The Brown Family didn't actually live near the church like I thought. They lived in Brooklyn, New York. So we quickly took a trip across the gigantic brooklyn bridge which was suspended over the east river. The sun had just started to set across the sky and while it was hard to see, I could briefly see the moon starting to take her shift as the light of the night sky. We had luckily missed the traffic that was known to slow everything to stand still and made our way along the river to a place known as the brooklyn heights. We passed a certain part of the residential district that had a sea of buildings that looked just alike. The houses having been made of dark red stone, the stairs had black railings over them and every house seemed to have the same potted plates on each step. We pulled outside of one of these townhouses as they were called and as usual Mr. Benny helped me out of the car. He opened the back seat and put one of two very hot pans in my arms. “Why do I need to help carry stuff? Isn’t this supposed to be your job?”
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“Normally I would, but tonight we are not butler and lady. Tonight I am your adoptive daddy, Mr. Cummings.” He made a face at that name, “for now on if you make a fake name, we are using my last name.”
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“What is wrong with the name I came up with, Daddy Cummings?” That comment earned me a brief kick to my backside nearly making me stumble up the stairs, but I couldn’t help but erupt into laughter.
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I knocked on the door a few times, I could hear music coming from the plain looking door. A second later, the door opened up as a new boy much younger than me appeared. I was glad to finally have someone shorter than me even if by just a few inches. He looked like a smaller version of his father with adorable brown eyes. “Momma,” he called out over his shoulder. “Your guests are here, I think.”
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Pastor Brown came down a very narrow hallway that was next to a black staircase that went to the second floor. “Thank you, Marcus, now go help your daddy bring those extra chairs into the dining room.” She was wearing a long sleeved tanned shirt and from what her apron didn’t cover I think she was wearing blue jeans as well. “Mr. Cummings, I am so happy you accepted our invitation.” She seemed to notice the pans we had brought as she said. “Yall, didn’t need to bring anything for dinner.”
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“I insist, Pastor Brown, how could we not bring at least something as a thank you for this dinner.” Mr. Benny said his voice nearly lost as a gust of wind came almost stabbing my face with its frost.
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She stepped out of the way allowing us entrance into her home. “Please come on inside, it is getting colder by the second this time of year.” We entered their home, immediately to the right was a large doorway that had an already lit fire going. The house smelled of cooked food and lavador air freshener. She directed us through the doorway, the fire did wonders at fighting off the cold. Inside of their living room was a large couch, a few small blacks and a large lamp that was currently filling the room with a mix of fire light and dimmed orange light. A large television was hanging up over the fireplace that was currently playing a basketball game, the players were warming up. We followed her through the living room, into a sparkling white kitchen that already had food lined up on the center counter. A pair of double doors were in the back and currently outside I could see my target playing with a few more kids.
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“Do you need any help setting up for dinner, or another hand at finishing it?” Mr. Benny asked, taking my tray and placing it with the other food. “We brought my momma famed shrimp alfredo and her secret recipe for banana pudding.”
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“Lord almighty, you have blessed us tonight with a treat. My children have been asking for banana pudding for the longest time.” She said putting a hand to her chin. “I wouldn’t mind some help finishing up a few things if you don’t mind. Ivy, would you like to go outside and meet the rest of my kids?”
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“Yes ma’am.” I said politely.
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“Behave yourself out their, sweetie.” Mr. Benny warned.
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“Don’t worry, daddy.” I felt a small smirk starting to creep across my face. “I will.”
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I stepped outside into their deck that led down to the parlor. On the deck were a few folded lawn chairs that had been knocked down by the wind. A very annoyed looking girl probably around 16 or 17 sat on their porch swing scrolling through her phone. She was wearing a pufffy black coat and currently had the hood up over her head. Before I could greet her, a small ball came rocketing towards her and slammed into her face. I quickly reached out and grabbed her phone before it could fall to the ground. “Yall play too fucking much!” She snapped, throwing the ball towards the apparent culprit, another boy around my age who was holding his chest with laughter.
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“Imma tell momma your cursing again, Eleanor.” I recognized the voice of Brittney, as she was now clad in a matching coat.
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“Go ahead and tell her what happened at school yesterday, you little snitch!” That got Brittney to shut her mouth.
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“Here you go,” I said, holding her iphone out to her.
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She gave me a look of appreciation, her eyes were large and a hazelnut color. “Thank you, you were that one girl at the church today with your daddy right? Samantha?” She asked, taking the phone from me.
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I was starting to mentally kick myself as I realized how lame that name was. “Y-Yes, I’m Samantha Cummings, me and daddy just moved to the city and your parents invited us for dinner.”
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“My name is Eleanor, nice to meet you.” I gave her a shake and it felt so cold in comparison to mine.
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“Samantha-Chan!” I tensed up as Ori bounded up the stairs and wrapped hers around me in a hug. I wanted to bring my sickle out and kill her right there but I had to remember my current place.
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So with much restraint, I forced a friendly smile on my face and hugged her back. I switched from English to Japanese. “Oikawa-San, it is nice to see you again.”
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We broke our hug and Ori switched back to english explaining to Eleanor in an excited tone. “She is from Japan, like me.” She took my hand, protected with a pair of black gloves, her white coat more slim in comparison to my more puffy one. “Come on, we are playing soccer before dinner.”
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“I wonder if Wisteria had to do things like this?” I thought as I took a turn in their small goalie net that seemed ready to blow away in the wind. Wanting to show off a tiny bit, I began to bounce the ball in the air with my feet and head. As I played with these kids, I learned that the two boys were named Davonte and Immanuel or Manny for short. Both had skinny athletic frames, Davonte having twists in his hair and Immanuel having a wavy style to his. There were actually twins but unlike my sisters, they were very much alike that it was almost scary. Brittney whispered to me that Immanuel had a small crush on Ori and I felt bad for him. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like when his crush suddenly goes missing. Our game of soccer had come down to me vs Ori as we were the only two who hadn’t been scored on.
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“I hope you don’t mind when you lose, Samantha-Chan.” Ori said, her eyes narrowing in determination.
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I laughed as I took my relaxed stance in front of their goal. “I don’t lose a lot, Ori-Chan.” As soon as I said a saw a black and white blur went flying past my head, nearly hitting me in the head. I had a loud thump as it slammed into the back of the goal and the smirk that formed across Ori’s face nearly made me kill her. I took the ball out of the goal and roughly threw it back to Ori. “I was off guard, you cheater.”
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“I know, but now are you ready to take me seriously.” Ori began to dribble this ball up on her knees, her jepei energy starting to race off her like a burning fire. Something only Brittney seemed to notice, her brothers had no idea what was happening.
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“I guess I could,” I allowed a tiny bit of my own energy to flow off me. I took a deep breath and got into a more serious stance, well as good as I could get in a skirt. For a moment everything around us seemed to fade away, the wind had grown silent, the annoying birds stopped their cawing, and all voices faded into mumbles. The hunter sense might have been over kill just to stop a ball but I refused to let her score on me.
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She kicked the ball at me and in one motion I spun to my left. I started to jump towards the ball but it hit the top right cross bar, and I looked back to take my victory, she had slammed her foot into into the ball knocking it to my far left. The ball spun against the net before coming to a gentle stop on the ground. In my surprise, I tripped over my feet and fell down against the cold, dying grass. “Are you okay?” Ori said, rushing over to offer me a hand.
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I rudely slapped her hand away from me and stood up. “I am okay,” I snapped. Her smile turned upside down as she gently rubbed at her hand. Not wanting to risk her thinking anything bad about me, I quickly forced myself to apologize. “I am sorry, Ori-Chan.” I gave her my best smile before innocently rubbing the back of my head. “I get very competitive sometimes.”
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Her smile quickly returned and as she opened her mouth to speak I heard Pastor Brown call out through the sliding door. “Y'all come inside and wash your hands, it’s almost time to eat.”
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As we went inside, Ori whispered to me. “Your hunter sense was so good that I had to trick you. Where did you train?”
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“Self taught,” I lied. “I am not that good, I am sure there are people out there that are better than me.”
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“You are very humble,” I tensed up as Ori wrapped a friendly arm around my shoulders. “I like that about you.”
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With everyone’s backs turned to us, I summoned my sickle in my off hand. I wanted to kill her, she wouldn’t see it coming, or maybe severely injure her and carry her over the fence. But Mr. Benny was right, it would be foolish and I didn’t want to risk failure. So I sent my sickle back into my netrix gemstone. “You are very humble yourself, in a kinda creepy way.”
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As we entered the kitchen, we had to take out shoes off to line them back near the front door. As we entered the living room, the couch had been moved to side and a large foldable table had been placed in the center of the living room. It was stacked high with a few pans of food I hadn’t even seen before. I mostly ate like a queen at my house with the most expensive food I could get, today was the first time I even had fast food. So seeing this arrangement of food in front me had my mouth nearly watering, especially since I enjoy food to begin with. As soon as our shoes were in a neat line in the parlor. We sat down at the table, I was stuck between Mr. Benny and Eleanor, next to Eleanor was Marcus. On the end of each table was Pastor Brown and Bishop Brown and on the otherside sat the other kids including Ori. Dinner tonight was crispy fried chicken, sweet potatoes, mac and cheese, smothered pork chops, Mr. Benny’s shrimp alfredo (that Eleanor seemed thankful for) and desert was a large lemon cake as well as Mr. Benny’s banana pudding,. Both of which were waiting in the fridge in the kitchen.
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I was ready to pile my plate high with food but before I could even reach out to get some. I saw everyone had bowed their heads and had their hands folded together. “What is going on,” I whispered to Mr. Benny who was doing the same thing.
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My question was answered as much to my surprise, Mr. Benny began to pray. “Lord Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name, we thank you today for great friends and wonderful food. We ask that you bless our food in the name of your son, and we thank you for providing us with this meal tonight. In Jesus name we pray, amen.”
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I never understood why Chrstians thanked their “God” for everything they got. It wasn’t like he had went out and bought the food himself or something. Bishop Brown was kind enough to make my plate himself, and I was so happy to be here right now. Fried Chicken might just become my favorite kind of chicken, it was crispy and so juicy on the inside. The mac and cheese was absolutely amazing, the smothered pork chops had a delicious earthy taste to them, even the sweet potatoes were an amazing treat almost like a dessert. As dinner began to die down, Mr. Benny was questioned by Bishop Brown.
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“Judging by your little one's reactions, have you cooked like this before brother?” He asked, he had called Mr. Benny that a few times now to the point where I couldn’t help but ask if they were related.
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Both men shared a laugh. “It is just something that african americans do with each other, not all but a lot of us do that. A sign of familiarity and respect between us.” Mr. Benny explained. “As for your question, brother, my daughter is a bit of a picky eater, so even getting her to eat this wonderful meal you have prepared is quite the feat.”
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I rolled my eyes as I shoveled another spoonful of banana pudding into my mouth. With the people around, I knew I could ask this question and not worry about her lying to me. “Ori pardon me for asking but do these people know you are a jepei user like me?”
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Ori didn’t even flinch as she looked up, her mouth practically covered in pudding. “Yes they do, I told them when they first found me.”
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“Are you one of those odd animal spirit users too?” Brittney asked.
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“Yes I am, and so are you.” I said, giving her my best smile.
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“What about you, Mr. Cummings, are you one as well, ” asked Pastor Brown.
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Mr. Benny wiped his mouth with a napkin before saying. “Yes I am, and if you have any questions by all means ask me. I understand how odd it might be that your daughter has jepei energy.”
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“Well if you don’t mind, do you think you could share light on why Brittney seems to have this and we don’t?” Mr. Brown asked. “We just wanna know what we can do to best help her with these abilities.”
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“Well let me explain it like this. Everyone on earth has an animal spirit, however not everyone has jepei aura or energy. It is a very rare genetic trait even rarer than some genetic diseases. Now in my case, both of my parents had jepei energy and it runs deep in my bloodline, so that rare trait has become the dominant gene in me. Only jepei users can see animal spirits and the very faint jepei energy that runs from each user.” Mr. Benny explained. “The best way to help your daughter is to get her proper training, and luckily for you. I have some contacts in the city that would be more than happy to help her learn the basics. As well as provide her with a netrix gemstone, that way the little chameleon hiding on her shoulder will have a better home.”
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I watched Brittney jump from surprise and even I had to take a second look and almost molding out of the air itself. A tiny little chameleon appeared on her shoulder. “What about you Ori-Chan?” I turned towards the japanese girl who was now looking at that small creature in awe. “WHat is your animal spirit, mine is the pit viper.”
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Ori went silent, her head now staring down at the ground. “It is complicated, and I don’t really know what she is if I am being honest.” Before I could press her a bit more, Ori pushed back her chair and stood up. She gave us a deep bow, “I’m sorry, can I have a minute to myself.”
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“Of course, babygirl.” Bishop Brown said and Ori disappeared into the kitchen. “Poor child, I wish we could do more for her but talking about her abilities brings just a shadow over her usually bright deminor.”
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“Why do you say that?” I asked.
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“It isn’t my place to say, our of respect for Ori’s wishes.” I bite the inside of my lip to hide my anger. I needed to know exactly what her animal spirit was so I could best be prepared for what she could do. Everything pointed towards the mythical creature, the god of the dragons but was there something more?
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Eventually Ori returned to the table and while her cheerful smile was back, I could see confusion and sadness now clouding her eyes. As dinner concluded, in order to keep up appearances, Mr. Benny had me help getting this put away. I was on dish duty, which Pastor Brown had to teach me how to do the dishes. While the others helped wiping the table and getting it put away, Mr. Benny was working with Eleanor and Brittney to put what was left of dinner into containers to give to a local homeless shelter. “Atta girl,” she praised as I finally got the hang of this terrible chore.
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“Pastor Brown, when did Ori first come to your home?” I had already heard from Ori but maybe there were some details she was hiding from me.
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“Well, we found Ori inside the attic of our church. Poor girl was dirty, cold and afraid. She was sleeping on some old church robes we had. Now at first she pulled a sword on us from thin air but it took a good talking too to get her to put the blade away. We took her home, gave her a warm bath and something to eat, child practically swallowed the spoon in the process.” She chuckled a bit to herself at that. “Afterwards, we tucked her into the guest room, while she promised to stay the night, I had a feeling she was gonna try and sneak away into the night. So, I sat in the living room and sure enough she came down the steps not even 15 minutes later. I got her to sit and talk to me and she explained to me her abilities and even helped us understand our daughter, odd behavior as of late.”
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“That night she explained to us that someone dangerous was looking for her, and that she shouldn’t be here. At that I refused to let her leave my house and even wanted to call the police but Ori didn’t want me too. She said she needed to get back to Japan but didn’t have any money. Of course me and my husband have been blessed with more money than we could ever possibly spend and wanted to help her get home. Ori refused to take our money, not out of pride but because she wanted to earn it. So she moved in with us and has been “working” off her debt to us. During this time my husband is trying to track down her guardian but that woman is nearly impossible to find it seems. So we have plans to take her back to Japan over winter break, and make it a family trip for our kids as well. We learned that Ori was also a believer and I truly believe that little girl was sent to us by the father above.”
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A brief moment of silence filled the air as I took in everything she said. “Did Ori ever give you the name of her guardian, maybe I know her. I stayed in the county for most of my life?”
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Pastor Brown placed a hand on her chin in a thinking manor. “I can’t remember her name off the top of my head.” She took the dish from me and set into the dishwasher to join the others. “I also need to have a small chat with that girl tonight, she thinks I don’t know she has been sneaking out of the house lately.”
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Now that was information that caught my eye. “Ori-chan, doesn’t seem like the type to sneak out.”
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“She is a bit more mischievous than she seems, she is only 12 years old but some people could mistake her for 15 or 16 sometimes.” As we finished getting the dishes done, Pastor Brown took me into the living room where the others had just finished taking down the table.
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Mr. Benny walked over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Lord above, dinner was better than I could ever have imagined and I thank you both for allowing us to come tonight.”
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“It was no problem, brother,” said Bishop Brown. “You are more than welcome to come back any day, our home is open to friends.”
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“Do you two have to get going, Mr. Cummings?” Pastor Brown questioned.
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“Unfortunately we do, we have a few things planned for tomorrow while we can still get them done.” Mr. Benny explained.
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I gripped the edges of my skirt and lowered myself into a low curtsey. “Thank you for the wonderful dinner, Bishop Brown and Pastor Brown, it was really yummy.” Honestly I was glad we were leaving, the strain of making my voice a bit higher was starting to kill my vocal cords.
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“Don’t mention it, child.”
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As we were leaving, I noticed that Ori was sitting on the stairs. When she opened them, I noticed a strong look of determination starting to take over. When she noticed me staring at her, her smile took over as she leapt up to her feet. She jumped up onto the stair’s railing and slid down to land beside me. “Leaving for the night?”
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“Yes, Ori-Chan,” I said, leaning closer to her. “Why did you look so scary up there? Almost like you were gonna get into some kind of trouble?”
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Ori’s cheek blushed pink. “N-No reason, um, Davente is having me play some video game with him tonight that I always lose at. So I am getting mentally prepared.”
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She was a terrible liar, it was almost cute in a way. “Ok, I will see you around hopefully, I know the browns are finding you away to go home soon so please tell me before you do.”
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“Of course,” she threw her arms over me in a hug. I returned her embrace and her hair smelled like roses.
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After waving goodbye to the family, we climbed back into our SUV. Once we reached the bridge I let out a long sigh as I slid back against the seat. “That was draining, I should have just killed her right there and then and dealt with the consequences later .”
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“I for one had a wonderful time,” Mr. Benny said.
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“Of course you did, you practically got to spend it with your people.” There was a brief moment of silence before I quickly added. “Was that offensive?”
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“Not really, but you aren’t wrong, I also meant what I said back there. I am gonna give them a few of my contacts to help that younger girl learn to control these abilities. It is the least we could do for this deception.”
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“I see no problem, they aren’t my targets so I don’t care.” I turned my gaze onto the large river we were driving over. “Isn’t my bike supposed to come tonight?”
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“Yes it is.”
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“That is perfect,” I looked at my brief image in the tainted windows. “Looks like my target has a habit of sneaking out, so I need to get back and get a few thing. Tonight we get this done and over with, tonight she is captured or dies.”
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“Such a shame, she seems like just an innocent child that has stumbled into something so big.”
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“That isn’t it, she is here for a reason, and something is going down tonight.” I closed my eyes and I could see that look of determination spreading across her face. I held my hands together as if I was cold but my blood was boiling, I was feeling that Wisteria and father talked about the serpent's lust. I wanted to fight and I wanted it tonight.
And I would win.
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