Remember when I said that if my past came up, I'd tell you about it? Guess what. I lived in one of the corporate run cities back then with my father, my mother, and my twin brother, Alex. Dad was a pharmaceutical engineer, while Mom stayed home. Alex and I were both labeled 'gifted troublemakers,' and didn't stay in school long. We spent most of our times with machines, and created our own hacker board by the time we were six. Dad's work was all that mattered to him, and Mom's pill bottle was all that mattered to her. That suited us fine, because all we needed was each other. We were two sides of the same coin, finishing each other's thoughts, and complimenting each other's skills.

One day Alex came up to me with two bracelets. One looked like two white snakes swallowing each other's tails, and the other was the same, but black. "Watch this," he said with a gleam in his eye as he pulled the bracelets apart. "You can combine them to form another bracelet, one snake white, the other black. Just like us. We function apart, but we form something wonderful when we come together. Never forget that." And he handed me the black snake bracelet.

Things were fine as long as we had each other, but that all changed when Dad got in trouble. In the last few days, we could tell something was wrong. He was looking stressed, talked to himself a lot, and hardly came out of his lab at all. Alex, as compassionate as he was devious, decided we should hack into his computer with our board and try to find out what's going on. We didn't get very far before Dad caught us (hey, I was ten). Dad was screaming at us that we didn't know what kind of trouble he and the whole family was in if he didn't get this done, and why don't we act like normal kids, but that was the usual. It's when he called the cops on ME that I knew I'd never forgive him. He said it was for my own protection, but I didn't care. He was taking me away from Alex, from my soul. Little did I know for how long.

I was let out a week later on my own recognizance, and when I got home I saw what had happened. Our home was a disaster. The walls were bullet ridden and fire damaged, and doors and windows were broken open. I ran into the house and tripped over my mother in the kitchen. It looked like she was trying to crawl to the backdoor, but didn't make it. I found my father's body in his lab, draped over the remnants of his work. Fitting, since it meant the most to him. I screamed for Alex and searched through the whole house, but I could find nothing. I tried running to the cops, looking for anyone who saw anything, but all I could get was that my father was running with the wrong crowd and we paid the price. I died inside that day, and that's where Styx, the river of Death, began to flow.

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"Styx, come on! Shake it off!" I hear from a distance. Everything's a blur of color as I start to focus on Skittle's hair. "Lizzie's coming, so pull it together." She tells me as she helps me to my feet. I put the white snake piece in my pocket. Alex. I hear the sounds of quick footsteps and pull my Uzi up, but it's Lysande. She gives me a hard stare and says, "Ride's coming. Are we green?"

"Green as a jealous frog," Skittles says as she pulls her poncho back on.

"Are you still coming?" Lysande says to me.

"I've been going down this road for 13 years now. No way I'm stopping now."

"Good. I'd hate to have to kill you." She says as the subway car pulls around the corner.

I hope that was the trace of a smile I saw on her face. I wouldn't want to fight her one-on-one. The door slides open to the subway car, and they both walk in. I'm about to when I hesitate. What if it's not him? Could I stand it again? As I'm debating, Skittles leans out and grabs my hand. "He's waiting." Oh, God. Alex! As I step into the subway car, I can feel the energy change, like this is a place totally different from the rest of the world.

Lysande takes my arm and says, "Come on, let me introduce you to some of the group."

She leads me past a mass of wires, monitors, phone lines, hacker boards, and some things I've never seen before. " That's all Skittle's work, you know." Lysande says.

"Don't bullshit her, Lizzie." Skittles says as she makes her way to what looks like a medical area. "He helped me with a lot of it."

A redhead wearing bright red sports gear with 'Romov Kings' down one side comes up to us as Skittles removes her poncho and sits on a cot.

"Damn, girl. Trying that bed of nails trick again?" she says jokingly as she examines Skittle's back.

"Strider, this is Styx. Strider's our medical personnel." Says Lysande.

"Nice to meet you," she says with a smile," but hopefully we won't see each other that often."

"Did the boss man finally come?" asks Lysande as she stows her weapons in a wall locker.

"Nah. Nobody's been able to talk to him for a while. Just the guys and me. Are the rest of you all right?" asks Strider.

"Nothing major." Lysande says. "Come on, Styx. It's time." She leads me to the connector door to another car. My heart's beating in my ears as I grip the bracelet piece in my pocket and follow.

The rear car looks like a technician's paradise. Tools, workbenches, and pieces of electronics and cellular phones are strewn about. A man with shoulder length black hair and wearing protective goggles is sitting at one of the benches and working with a soldering iron.

"Hey dogface!" Lysande yells. He looks up from the table for a moment, swallows hard, and promptly drops the soldering iron on the table of electronics. "Shit!" he says as he frantically tries to save what he was working on. I can't help but smile. That's Alex all right.

"I'll leave you two alone," says Lysande as she steps back through the
connecting door.

Staring at Alex as he's cleaning up his mess, I realize I don't know
what to do! I've imagined this for years, what I would do and say, but
now it's all-blank. As he stands up, I do the only thing I can think of.
I hold out the piece of the snake bracelet. He reaches into his and pulls
out the black half of the bracelet. I hear the gentle 'click' of the two
pieces going together and then we're in each other's arms.

"Brianna." he whispers into my hair, but I can barely hear it over my own sobs of joy.

"You're here, you're real," I keep saying to myself, refusing to let this be a dream. Once I realize he's not going anywhere, I wipe my face and slug him as hard as I can.

"God damn you!" I yell at him as he's rubbing his cheek. "You left me! You all left me! Mom, Dad, you. twelve years!! Twelve FUCKING years I've been alone, looking, not knowing." and then I break down again as he pulls me to his chest.

"I know, Bri. I know. I've been looking for you too." He says.

"Tell me what happened, then. Where have you been?"

"It's really hard to explain," he says as he sits back down on the bench. "The next night after you went to jail, all Hell seemed to break loose. Father was panicking, trying to destroy all of his work at the house, when these men broke in. Mom threw me down into the cellar and locked the door, telling me not to make any noise. I hid under the stairs and cried, but I could still hear the gunshots." I sit down next to him and hold his hand tightly. " I huddled there with my eyes closed tight, when suddenly the noise stopped. I opened my eyes, and a man in black was there. He kneeled down in front of me and smiled, telling me he was going to help me. He even asked where you were. Noises started to come from upstairs again, and he told me I needed to come with him. I didn't want to leave without you, Bri, but I didn't know what to do. Mom and Dad were probably dead, you were gone." he lowers his head into his hands.

"Twelve years, Alex?" I asked as I kneeled in front of him. "Why did it take twelve years to find me?"

"That's where things get a little difficult," he says.