut me off.

"No way! That won't do. You almost killed someone yesterday and you say you have nothing to tell me? How do you know Frank? Who is Taylor?"

"Just go away." I was mad and sad and irritated. What's his problem? I wasn't going to let him ignore me.

"You have to tell me. How are you connected to Fra...?"

"I'm not connected to him, okay? I just know him and that's it." I decided that being hard on him won't get me anywhere, so I had to let go of my anger and speak calmly to him.

"Okay, I'm sorry." I went over and sat on his bed, facing the chair he sat on.

"Please, you need to tell me how you know Frank." He studied me for a moment, then dragged a hand through his hair, exhaling.

"Why is it important to you?"

"Urh, you almost stabbed him and he killed my Mom. I mean, I'm the one who he stole from, I wasn't rushing to murder him, yet you were. I need no magician to tell me you have a kind of history with him, I just need to know what."

"I can't."

"Ja..."

"Not right now." He reached for my hand and held it. "I really don't want to talk about my past in this house. I'll tell you everything about how I know that guy but not here and not now. You just have to be patient for a bit; can you do that?" With the soft pleading look in his beautiful, beautiful eyes, how could I refuse? Urh, wait! What was that stray thought? Eww! Adopted or not, he's still my cousin. It was gross to think of him that way.

I quickly snatched my hand away and stood up.

"Sure, okay. I gotta go." I took my foolish, nearly blushing self out of his room and headed down to find my Dad.

I didn't even have to try, he was coming up the stairs looking for me also.

"Hey..." He drew me into a bear hug, lingering for a few seconds too much.

"Are you okay? After what..."

"I'm fine. I need to go back to James before he worries." I sidestepped him and rushed down the remaining steps.

After I apologized to Aunt Miriam for the worry I caused her and after thanking Tyler for the clothes, Antonio, Dad and I got into Dad's car and we headed home.

Dad kept glancing at me throughout the ride. I could tell he wanted to say a lot of things, mostly about why I should listen to him in future since he was right about the house not being safe. I also had questions for him, like why he had his PI follow me even when I rejected the idea!

But I didn't want to think about that at the moment, so I focused more on what the fuck my cousins were! Superheroes? Aliens?

Antonio suddenly burst out laughing, very hard.

"Aliens? You've got to be kidding me." He said amid laughs, wiping off a stray tear. I kept my mouth shut because I wasn't sure my Dad knew about them yet and I needed to be sure before I said anything. Not that I wasn't totally, absolutely sure my cousins read minds.