Page 7 of The Order

"Good for you, Dad," Kai says with a smile. I watch the men clink mugs as my mom's face stays abnormally stoic.

"One less Unfortunate, the better," I grin. My mom's eyes dart up to me as she narrows them. As quickly as it happened, it disappeared.

Something was hidden behind that look. Something is always hidden behind her small gestures. Whenever I pry her on it, she goes silent, unwilling to elaborate.

"I'm raising you both well!" my dad gleams with a large grin. My mother's voice is clear, her hand harshly lowering her mug to the birch table.

"Can we please not speak of Unfortunate affairs at this table? It makes me sick to hear," my mom says with a small grovel of emotion lining her tone. I sit back in my chair to look her over. It's hard to decipher whether or not Unfortunates or the conversation as a whole makes her feel so indifferent.

"Sympathy for Unfortunates is a medium-level violation," the house's security system says calmly. My mother's cheeks flush. Her hands run through her hair. My dad frowns, her head shaking toward him with annoyance. Her chair quickly backs away from the table as she swipes her portion tray. I watch her move toward the kitchen. The house waits for her to confirm its message.

"Understood!" she says after a few moments of scrubbing her glass container in the sink.

I feel a hand touch my leg in a firm grasp. My father's eyes linger on my own, his head leaning in to whisper.

"Your mother works with Unfortunates and Untouchables. Her lines sometimes blur," my father whispers, watching me pull away with a look of confusion. "Do not look at her differently when she needs guidance away from her good nature toward them," my father says sternly.

My mom stares forward blankly into the running water of the sink. With a grab to my portion container, I move away from the table and closer to my mother. Her head turns as I drop my container in the sink. She wipes away what I can only assume is a tear, taking a deep breath. Her delicate hands and sharp brown eyes pull her face together. Her hand dips into her pocket, quickly pulling out a small white pill. She places it in my hand, casually looking at my brother and father behind me. The two men engage in deep banter about Unfortunate affairs. My dad's slightly gray-streaked black hair and facial stubble age him years beyond what he is. His green eyes are piercing in contrast to my own. With a press to my palm, she forces the medication into concealment.

"You're supposed to be grabbing this from thespotin your bedroom every morning. Don't forget," my mother whispers as I quickly take the pill. It falls down my throat with ease. Its coating is bitter, only diluting in taste once I take a quick drink of the running sink water.

Unlike Kai, I still struggle with significant flaws despite the perfection supposedly coded into most Untouchable children. Ever since I was little, I’ve had minor episodes in which I would be absent from my mind. It was as if I had stepped away from my line of vision, only to come to and have no idea where I had gone or how I had gotten back. These absent moments concerned my mom enough that she started investigating them as soon as she noticed. As far as I know, from what she has told me, I am not the only one who struggles with these episodes. Regardless, she hasn’t told my father, and the few times Kai has seen me take a pill, he often ignores it as if he can wipe the image from his mind. I know deep down my father has suspicions, but it's easier to have him believe what he wants rather than give him another thing to add to his list of reasons why he is disappointed in me.

A small, painful pluck from my head pulls me away from my train of thought. My mom drops my silver piece of hair in the sink, both of us watching it go down the drain with the flow of the water.

"You're supposed to tell me when it starts showing," my mom says softly, leaning into the sink.

For some reason, the women in our family have spouts of silver in their hair that never seem to go away. Regardless of age, our hair streaks with gray if not dyed. For as long as I can remember, my mom has always been able to hide her gray. On the other hand, I can never seem to go a month before it starts showing again.

"I forgot," I say through a lie. Kai's long arm wraps around my shoulder, pulling me closer to him. His weight and backpack have no trouble dragging me away from the kitchen and my mother's wary eyes. I grab my bag, slinging it over my shoulders.

The contrast in items that Kai and I carry to school is comically different. Kai’s bag is filled to the brim with science papers and history study guides that threaten to spill from the zipper of his backpack. My bag stays close to my side with nothing but my sketchbook and a vial of my mother's Cure-All. You never know when you might need to heal a wound, or so that's my mother's mentality.

I tuck my student ID into my pocket as Kai continues pulling my shirt toward the front door.

"I can get a head start without you," I groan. Kai's wide grin consumes his face before he speaks.

"Right, and that's why we are almost always late to the tram," Kai says with a certain superiority that I know he thinks he has.

I wave at my parents, watching my dad make his way over to my mother. Her head leans into his chest as he holds her. I watch his thumbs gently run up and down her side, something inside me focusing on the touch. Her face grows red, her mouth curling into a smile as he presses his lips to her forehead. I feel pain at the sight of the sweet, tender touches. My chest feels heavy, and a feeling of absence weighs down on me.

Kai taps our icons on the panel of the front door's security system, indicating both he and I are off and on our way to New Foundation’s Academy. With a shake of my head, I look away from my parents, shoving down that sudden feeling of hurt inside me. A small ping of pain shoots up my side, my mouth hissing back a groan.

Kai snaps his head at me as he shuts the door. I press my hand to my hip, letting my fingertips feel the warm skin beneath my touch.

"What's wrong?" he questions worriedly.

"Nothing," I lie.

But something was wrong.

My birthmark burns beneath my touch. The skin feels like it was scorched with a hot branding prod. The pain is sudden and unexpected.

"What the hell?" I whisper under my breath.

It leaves as quickly as it comes, taking all my worries along with it. I let go of my teeth's grasp on my lip as we move forward. I hear our feet scuff the ground, feeling relief as we descend from the house toward our tram to the Academy.

Chapter two

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