Mob did not want to be here.

The bed across from hers was empty. Sho was supposed to sleep in that bed but Sho…he was somewhere else. Somewhere else in this terrible place. The compound of the Eight Division. They were back. They had just left and now they were back. That wasn't too weird for them, they repeated places sometimes, but it was weird to have been back so soon.

Mob did not want to be here.

She did not want to be in this bed, in this room, in this compound. She wanted to be literally anywhere else in the world. She wouldn't have minded, even, the tiny place they had stayed in when they were in Sidney and also it was so hot…she wouldn't have minded that at all. At least they were together there. That was when she and Sho had gone far away to see kangaroos…and they did not let people ride in their pouches. Also their pouches were kind of gross. Also they did not like it when you came up and tried to play with their babies. She and Sho had learned that the hard way. Thank God she could put up a barrier.

She had been able to protect Sho.

But she could not protect him now. Now they were…here. At this bad place. This place that had spirits to exorcise. They never talked to her, neutral spirits liked to talk to her, they just begged her to exorcise them. She did. She wondered why dad or one of the other espers didn't. The Awakened. There were a lot of those guys here. They had the red uniform on with the symbol for Claw.

That was what this was.

Claw. That was what dad did, what he was a part of. The group that dad ran. Claw. She….she didn't like it here. It was dark, there were no windows, and everyone was afraid. Of her. Of dad. Of each other. This place….the auras here were afraid. There were a lot of doctors here, not healers like Fukuda but real ones, and scientists. If this had been a movie then this would have been the place where they made monsters or killer robots or whatever.

This was where they made espers.

Latent ESP could be unlocked, dad had said, and that was why they were there. Why he had brought her and Sho there. Sho had wanted her powers for his entire life…and now there was a way for him to get them. He was big enough, dad had said, to go through whatever they did to make the Awakened. Mob remembered Halloween. She remembered what she had seen…but that had not been a dead body….right? Dad would have said something or done something if that had been a dead body….

There were spirits here.

She had never seen so many spirits in one place in her entire life….except when they passed by graveyards…

She could see them, their auras, when she closed her eyes. She could see a lot of auras when she closed her eyes. Dad, the copy paste auras, Fukuda, a few she didn't recognize, and also Sho's. Sometimes it was so faint that she almost didn't see it and sometimes it was so bright that she could see nothing else. She had tried to go to him, before, but dad had told her to leave him be.

This was for his own good.

Dad had said so and dad did not tell lies…ever. He told the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help him God. He told the truth when it hurt and…and therefore if Sho was getting hurt then he would have told the truth about that.

Sho was going to be ok.

She knew that she should have been happy for him. For as long as she could remember he had wanted her powers. There was a way, now, for him to get them and a good big sister would have been happy for her little brother. She should have been thrilled that he was finally getting what he had spent his whole life wishing for. Now they could be espers together, for real, like she and dad were. Now dad could like him. Now they could all get along. Now everything could be better.

A flash of Sho's aura.

She covered her eyes even though that did nothing. She used her powers to pull her blanket up over her head and closed her eyes and covered her ears. There was no blocking out the world. Not when she was seeing and hearing him with her aura, not her body. Not when she knew deep down that he needed her, that his aura never did that unless something was wrong, and that she should have been there to protect him. This was a bad place. This felt like a bad place. She didn't know why dad had brought them to such a bad place. Didn't he love them? Didn't he care that Sho was probably hurt or mad or even scared? They got scared when they were separated. There was nothing worse than being away from her own little brother. Didn't dad care at all that-

Dad cared about them.

This was for Sho's own good. Dad had said so. Dad did not tell lies. This was….this was good…and after whatever happened…when it was over….then Sho would have powers like hers and them everything would be better. They would stop fighting. They would get along all the time like brothers and sisters were supposed to. They would be best friends…and then everything would be good…and also Dad would be nice to him…when he got better. When he got powers like she and dad had…

Another flash of Sho's aura.

The room shook. That was her. She was…she was…she was scared and worried and she didn't want to be scared or worried. She wanted to be safe. To feel safe and good and to…to have Sho with her. They were hardly ever separated. Only for short bits of time like when they played alone or if one of them went to sleep before the other or when she went to sleep next to dad. She needed Sho to be in that other bed. Was this how he felt when he woke up and she was hanging out with dad or sleeping next to dad or one of the million other things she did when she had trouble sleeping?

She was a terrible big sister.

And she did not want to be alone. She knew that dad didn't like it when she did this, leave her bed to go to his, but she did not want to be alone. Sometimes she woke up in dad's bed after she fell asleep while watching TV. Sometimes she slept on the floor of Dad's room and he woke up and either told her to go away or that she could sleep next to him. She hardly ever climbed into bed with him and when she did he got upset with her.

But she didn't want to be alone.

So she left her room and crept down the hall to where dad was. He had been busy all day. Busy with Sho. She hadn't been allowed to be around, dad said that she would have been underfoot, which felt weird to be called because that was his word for Sho…weird and kind of hurtful…even though it was a good thing that he had called her that. That meant that he hadn't called Sho that. Every time he was mean to her it was one less time that he was mean to Sho. She may have been all alone but dad had been with Sho and he had probably been nice to Sho…so it was worth it.

She had been lonely.

And she still was lonely. She had spent the whole day watching TV and playing by herself. Even Fukuda had been busy. He had to be there while they were doing whatever it was that they were doing to Sho. In case he got hurt, Fukuda had said, and it made sense because Sho was always finding new ways to hurt himself. She hoped that whatever was happening ended soon and Sho didn't get hurt. She was lonely enough as it was. She didn't want to know what life would be like without her little brother.

She walked faster.

She opened dad's door with her powers and walked inside as quietly as she could. Dad was asleep on his back. He slept on his back with his hands folded when he was alone. When she slept next to him he slept on his side. She wondered if he was trying to make room for her when he did that. She didn't know. She didn't even know how someone could have slept like that to begin with…but she was not going to wake him up in the middle of the night to start asking him questions. If she was about to do something like that she would have asked, instead, about Sho…if he was ok….if he missed her….why his aura was being like that….

She climbed into the other side of the bed.

The side that dad was not sleeping on. She climbed in and pulled the covers over her head. Dad was still asleep. She could see his aura. She let herself get as covered in his aura as she was in this blanket. Maybe then if she let herself be covered under his aura then she would stop seeing spirits and stop feeling Sho. Sho…she wanted Sho….she wanted him to be the one sleeping next to her, not dad. She would have chopped off both of her braids and poured her strawberry milk down the sink just to feel him do his sleep kicks and keep her up all night. She almost felt one of his sleep kicks…but that was just her imagination. Dad hardly ever moved in his sleep. Sometimes he rolled over. Sometimes he made the bed float. He talked, too, sometimes. He talked to mom in his sleep. She wondered if he dreamt that she was talking back.

"Daughter. Explain." Oh no….Dad woke up. He was not talking in his sleep, he was awake, and he had pulled his aura and his blanket off of her. She was cold. Even though this was her thickest nightgown and she had fuzzy slipper socks on she was still cold. The cold still bothered her even though this was her Elsa nightgown. She wanted to tug the blanket back, and she would have if this was Sho. But this was not Sho. This was dad and the last thing that dad wanted at this hour was to get into a tug of war. Especially after he had been gone all day.

"I got lonely. I'm not used to being separated from Sho. That's why I'm here." Said Mob. She explained herself as clearly as she could. She needed to be near him because she was lonely and scared and all she wanted was her little brother back…but he would not have taken it well at all if she had gone and spilled her guts to him like that. He hated it when she had bad feelings, big feelings, like that.

"So you thought that disturbing me would be a good idea?" asked dad. He was still on his back and was looking up at the ceiling. She watched him with her eyes and with her aura. He didn't seem mad…but also not happy….she didn't know. She was bad at reading people like that, even her own dad sometimes.

"You let me sleep next to you sometimes. I thought that this would be one of those times." Said Mob

"…that's true. I do indulge you on occasion." Said dad. Mob wondered if it counted as indulging if dad just picked her up and carried her to his bed when she fell asleep in front of the TV. She didn't say anything, though, because the last thing she wanted was for dad to get mad at her.

"Can I stay or do you want me to go away?" asked Mob

"I suppose you can stay. You did wake me up after all. There would be no point in sending you away now." Said Dad. That was dad speak for 'I want you to be here' Mob figured. Or maybe not. She was clueless with other people, Sho even told her so. That was why when they were out and about other kids were always trying to play with him but never with her. She could read dad better than Sho could, though, so there was that.

"Ok." Said Mob. Dad put the covers back up over her but did not cover her head. She folded her hands like dad folded his. This was not a comfortable way to sleep at all. She slept on her side or her stomach but almost never her back….but if dad was doing it then she would do it too.

This was not a comfortable way to try and sleep.

Dad must have thought so, too, because he was still awake. Maybe she had woken him up too much. Sho did that, sometimes, when he woke up in the middle of the night and turned the lights on. Mob always had trouble falling back asleep. She didn't know why he had to turn all the lights on just to walk to the bathroom but she never told him to stop or turned the lights off. She wanted her little brother to be happy even if it meant getting woken up in the middle of the night and then being all grumpy in the morning.

"Daughter?" asked Dad. She wondered if he was going to kick her out. She didn't want to be kicked out. If she got kicked out she wouldn't go back to sleep. She would go to the TV and watch Frozen…no, Zootopia. That was better. That was Sho's favorite movie. She would watch Zootopia and then the Aristocats. That was mom's favorite movie. She wasn't sure what dad's favorite movie was.

"Yes dad?" asked Mob. She wondered what dad had wanted to ask her. He was very quiet, then, even though he had just addressed her. His aura was weird. Kind of swirly. Lots of yellow. Yellow wasn't good. Her aura was mostly blue with some pink. Pink was the bad color for her. Sho didn't have a bad color.

She saw his aura again.

"Nothing. Go to sleep." Said dad. Mob didn't say anything. She just rolled onto her side and pressed herself against dad. She fully expected him to push her off the bed. She expected at any second to find herself on her back on the floor with dad telling her that if she was going to crowd him like that then she should have just stayed in her own bed.

But he didn't push her away.

He didn't move but he didn't push her away. He just sort of laid there. Mob wanted….she wanted him to hold her like mom used to. Like when she had been little and she had crawled into bed with mom, her and Sho, and then mom had pulled them both close and told them that everything was going to be alright. Mom had always been there for them…until she wasn't. She had already lost one member of her family, a quarter, she could not lose another. Then it would just be her and dad. Only half of the Suzuki family.

She was not going to lose Sho.

She saw his aura again.

"Dad…." Said Mob. She pressed her face into his side. He was wearing his button down shirt. He never wore pajamas, he hadn't since they had left Japan and mom had stopped telling him to wear them. Mob had heard mom, before, telling dad not to sleep in his day clothes. That it was weird. She called him Touichirou when she said those things. Nobody called dad that these days. He was either 'dad' to her and Sho or something like 'Suzuki-san' or 'President' or 'Boss' or 'Sir' to the guys who worked for them. She wondered if he would forget his name if nobody used it. She wondered if that was how names worked. She wondered if she would forget that she was 'Big Sis' if there wasn't anyone around to call her that.

"Daughter?" asked Dad

"I….I just…." Said Mob. She didn't know how to say what she was feeling in a way that would not make dad upset. She wasn't supposed to have feelings like that in the first place. She was supposed to be good. She was supposed to…to not have big feelings…to be the person dad wanted her to be. Daughter. She was supposed to be a good daughter….

She was being a bad daughter and a bad big sister too.

"Out with it. I would like to get some sleep tonight you know." Said Dad. Mean. That was mean. She didn't know why dad had to be so mean all the time! He was her dad! Why couldn't he just be nice to her and nice to Sho, too?! If he had been nicer to Sho then Sho wouldn't have had to be put through whatever it was that those white coat guys had taken him away to do to him!

Conceal, don't feel.

Something hit her on the head. Dad's powers.

"Power is nothing without control, Daughter, now control yourself and tell me what it is that's bothering you. I don't need this…not from you. I have enough to deal with. The least you could do would be to not be…like this." said Dad. Mob felt bad. She hadn't meant to trouble him. She just wanted…she wanted him to…she didn't even know. To hold her. To bring Sho back. To at least tell her that Sho was going to be ok. To give her some assurance that she would not soon have to exorcise her little brother's spirit from this terrible place.

"When will Sho be back?" asked Mob. Maybe that was ok to ask. She didn't know. It was hard to know the rules with dad sometimes. He changed them often and didn't bother to tell anyone. What was ok one day could make him md he next….and sometimes it was very hard….

"That's up to him." said Dad in a tone that was more…she didn't know. Something besides mean. Something that she couldn't place but knew was not meant to be mean.

"What does that mean?" asked Mob. She could feel…sort of…what he felt. If she focused on his aura. He was…bad feelings. His aura….it felt scared….and-and-and she didn't know what to do….

"It means that whenever your brother is done then he will be done and we can go on to…I don't even know. Whatever is next on our travel itinerary, maybe? Somewhere far from here. The Seventh Division perhaps….or perhaps Tokyo…we've been away from Japan for far too long." Said Dad. She tried to focus on the parts that dad said about going back to Japan, about maybe going home, Sho would be so happy…if he came back….

When he came back.

"Sho's coming back though, right? I mean he's not….they aren't hurting him, are they?" asked Mob. She didn't like how quiet dad got after she said that. She didn't like it at all. She wanted him to say something, anything, even if it was something mean. Even if he wanted to call her every single mean name he knew until his voice got sore. She didn't care. She just wanted to know that her little brother, her best friend, was going to be ok….

"Your brother will not die. He is going through a…a process….but not one which will kill him. He will come back…and I don't want to speak another word on the subject. Now either go to sleep or go away. The choice is yours." Said Dad. She didn't like how often dad said the word 'die'. She hadn't said 'die', she had just maybe thought it, so really that was no reason for him to go and use that word.

She had so many more questions for him.

But she knew that she would not be getting any answers. Dad had spoken. This was something that they were not supposed to talk about. Like mom. If Sho…if he didn't come back…then it would be just like with mom. She would not be allowed to even talk about her own little brother. The Suzuki family would be cut in half….and it was all her fault. If she had been born ordinary, if she had never had these powers, then Sho never would have wanted them and then he never would have put himself through this. He would have been in the other bed in their room….and she would have been there too…and they would have been together….

Mob felt alone.

So she pressed herself even harder against dad. He went very rigid for a moment before reaching an arm behind her and patting her on the back. He was still rigid when he did that, like he didn't want to, but he was her dad and when she was scared he was supposed to take care of her…or maybe that was just moms. She didn't know. All she knew was that she wanted her little brother.

She wanted her mom.

She wanted the other half of the Suzuki family.

"I'll stay. Goodnight." Said Mob. She wanted her whole entire family to be together. She didn't want them like this, fractured and broken, and she would have given anything to have Sho back…and mom back…and to have Sho safe from whatever it was that he was putting himself through…because of her. Because he wanted her powers. Because she had been born with powers and he had not…and it wasn't fair. It should have been her there, wherever Sho was, and he should have been there in her place. She wished that there was some way to swap their places….

But there was not.

Even though Mob really did not want to be here.