Note; The Chapter starts with another fash back and themn goes to tala. As for the flash backs there will be a rather large one next chapter that will hopefully answer some questions.
PS; this has nothing to do with anything but if anyone is in London get tickets to Dangerous Liasons the Ballet with Adam Cooper it is one of the hottest things that you will ever see.
Chapter 20 Play Dead.
Two Chinese boys sat wasting time between training whispering rapidly to each other in there own language unaware of the desperate red eyes locked on them from the far corner.
"He will not talk to me." Rei complained.
"Maybe he doesn't like you." the other one, the one called Lee answered.
"He does too…he just."
"What do you call him?"
"Nothing."
"He's got no name still?"
"The German group cal him Kaiser."
"Why?"
"They said that it means 'King' and that he acts like he is one."
"He does. Just because he is instructors favourite."
"That's mean."
"You could call him 'Kai' for short."
"Kai…"
The red eyed boy turned and retreated into the shadows leaving the two whisperers to themselves.
My name is Tala Ivanov and I am still young. Still at fifteen years old I am so much older than I should be. I don't know if I should thank Kai or blame him; Maybe both. Three years with him has aged me sometimes beyond my own recognition; I know that my mother finds it difficult; I know that my old friends have given me up for dead; I know that Kai is all I have left, so why are my feelings for him do difficult to hold on to? Why are they so turbulent and ever changing?
I miss the way things were in the beginning. When my mother was happy and my father was not in hospital; when there was nothing to blame on Kai; when I didn't feel like such a traitor for loving him or wanting to be with him. Why did things have to change like that?
Sometimes I wish that Kai had never shown up. I would still be a child having fun and playing games…maybe I would have started to like girls…or nicer boys; people who wouldn't move in and rip my family apart from the inside.
My father will be fine for the most part; his burns were mostly superficial. My mother is being treated for shock. I feel like I should be too. After I heard the screams I couldn't stay away; I thought that my dad was doing something to my mum, something like what he did to Kai. The image I was presented with was quite different. My mother was standing over my fathers' body screaming, the water was still bubbling around him, the steam coming from his skin and clothes seemed too absurd to be real. I didn't even think to call the ambulance until Kai placed the phone in my hand. When I realised what was happening I started to cry, every bad thought I'd had towards my father disappeared and all I wanted was for him to be ok.
The ambulance took ten minutes. Kai told me that due to the state of his wounds he would have to make himself scarce he began to walk out then stopped and whispered something to my father. I didn't want to know what, I didn't want anything to do with it anymore, I was sick of the lies and schemes…I was sick of Kai.
I left with mum and dad in the ambulance and stayed was long as I could. They told me that they had called my aunt to take care of me and I thanked them and went home, I was old enough to leave on my own.
When I got there my aunt hadn't arrived yet. Part of me wanted her comfort and part on me wanted her to just run away so that she would never have to meet Kai and suffer through all that he entailed.
The first thing that I noticed when I entered the house was that it no longer smelt like burnt flesh, (A mixture of hot rubber and pork) Kai must have opened a few windows and tried to air the place out while we were gone. I looked for him in the living room and upstairs hoping that I would not have to venture into the kitchen. I should have known that he would be there he seemed to feed off our suffering like a leech.
"Kai!" I called hoping that he would come out I was reluctant to cross the threshold. He didn't answer. "Kai!" I tried again.
It was late evening and our windows faced west he was like water colour on paper too insubstantial to be real. It was painful how beautiful he could look without even facing me; he was so inhuman that I wondered why we even tried to control him. The sunlight that surrounded him seemed left a gold outline around his pleasing body.
I hate myself that he still affects me the way he does; that I can still find him beautiful after everything he's done. I hate myself that I want to kiss him and take him and claim him as my own all over again.
He turned towards me and only then did I remember the swelling and the bruises and everything else that was wrong. I wondered if we had been lucky or unlucky to get him; I wondered if I would trade this for my family's happiness.
"Do you hate us Kai?" I hadn't meant to say it but I did not regret that it came out.
His lips quirked in answer but no words came out, he was mocking me; mocking us and our stupidity. A cloud passed and the room became shaded.
"Do you hate us? What are we to you? What are you? Who are you?" the questions would not stop coming.
The sun came again and he went from tired child to god.
"What does hurting us get you? Do you enjoy it?"
He said nothing and was nothing; no expression; no emotion; no nothing. Suddenly I was so tired of him that it hurt.
"You exhaust me!" I shouted, "What do you want from me? I'm tired. Why are you doing this?"
Still nothing and I could cry.
I looked at him then. For all that he seemed to be he was still more than I could ever dream of and yet...
"You'll get bored of me soon." It was his voice and I nearly jumped six feet into the air. "You'll get bored and then there will be nothing. I can't make you interested; I can't make you like me; I can't make anyone do anything that they didn't have it in them to do. You are naive to think that I could change things, change people that much. I am just this," he gestured running his hand down his body, "Flesh and bone and blood. You are the ones that make me more than I am."
It was a lie of course; it must have been; because he was so much more than that. Even in the frailty of his injury he looked unreal; like a doll painted to look injured. I walked forwards raising my hand to him and tipping his head back...wondering if his eyes would automatically close. His skin touching mine ignited me my boredom and confusion forgotten in a clumsy passionate kiss. I tried to push everything from my mind and forget myself in him, pushing myself onto him, knocking him backwards into the side of the sink; knocking plates as I went. I wondered if he had passion of his own of if he just bounced my own back of me; using it to control me.
I pushed him back further still noticing the uncomfortable position of his spine and the way his arms had slipped into the water of the still full sink.
We were broken apart by a gasp. It caused me to slip in the wet kitchen floor and pulling Kai with me we fell into a heap.
"Tala what the hell are you doing kissing your brother!"
My aunt had arrived.