V I L L A I N. That's what I am, or what I'm supposed to be. The law states that you must be what your mark decrees, but what if I don't want to become a ruthless killer? What if I don't feel like living a lonely life and torturing everyone I get close to?

No, a villain's life is not the life for me.

Still, I try. I try to hatch evil plans, small schemes. Sometimes I wish I was more like my mother, the villain. But she married my father, a hero (illegally of course), and everyone knows I'm more like him than my mother. In looks I am like her, but not in temperament.

Even my mother is not a grand, take-over-the-world villain. Just the head of a national smuggling operation and one of the biggest crime bosses of our nation. So yeah...not a movie villain, but still a "villain" nonetheless.

I try to play the good guy in school. Smiling politely, being semi-social and getting good grades all contribute to my "innocent " image. You may ask why many people don't suspect me to be a hero, and that is because while I keep up my "good" image, I still stay mostly in the shadows, unlike heroes such as Joe.

And so far, it's worked. No one seems to thinks twice about what might be written on my wrist. Well, no one except River Grey. Usually I don't use my clairvoyance, but when I caught her staring at me I needed to know something about her. Her name was all I drew out of her mind, but she was so bright that she started to sense I was there and I had to withdraw.

Then when she accused me of being a mind reader it took a lot of control to remain calm. Control. That is the key to maintain an innocent face. That was what I had practiced for hours every day since I was a child. Absolute control, especially of my abilities requires an almost superhuman strength, a strength that took me years to aquire.

Now I'm nineteen, and I have only few weeks left to be anonymous. A few weeks to be another masked identity. Then, on my twentieth birthday, the ink will be visible for one day, and I'll either reveal it, or hide it.

Everything River said to me, however little, was calculated and laced with a quick wit that I had to be careful I didn't trip over. Those kinds of people are a trap, and while I'd love to learn more about this mysterious girl, I'm afraid it will end up with me being exposed.

"Hey Valley," I smile as my little sister Valoria walks in and sighs loudly. It's always easy to tell when she's home.

"Hey 'Ri," she shrugs her bag off her shoulders and it hits the ground with a loud thump. "How was college?"

"It was good," I chuckle, noting her scowl. Hey, at least she's being polite. "There was a new girl there I think you'd like."

"Really?" Valoria's face lit up a bit and she sat down at the kitchen table where I was currently seated, already doing homework. "Oh, you have it too? It is quite annoying when you have homework on your first day of school," she remarked.

I nod, a half smile on my lips. "Quite." Quite big words for an 11-year-old if you ask me.

After rummaging through the fridge and eating us out of house and home, Valoria finally decides to start on her homework, groaning all the while.

Its been a few days since I've practiced my abilities (besides the occasional telepathy when I can't gauge someone's reaction), so I decide I should probably do that. We have a room in our house just for that, and there are no security cameras in there.

When I first turned eighteen it was easy to get used to my telepathy ability, but the others were a little shocking, so to speak. The second ability I found out was the ability to see in the dark like a cat, but I wasn't prepared for the third one. I was inspecting the ability room one day for things I might be able to actually use, when I discovered my third and final ability: electrokinesis.

I'm still not fully in control of this ability, even though it is the one I practice the most. It can be set off when I get angry or feel an extreme emotion, which is why control is all the more important. This means I have to watch my temper and personality as well, maintaining a calm and agreeable front to make sure I won't have an episode.

It's a good thing they don't dole out abilities to children. Granted, some eighteen-year-olds still act like children, but it's their choice to act that way, kids just don't know any better.

The familiarity of practicing calms me down, and even though it's hard, it's almost therapeutic. I relax and let my mind drift, falling into the rhythm of a familiar pattern.

☽ ☽ ☽

"Orion?" my mother's voice breaks into my deep trance and I cease the course of electricity flowing along my arms with a flick of my wrist.

"I'm in here," I push the intercom button on the wall and open the door.

My mother has slipped out of her high heels and businesswoman dress, taken down her elegant hairstyle and swapped it for her combat outfit and ponytail. "Can I use the training room now?"

"Of course," I smile. "Not that you need it though."

She suddenly turns to look at me, a serious expression on her face. "I've never stopped learning, even now. Even the most experienced of us have never fully mastered or unlocked all of the potentials of our abilities. Don't ever forget that." Then she closes the door, and I am left to think in the silent hall.

Valoria is particularly chatty at dinner, and my father is in a very good mood today. Mother is strangely quiet though, and has a strange expression on her face when she thinks no one is watching. She's always been one to have secrets, but I can tell somethings bothering her.

I glance at her face to make sure she isn't alert, and then subtly float into her mind, just allowing myself to catch fragments of sentences.

the weapons...but I have a choice...prevent a war...why would she...

I frown. Strange things for her to be thinking about at dinner.

"Is everything alright, Orion?" Father asks, looking at me with concern. "Valoria just told a joke and you look like it made you angry."

"Oh no," I laugh, making sure not to sound nervous, and grin easily. "Sorry. I was just think about this one riddle our botany professor told us and it's still stumping me..."

As I walk upstairs after we finish eating, I feel my mother's gaze on my retreating figure and sneak a last peek inside her brain, but this time I focus in what she is feeling, instead of what she is thinking.

The emotions I am reading are frustration, but pressure, and strangely, anxiety. My mother doesn't cave to high stress or pressure situations easily, so I wonder what could be so important that she is wavering inside. Well by the way she was thinking earlier, it must be big.

Come to think of it, she has been a bit weighted down lately; always wearing a worried or preoccupied look, always taking a phone call, always "busy". Busy with what? It can't just be her job. No, this must be something more, something on a larger scale. And whatever it is, even she is afraid of the consequences.

I don't dig into my mother's career, because I don't want to ever be involved with her dirty work or be arrested on account of her. I do love her, but I keep a respectful distance from her.

Once in my room, I write down the words and feelings in a top secret notebook. I don't record things often, but I know I am going to need to remember this.

I furrow my brow in concentration. The company my mother heads is an undercover smuggling operation with a real estate office front. I'm not sure exactly the things they actually smuggle, which I know I'll have to find out.

This is an interesting mystery, one I intend to solve. But I may need help, because it sounds bigger than I can handle myself if even my mother is worried about it. But who could I ask? I'd need someone smart and resourceful, someone who is analytical and tactical. Someone who can figure out things without knowing much about them.

Someone like River Grey.

a u t h o r ' s n o t e

hey all! i can't even begin to apologize for why this chapter was published two months after the first one...except to say i was very busy and had a bit of writers block. but i know those are lame excuses and i should have had this out long ago...
well i hope you enjoy it and please comment your thoughts/predictions!
~Joybell ♥