Paranormal Twins: The New Beginning

Swords clashing. Arrows whizzing past my face. Sliding down to the ground. Jay picking me up and telling me everything was going to be okay.

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“Jakki? Jakki, are you okay?” I looked up and saw Marina gazing at me, a worried expression on her face.

“Yeah...” I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just…” I hesitated. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

Marina bit her lip. “What happened?”

I sighed and looked down. “Well… Ever since I was a kid, I’d have these… Visions, I guess. Like…” I stopped for a moment, thinking back to some examples. “I knew I was going to be adopted before anyone even told the adoption house nurse. I knew we were going to move to a trailer park before we went bankrupt. I always knew what was going to happen before it happened. I always have.” I looked down and sighed. “At first I tried warning my parents, but they never believed me. Who would, really? What does a child know?” I bit my lip. “But… After a while, I realized that if I kept trying to tell them they’d take me to a hospital to get me checked out, so I stopped trying to warn them.”

Marina stayed quiet for a while. “What was that vision you just had?”

I bit my lip. “There was a lot of fighting. I got hurt somehow. Then my… My brother came to save me.” I bit my lip and smiled slightly. It felt good to say it out loud. It felt right. “I think he’s coming to save us.”

Marina sighed and shook her head. “He would never be able to find this place. Nobody’s coming for us.”

I nodded. “Of course he is. He’s my brother.” I bit my lip and looked down. “Though… He doesn’t believe so...”

Marina gave me a confused look. “How could he not think you’re siblings?”

I sighed. “It’s a long story… We met yesterday for the first time since… I guess since we were very young, and we were told we were twins. I took it well, but him… Not so much...” I bit my lip. “He practically rejected me as anything but a roommate. He said he already has a life and a family and he doesn’t need a new one.”

Marina bit her lip. “If he was so against it, how come you accepted him so easily?”

I looked away from her for a moment and bit my lip. “What did they do to you?” I asked, moving the conversation away from me. I looked back at her. “And how did you end up here?” I looked back at her and realized her hair was still wet, and I noticed for the first time that her skin was slightly blue-green and scaly.

Marina smiled. “Well, I can tell by the way you’re looking at me that you’re a little freaked by my scales. Don’t worry, this always happens. If I get wet I become scaly and my fingers become webbed. I only turn completely into a Mermaid, with the tail, if I’m submerged in water.

“As for what they did… Mermaids can live in the middle of the ocean or in the middle of a continent, though most tend to stay close to water. We can breathe underwater through gills in our tails, but we have to get pure clean oxygen into our lungs at least every 24 hours, 36 hours at the most.” She pulled her teal hair into a ponytail and rung it out. “In the same way, if we stay on dry land, we have to become a Mermaid every three days or we become dried out and gross and we age very quickly. It’s not a pretty picture. So every three days Hunter comes in and takes me to the indoor pool so I can swim for a few hours. Hunter or one of the other Rogues keep an eye on me; I’m not able to escape.”

She sighed and leaned back against the wall. “As for how I became trapped here… That takes a bit of a back story.” She sat up and hugged her legs. “Both of my parents were Mer-people, which is actually pretty rare- there aren’t a lot of mermen in the world. We lived off the coast of Hawaii, but we were never on land much. We practically lived in the ocean. We rarely went to the surface for anything.” She sighed and looked down. “One day, a couple of my mer-friends and I went to the surface. I don’t even remember why. I think Lana met a land boy and she wanted to see him up close.” Marina looked down, and I could see a tear trickling down her face. “A tsunami hit. My parents were swept away. I searched wherever I could to find them, but… They were gone.” Her voice cracked slightly. “I was only 12 years old. Other mer-families said they’d watch me, take care of me, but… I couldn’t. When I finally gave up looking, I never stepped foot or fin into the ocean again.”

I bit my lip. “I’m so sorry. That must have been so hard for you. Especially since… The water was the only home you knew.” She nodded and sighed.

“I managed to find a nice Mermaid who lived on the land and she took me in. She enrolled me in school, and tutored me.” She smiled at the memory before she continued. “When I was 15, I was walking along the beach, keeping away from the water, but loving the breeze the ocean winds gave me. Out of nowhere a huge wave came and splashed me. Luckily it didn’t stay for long, and it wasn’t strong enough to sweep me away. I was so scared. I was trying to fix my hair and dry myself off so no land-people saw my scales when some man grabbed me. He put something over my nose and I passed out.” She rubbed the back of her neck and took a deep breath in before letting it out slowly.

“When I woke up, I was in California. I was trapped in a small room with at least 20 other people, a mixture of girls, boys, Elementals, and Mermaids. They made me become an entertainer at a Vampire Bar. Since I was only 15 they couldn’t make me do a lot. I mainly served the drinks. But once I turned 16, well...” She trailed off and looked away. I bit my lip, waiting for her to continue, not knowing if she even would.

“One day, I already told you, a man by the name of King came in. Said he wanted a young Mermaid. They said he needed a lot of cash for that, said they don’t give Mermaids to just anyone. King showed him a briefcase. I couldn’t tell you how much money was in there. The man nodded and grabbed one of the youngest Mermaids, only 14. King didn’t want her. He wanted someone older. Someone 16, at least. The man grabbed me and King accepted. I was perfect, he told the man.” She scowled. “Perfect.” She looked at me with an unreadable expression. “I’ve been here at least seven months.”

I bit my lip. “Are you trying to say there’s no way to make it out of here?” I asked.

Marina shook her head. “I could never find an easy way out of here.”

I smirked. “Well, maybe we’ll just have to find the hard way out.”

Marina scoffed and shook her head. “That would never be able to work.” She sighed and leaned against the wall. “Well, I told you about my life. How about you? What was your childhood like?”

I thought about that. What was my childhood like? Could you even call it a childhood? “Something happened when I was really young. I lost my memory. The first thing I can ever remember is when I was 6 years old and I woke up in an orphanage. I didn’t know who I was or where I was. I didn’t even know why. I asked people questions, but they looked at me like I was crazy. It wasn’t until a worker came in and I was crying that she explained where I was. I didn’t remember anything.” I sighed.

Marina’s face changed to a sad look. “Did you ever remember what happened?” She asked. I looked down and shook my head.

“I was adopted by a couple when I was eight. They told the orphanage they wanted a child, not a baby. They had one child, but couldn’t have any more, and they wanted their first child to have a sibling. When everything became official and I went home with them, I met their daughter, Rachelle, who was six years old.” I smiled a little at the memory. “We became close really quickly, even though we were almost two years apart.

“It was nice at first. We lived in a two-story house and we were taken care of. Then my dad lost his job. We had to move out of our house and go to an apartment building when I was 11. My dad had to get a job as a store clerk. My mom had to get a job to pay off all the bills we owed instead of being a stay-at-home mom like she was previously.

“My dad started not coming home until late at night, or coming home in a bad mood. My mom would come home, drink, and fall asleep on the bed or the couch. Dad would come home drunk. He put me in charge of keeping the house clean, at 11 years old, even though I had school. If it wasn’t spotless like he wanted it, he would hit me until it was finished. I barely got any sleep and I missed a lot of school from being too sore and bruised to move.” I glanced up quickly, saw Marina’s appalled face, and looked away from her.

“We finally were able to get enough money and pay off the debts we owed. We were able to pay for and move into a trailer. It was bigger than an apartment, and harder to clean, but by the time I was 13 I was able to balance school and home without much fuss.”

Marina looked shocked. “Did you ever tell your mom? A teacher? Anyone?”

I shook my head. “My mom never believed me. She thought the bruises were from falling and tripping. She was too drunk to care anyway. I couldn’t tell any teachers. If I told anyone...” I stopped and bit my lip. “I had to keep Rachelle safe.” Marina’s eyes went wide before she took a deep breath and nodded. She knew what I meant.

“How did you find out about the Supernatural? Obviously it wasn’t from your family. Were they human?”

I nodded. “Human as human can be.” I closed my eyes and hugged myself briefly. “As I got older, my dad stopped hitting me as often. Whenever he got mad he would calm himself and gently touch my shoulder. He started to be kind to me. But then the touching got more… Intimate.” I took a deep breath to calm myself. “He said that because I wasn’t his real daughter that it was okay. He would tell me to relax and he’d… He’d touch me. If I tried to scream or run away he would go back to being violent and-” I stopped myself and took a deep breath.

“We lived in a house by this time. A small one story. We barely had it for three months before... “ I stopped and went back to what I was saying earlier. “He came home drunker than usual one night. He took me upstairs and he tried to… Do something worse. I pushed him away and...” My voice cracked and I stopped.

Marina’s eyes went soft. “It’s okay. You don’t have to continue. I understand.” She told me. I nodded gratefully and she bit her lip. “Is that the reason you accepted Jay? You wanted a family?” I nodded slightly at her before biting my lip.

“I burned my father. I burned the house down. I only saved Rachelle. I only wanted to save Rachelle.”

Marina nodded and bit her lip. “I can understand that.” She glanced around the room and moved closer to me, as close as her chains allowed her. “So, you’re able to control fire?” She whispered. I nodded. Marina smiled at me. “I have the perfect idea. We might just be able to make it out of here.”

I bit my lip. “I told you… Jay’s going to come save us. I can feel it.”

Marina shook her head. “Do you want to have to wait for him? When we can do it ourselves?”

I stared at her determined face, and finally I nodded. “Okay, what’s your plan?” She motioned me closer. I made the flame disappeared and we both laid on our stomachs and got as close as we could get. As she told me her plan and what was going to happen, all I could do was smile.