hello! i have nothing important to say here exept thank you for the reviews! And who ever Reviewed as Guest: Artemis, THANK YOU! I love that kind of review. I dont know who you are but you are awesome! i really do apricieat it (and i still cant spell, whoo!)!

Chapter 13

"Hey, Jamie! Come check out what's on the news!" was the sentence that woke me up the next morning.

I stumbled to my feet and hobbled my way into the living room where the TV was on. Jade was sitting on the couch with a bowl of cereal in her lap. I turned my attention to the TV and had to control the look on my face.

The story was about an escaped black bear roaming around a nearby neighborhood. The picture was of me… as a bear. From the angle the picture was taken you couldn't see that Artemis, just a large bear with what looked like maul marks. The news reporter said that the bear was an escaped circus animal (they assumed from Haley's Circus) and if it was seen again to call the number on the screen.

I took all this in slowly, trying to process everything. I had been seen as a bear, does that mean they saw me change into a bear? Jade was looking at me, waiting for a reaction. I was screaming in my head but I couldn't let her know that I was pacing back and forth inside my head, tearing my hair out and cursing myself for being such an idiot for turning into a freaken bear in the middle of a neighborhood. "That's quite a story. Do they say which neighborhood it was seen in?"

"Ours," she replied still watching me closely.

Crap.

"I hope they catch it. It's not safe to have some crazy bear running around where people live." Apparently it's not safe to have a crazy shape shifter running around either. She seems to know something but that's not possible. Is it? She wouldn't have any reason to…

"Did you see anything last night when you went to get the movie?"

"Nary a bear." Not necessarily a lie. I didn't technically see myself.

Jade nodded her head like that was enough of an answer to keep her satisfied for the time being. But I knew the subject wasn't dropped. She walked back into the kitchen, "Hungry?" she asked.

"I feel like I could eat a bear."

It took her a second but she caught on. I received a glare and a half that I just chuckled at.

"How do you want your eggs?"

"Scrambled, just like my men."

"You're an idiot."

"People get us confused," I pointed out. Seriously, our own parents have called us by the other's name. It turns into a "Jamie! No, Jade! No! Gaaaahh! YOU!"

"It's not like we look that much alike. Just because we have the same hair color, same eye color, hang out a lot and tend to talk in the same way, doesn't mean that we are identical."

"I slapped some one that referred to us as 'J2'."

"Who the hell did that?" Jade asked and then thought about it.

"Wally," we said at the same time.

"The freaken ginger just can't keep to himself can he?" she asked as she pulled a carton of eggs out of the refrigerator.

"Of course not, that would be logical," I replied rolling my eyes.

Jade cracked eggs into a bowl and started beating them. I hopped up onto the counter. "Jeez Jade, what did those poor eggs ever do to you to deserve such treatment?" I asked with mock horror.

She pointed the whisk at me, dripping slaughtered egg guts onto the kitchen floor in doing so, and said in a demented voice, "You're next."

"And didn't you already eat?" I asked totally disregarding the threat.

"Your point? I'm a growing girl, need my potassium."

"Is that anything like protein?"

"You know what I mean."

After we finished eating and cleaning up the dishes we went back to Jade's room to throw more knifes. When we walked in and looked at the wall behind her door, all thoughts of throwing knifes were gone. The wall looked like it had been attacked by a weed eater. There were holes and gashes where we had missed our target last night. "That's not good," Jade said just staring.

"Very not good. Bad even, I would go as far as to say bad."

"Paint. I need paint. I bet we have left over in the garage." She ducked out of her room and ran into the garage. By the time I got in there she was already searching franticly through the random crap that had accumulated over the years. It was like she was wading through knee deep water, looking for something tiny from long ago. Not very likely to be found but she searched just as hard anyways. She stood up and held a can of paint up over her head. "I FOUND IT! Quick, to the Batcave!" (Apparently while I was imagining her swimming, she was imagining being Batman. Somehow I'm not surprised.)

We went back to her room and started painting over the holes in the wall. We didn't bother with brushes, just dipped our fingers into the can and finger painted on the wall.

"Does it seem too light to you?" I asked as I dabbed at another spot.

"It'll dry darker, right?" Jade was bordering on frantic since her parents were going to be home today.

"Not that much darker."

"Then we may have a technical problem."

"That's one way of putting it."

We finished covering everything up and went to the bathroom to wash the paint off our hands. I reached for the faucet and froze half way there. "Um… Jade, I figured out what color we found." My hand matched the bathroom walls.

"Shit, crap and damn," Jade said when she saw my hand.

"To the Batmobile?" I asked, pointing in the general direction of the garage.

"TO THE BATMOBILE!"

We started our search over again and came up empty handed. By the time we decided all hope was gone (and Jade started thinking about writing her will) and started heading inside I stopped and stared at the shelf above their washer and dryer. The paint that we had been killing ourselves looking for was sitting on the shelf, mocking us. I reached up and grabbed it then held it out to Jade. "Found it," I told her redundantly.

"TO THE BAT—" Jade started before I cut her off.

"Finish that sentence and you will eat paint."

She closed her mouth and calmly walked back to her room. We painting over the spots that we had covered up with the wrong color. Unfortunately, the original paint wasn't quite dry and they ended up mixing. We finished and stepped back to admire our handy work.

"Jade, your wall has leprosy," I told her, referring to the splotchy light patches all over the place.

"Tell no one of this little adventure we have just had."

"What you mean you don't want your parents to know that we threw knifes in your room, missed a few too many times, denting and making holes in your wall that we tried to cover up only to find that we had the wrong color paint, then painted over with the proper color making it look like your wall has a disease?"

"No."

"If'n you say so."

"I do say so."

"Yes, Oh High and Mighty Dictator of all things snarky." I said with mocking ah in my voice.

"That's Supreme High and Mighty Dictator to you."

We made sure everything was picked up then watched a Justice League documentary. We had our root beer and chocolate pudding and were happily munching away when we heard the front door being unlocked.

"Hey! We're home!" Jade's mom called from the front entry way.

"Hey!" we both called, getting up off the couch to go great them. They set their bags down and walked into the living room.

"Oh my gosh! Dad! What happened to your nose?" Jade squealed when she say her stepdad's face. His nose had clearly been broken. His eyes were blood shot and he had a huge ugly bruise covering most of his swollen face. It was a deep purple in the middle with yellow streaks through it and an angry red color around the edge. It looked awful. And he want very nice to look at to begin with but this just put him over the top with the nasty ratings.

"Hunting accident," he snapped at her.

Jade may not like the guy but I could tell she was hurt by his response.

He mumbled something about going to the bathroom or something and when he nodded his head in the direction he was intending to go, I say a thin red line around his neck, like a cut.

"Well I'm going to get out of ya'lls way so you can get settled in," I told her mom.

"Alright, Jamie. Thanks for keeping Jade company, hope you had fun."

"No problem and I did." I turned to Jade and said, "Let me know," referring to her stepdads broken nose.

"Yeah, I'll keep you posted." Then she whispered, "And remember, not a word."

I smiled and nodded then grabbed my keys and walked out the door.

~0~0~0~0~

"Luke, you know that we have screwed ourselves over here, right?" Lilly asked her brother as they sat on a park bench, trying to figure out their next move.

"Yes Lilly, I know," he said leaning back against the bench, letting his head drop back behind him. They couldn't go back to the apartment where they lived because Haunt could find them now, and that was currently the very last thing that they wanted. They had made their boss their enemy, a very powerful and very unforgiving. "First we need a plan."

"No, first we need a place to stay. Park benches are not comfortable to sit on, much less sleep on."

"Well what's your brilliant plan Lil? Please, enlighten me," Luke said exasperatingly.

"If you would just trust me, and follow me, all will go well."

"And again I ask; what's your plan?"

"Take us to Gotham."

Lilly reached out and grabbed Luke's arm. Luke looked into his twin's weird blue eyes that matched his own. Those were the eyes he trusted all his life, no one else's. It was in Gotham that they had failed their last mission and had finalized the rift between the Ghost Twins and Haunt. It was the place that had started them on this search for a new home. So they would return to where their lives had started ending and take it back. He smiled his Ghost smile and said, "To Gotham."

They disappeared without a trace with the blink of an eye.

incase you havent figured it out, Luke can teliport, we havent gotten to a point that Lilly uses her power, but that will be coming. i gave the Ghost Twins ghosty poweres