When she woke up again, Satara still had no idea where she was.
Soft, early morning light filled the room and the air was still fresh from the cleansing touch of the night. Looks like an old hotel or something – Her wandering gaze landed on the stranger sitting in the furthest corner of the room and her right hand jolted beneath the upper half of the sleeping bag tucked around her. He stood up at once and tucked his phone away as if her awakening had interrupted his scrolling. I didn't even know he was in here.
She pushed herself up into a sitting position and, though he didn't say anything to dissuade her, the lower half of his face tightened as if he could feel the pressure within her ribs. She refused to press her arm around them, holding herself upright with both fists pressed to the ground on either side. Sleep crusted her eyes and she needed to brush her teeth. Something crackled against the movement of her neck but she decided not to check what that was either. Why isn't he saying anything? They were alone in the room. Where's –
“Jason went to buy breakfast. He should be back soon.” The stranger stopped a few steps away and lowered himself carefully to his knees, sitting back on his heels. “He didn't want to leave you here like this.”
But he did and now I have to make sure you don't do anything to me until he comes back. Satara swallowed with difficulty. Why would he go? Does he trust you that much already? Or does he just not care any more?
“Who are you?” Though she couldn't check them openly, her clothes seemed in the same state she had left them in.
But someone had definitely and thoroughly wiped away the blood Saytarnia had left on her skin and she didn't know if Jason could be that proficient.
“Forgive me.” He pressed a palm to his chest, his ring and little fingers tucked out of sight, the other three pointed at his opposite shoulder, and bowed. “My name's Sinastar. It's nice to meet you again.”
“Jayce already told me your name.“ Again? Is he talking about last night? “Who are you really?”
He straightened up, his hands on his thighs, and breathed out the words as if they had been suffocating him for a long time. “We're family. I'm your cousin, Satara.”
“My family's dead,” she said shortly, stamping out the sparks his claim had thrown at the base of her chest. But he knows about Saytarnia. That's the only way Jason could've found out her name.
“Most of us are,” he admitted with a haunted smile.
“They're all dead. Except Saytarnia. And now you, I guess.” Her shoulder blades ached from holding herself up. Some of the exhausted discomfort entered her tone and she forced a smile to accompany it. “Why're you here? To finish the job?”
He was silent for a moment, his fingers tightening into fists on his folded legs. “I explained the situation to your friend. I wanted to speak to you about it first but – things didn't work out as I had hoped.”
“Because Saytarnia decided I wasn't worth killing?”
“Because I was supposed to get to you first this time.” He leaned forward in a deeper bow. “I'm sorry I couldn't stop her again.”
“So you're not working with her?” Satara wondered how high up they were. She couldn't see any other buildings from her position on the floor.
“I'll tell you everything.” He rose suddenly but softly and retrieving some folded clothes, a small towel, a toothbrush, and a travel-sized tube of toothpaste from a hiking bag in the corner. “But feel free to freshen up first. We can visit the local community centre or the park, if you need to use the restroom.”
He placed them on the sleeping mat beside her when she made no move to accept them and returned to the bag, producing the kind of plastic mixing bowl Mrs Lang used whilst making dough for dumpling soup along with another bottle of water. How many of those does he have in there?
“I'll wait outside. Let me know when you've finished.” He left the final two items on the floor beside her and walked out of the room.
What the hell …? She picked up the toothpaste and brush. The bowl and water reminded her of days she had spent unwell, both in the hospital and at the Langs. And even before then. Is this how he lives every day?
<><><><><>
Sinastar didn't say anything about the clothes she had left folded at the end of the sleeping bag instead of beside her. She had thrown out the water from the bowl and her chest had punished her for the reckless movement, reminding her of what had happened as she tried to autopilot through the motions of brushing her teeth. She sat beneath the window, wrapped up in her own arms, and half-glowered at Sinastar as he placed a hair brush on one of her crossed legs.
“You seem well prepared for all of this,” she said once she trusted her voice not to break from the pain. “For someone who isn't working with Saytarnia.”
“Thank you.” He rinsed the bowl out, holding it outside the window for a moment before leaning it against the wall to dry. “I've been preparing to bring you home for years.”
That's the second time he's dodged the same question. “This 'home' you keep talking about. Where is it?”
“I can't tell you that just yet. Not until I'm sure you –” He faltered but recovered swiftly mid sentence. “– Until we're on our way there.”
“Why not?” She nodded as he stood by the wall half a step away from her and waited as if he needed permission to sit down at her side.
“Because it's a land that few come from.” He sat down, also crossing his legs, and leant back against the wall. “And even fewer know about properly.”
“So you're from a secret country?” She huffed humourlessly and winced.
“Something like that. Just like you.” His hands shifted from his knees, coming together in his lap as if to comfort each other. “And your sister.”
“Let's say that's true.” Satara half focused on her breathing and distracted herself with his responses. “If I'm from this secret place, what am I doing here?”
He hesitated, the nails of one hand briefly digging into the other. “You were kidnapped.”
“By who?”
He turned to look directly at her, faint distress sprinkled like ashes across his expression. “The Cunninghams.”
If she had had the strength and energy to move, she would have left the room. Or at least climbed to her feet and walked away until could she turn and look at him properly.
She spoke only after a wonderfully grounding breath. “... What?”
“They stole you from your real family.” His eyes glinted. Fork lightning reflected on a relatively still lake.
“My real family? You mean Saytarnia, who stabbed me in the neck and left me for dead when I was a kid, and you, the one who's keeping me somewhere I don't recognise?” Muted fury began to leak through the gaps in her ice-cool armour. Barbed words that would hurt more when he tried to pull them out. A thin layer of poison spread over her features. “That family?”
“I can't account for everything your sister has done since we last met,” he murmured, lowering his gaze. “But I know you meant everything to her.”
“I don't know if you mean anything to her but you should probably know –” Satara smiled. “– she's got a really weird way of showing it.”
“I don't know exactly why the Cunninghams took you from our homeland. I'm still looking into it. But when they did, Saytarnia did everything to get you back.” He lifted his eyes back up to hers as if they were loaded with the weight of his past. “She asked the elders of the tribe for help and when they refused … she killed them.”
Because they wouldn't help get me back? She drummed her fingers against her ribs, lightly enough to avoid causing damage, hard enough to feel pain. Even if what he's saying is true, if we did come from somewhere else, she wouldn't have done everything she did if she really cared about me.
“Our clan was almost completely wiped out in the fight. The three of us are the only survivors.” His gaze wandered to the floor again. “I barely managed to escape and I'm only alive now because another clan took me in. I left to find you as soon as I could but by then the Cunninghams were already –”
“– Why should I believe anything you tell me?” She uncrossed her legs and drew her knees up to her chest as far as she could without aggravating her ribs. “Because we're both Asian? Because you just happened to turn up at the right time, after Saytarnia got bored of me being her punching bag?”
Now it's more than just a family? We've got a clan, a whole tribe, now too?
“Did she look bored?” His tone hardened but only for a second. “When you saw her again? Did she look like she came to have fun?”
“I didn't have time to think about what she looked like,” she said frostily. “I was too busy trying not to get killed.”
“Of course. I'm sorry.” His breath hitched so quietly she almost missed it. He didn't speak again straight away. “I do know one thing though. Saytarnia was the pride of our clan. Unrivalled in power and skill. But she was more than that. She was an asset to the entire tribe.”
“So?”
“She protected the tribe during the day and carried out other ... missions during the night.” His shoulders didn't move but he shifted against the wall as if he wanted to lift them. “If Saytarnia truly wanted you dead, you would be. It's as simple as that.”
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“So I should be grateful she's treating me like a cat toy instead of a mouse?” she growled. “Is that it?”
“I believe – I believe she came to see you but something distracted her each time.” He rested his head against the wall instead. Dust clung to the jet back strands held back in a low ponytail by a thin red hairband. “The first time, I believe she was going to rescue you from the Cunninghams before they disappeared again. They were going to abroad that day, weren't they?”
But that was for my birthday. I was the one who said I wanted to go to New York.
“After that, you went to different foster homes. It was hard to find out where they'd sent you each time.” At some point, his legs had folded up towards his chest too, hands seeking refuge in his pockets. “I'm not sure what distracted her the first time but this time … it might have been my fault.”
“How?”
“She probably knew I was coming for you too.” He shook his head and drew in a deep breath. “I think the reason she came back after all this time has something to do with the mark on your neck.”
Satara clapped a hand to the area before she could control herself, muffling a hiss as her chest groaned at her. So he was the one who cleaned the blood and patched me up. He saw me –
“What about it?” It wasn't the question she wanted to ask but her flushed face had probably relayed her thoughts to him already.
“I've told you one half of the story. I need you to believe me before I can share the other half.” He turned to her again as if her features were a shelter in the middle of a storm. “Did you ever see Saytarnia do anything that seemed impossible?”
What's he talking about –? Memories of Saytarnia cleaning her blade with a hand and remaining blood free afterwards interrupted her thoughts. The lights in the Cunningham house that had simultaneously blown. The agonising heat of her sister's touch as her palm pressed against her neck in the training hall. The strange buzzing that seemed to have all been in Satara's head.
“It seems like you have.” Sinastar smiled wearily. Sympathetically. “That should make this a little easier –”
“Prove it.” Satara dug her nails into the wide plaster stuck to the curve of her neck. He stared at her, brow faintly furrowed. “Prove you're who you say you are. That this secret homeland even exists. Give me a reason to believe you. If you can't, then let me go back to the Langs.”
He shifted to face her, crossing his legs again and leaning forward on his thighs.
“How did you know Saytarnia's name? Did the Cunninghams tell you? If you made it up, why do I know her name too?” He paused between each question and gave her ample time to refute him. “Why would a stranger do this much research just to bring you here and tell you stories you wouldn't believe? If I wanted to kidnap you instead of take you home, I would've gone about it very differently. Why would the person who murdered your entire family leave you alive and wait six years only to show up again in public?”
“I don't know,” she muttered, turning away from his persistently sincere face and voice. “Maybe you're both from the same psych ward.”
“You've been having dreams since you saw her again, haven't you?” Though his tone was soft, the intensity beneath it cut into her like a surgical scalpel against hardened scar tissue. “Dreams about people and places that are familiar to you. A big house with walls and cherry blossom trees. A man and a woman who look nothing like the Cunninghams.”
Did he hear me sleep talking or something? Her head began to ache. Mum said we had family problems. That's why we couldn't go to Japan for my birthday. Maybe we lived in Japan for a while but I don't remember the people there properly because we left while I was still small.
“Mum told me we had issues with our relatives in Japan.” She pretended not to notice the flicker along his jawline. How his fingers hooked into the fabric of his trousers. “You could've come from there to “make peace” with us. How do I know that's not what Saytarnia did six years ago and things just went wrong?”
“Satara.” Sadness seeped into his stare and spread like blood in a sink of water. “If you don't want to believe me, I might not ever be able to convince you.”
There's no evidence. Nothing solid to prove anything you're saying is true. Her neck stung beneath her fingertips and she relaxed the pressure, biting the inside of her cheek. So why do I –?
“I need to use the bathroom,” she mumbled, releasing herself to brace her hands against the floor and wall.
“I'll see if Jason is back yet.” He stood up at once as if he had been just as keen for the conversation to end. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah.” She rolled onto her knees and used the wall to get to her feet with some kind of dignity.
Her lungs weren't as crowded as they had been before and she drew in a deeper breath. The pictures and words buzzing in her skull had also faded a little.
“I won't be long.” By the time she was able to turn away from the wall he had already left.
She approached the window first, then headed for the doorway. A flight of stairs cut across the hallway from her left. She peered down the stairway but Sinastar was long gone. I wasn't standing by the wall that long, was I? She turned right and walked until she came upon a ladder leading to the roof. This is going to hurt … She pressed her teeth together and breathed through her nose before grabbing the first rung and climbing up.
By the time she reached the top, she was sweating and gasping for air, holding herself together with both arms. She leaned against the door until it opened and ignored the red and white sign stuck to it which stated 'No unauthorised persons beyond this point'. There were no rails on all sides, no safety measures, to keep anyone away from the edges of the roof. As if the owner of the warning sign expected to be obeyed without question.
The grey sky loomed above and accentuated another tower of flats beside the one beneath her. She staggered onto the roof, towards edge directly opposite the door, and the town rose up to greet her. The distant clamour of living that had been muffled by the walls of the room was only a little clearer without them. Cars and buses moved up and down the roads like rapid bugs of various colours scurrying along flattened grey twigs fixed to the ground. The people below were even less distinct. Enlarged weevils in flour contaminated by wasted products.
I'm just one of those weevils. So are Sinastar and Saytarnia. And Jason. She moved closer. The same amount of air wasn't sufficient up on the roof. She opened her mouth to breathe better. Everything seems insignificant. The lies. The truth. All of it. Like it doesn't matter but really it does.
The ground was a lot further away than she expected it to be. High rise flats had never seemed so tall when seen from below. There's no way my family kidnapped me. If I remember anything, it must be bits and pieces from before we moved here. Why would they look after me so well if they were kidnappers? Why would they come all the way to some secret land just to get me? If they really wanted a kid, they could've adopted one here. It might've taken a while but that's nothing compared to flying across the world and stealing one.
She didn't believe Sinastar. She didn't want to believe him. But fragments of her past clawed their way to the forefront of her thoughts, vengeful after being caged in her subconscious for so long and mercilessly pedantic in their mission to provide evidence she had no desire to see.
Her throat hurt from crying. The bed sheets scratched her skin but it was too cold to kick them off. She couldn't smell anything properly and the closed window blocked out the night air. She scrubbed at her eyes with both hands and the sticky fluid that dripped from her nose just made everything worse as it dried on her skin.
“Baby?” The lady who had looked after her for the past few days poked her head around the door.
Her long black hair was loose and wavy, not straight and twisted up into a bun. Her eyes were the wrong colour even in the dim lighting. She sat beside her and stroked Satara's shoulder. “Are you feeling sick?”
“Not – Not baby,” she sobbed, holding the back of her wrists to her face.
“Of course you are,” crooned the woman called mum. “You're my baby.”
“Not baby. 'm – I'm Tara.” Her upraised arms framed the lower half of the woman's face and highlighted the displeased clench of her teeth before she smiled through them. “Sa-ta-ra.”
“Okay, okay,” she murmured in the same soothing tone. She reached into the drawer closest to the bed and pulled out a sachet, turning away to mix its contents into the glass of water on top of the drawers. She held it out to Satara once she was done. “Here, have your medicine. You'll feel much better afterwards.”
<><><><><>
“They've been too quiet, Chris.”
Satara stopped outside the door and held her stomach with one hand, reaching up to grab the door handle with her other. One of her uncles was inside. She couldn't remember if his name was Dave or Joe.
“It's not like they can do anything to us.” Her dad seemed unperturbed by the conversation, his tone as calm as ever. “They're miles away.”
“That didn't stop the other one, did it?” Her uncle's voice grew louder and quieter in turn. “She's been off the island before, hasn't she? What if they send her after us?”
“They wouldn't do that. We've got leverage. They haven't. And even if they tried anything –” Her dad sighed as if he were shrugging. “– they can't find us. Not here.”
“You haven't heard what happened over at Thomas', have you?” Her uncle's voice stopped moving around and instead rose in synch with his apparent level of agitation. “His wife –”
He fell silent suddenly and footsteps approached the door. Satara backed away without knowing why and squinted in the artificial light as it poured onto her face. Her dad's figure blocked it again as he smiled down at her.
“What's wrong, sweetie? Is your stomach hurting again?”
She nodded and froze as he bent to pick her up with both hands.
“Did you have your medicine?” He was smiling but there was something strange about his face. He held her gently to his chest, one arm beneath her thighs, the other braced against her back, but she didn't feel safe.
She shook her head and spoke under her breath. “Don't like it.”
“Awh. But it's good for you, sweetie.” He nodded towards her uncle, whose features were also twisted into a friendly expression. “Uncle Dave drinks that funny tea he doesn't like because it's good for him too, right?”
“Yeah, it's horrible.” Uncle Dave rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and his eyes darted all over the place when she didn't react. “You should listen to your dad, sweetie.”
“Want me to get your medicine with you?” Her dad laughed softly as she half shook her head and half nodded. “Come on. Let's get you back upstairs. Say bye to your uncle now.”
Uncle Dave waved at her and smiled a little wider when she lifted her hand. Her dad carried her back upstairs, though not before she heard her uncle mutter to himself.
“Christ, did she hear that?”
<><><><><>
Janie tilted her head to one side, eyes narrowed.
“What?” mumbled Satara, colouring the dragon's wings blue and struggling not to go out of the lines. “What're you looking at?”
“I'm trying to see if you look more like your mum or your dad.” She wrinkled her nose.
“Oh.” Satara scowled as the blue pencil colour slid to one side and the dragon bled like an alien. “So what do you think?”
“I dunno. You don't really look like any of them.” Janie shrugged as their eyes met. “It's weird. Like, you have small eyes like aunty but they're a different shape. And your hair's super straight too. And you're like a different kind of brown.”
“Isn't that racist?” she muttered, looking for her rubber. They had spoken about racism in school the other day and someone in class had laughed at her when she didn't know which country her parents were originally from.
“I'm not saying it's a bad thing.” Janie wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. “There's nothing wrong with being different. Everyone's different from someone else.”
“I know.” Her rubber was on the floor next to her cousin. Satara turned the trickle of blood into a bolt of lightning.
“Hey, what if you're adopted?” Janie's voice lit up.
“I'm not adopted.” The lightning started bleeding too.
“I know, I know, but still –” Her cousin let go of her own legs to lean closer. “Wouldn't that be cool? What would you do if you were adop-?”
“I said, I'm not!” she snapped and the half coloured picture trembled in front of her until she took a deep breath.
Janie was quiet for a moment before shuffling closer on her knees. She pointed at the blue smudge next to the dragon's wing.
“Wow, that's cool. How come the fire's blue?”
Satara picked up a black colouring pencil and started outlining flames over the ruined lightning.
“Because there's nothing wrong with being different.”
He's telling the truth. So was Saytarnia. The feral cat of her doubt leapt off her chest and left her light and utterly vacant. She breathed out unsteadily and tilted her head back to absorb the indifferent emptiness above. It makes sense. Why I always had to come home straight after school. Why they wouldn't let me stay out with friends. Why they only let me get close to Janie but none of the other kids. Why we never moved house even though dad got a new job. Why mum didn't have many friends over either.
Clouds rolled over the weak morning sun and she offered them a skeletal smile. They're not even my mum and dad. The Langs are strict too but even they never keep an eye on me like my family did. Even though they know I saw my family murdered and the culprit got away. I thought it was because they didn't care as much as my real family but … they're not my real family either, are they? My real family are –
She remember the heated metal scent of Saytarnia's skin as her sister whispered in her ear. The way Sinastar looked away and avoided some of her questions. She closed her eyes for a moment. The sky had never given her answers. She didn't expect it to start doing so now. She placed a foot on the edge of the roof and the space stretched out below sang like a welcoming silence. She might have been looking for answers in the wrong place.
Perhaps the ground would give them to her instead –
– A hand clamped around her elbow and pulled her around to face Sinastar. The breath caught in her thoughts like a brain freeze caused by oxygen deprivation instead of the cold.
“Satara?” He spoke her name as though it were a question but judgement split his gaze earthquake-like and left a devastating awareness across his face in its wake.
“What?” she said once she was able to speak again. His fingers formed a cage of bones around her arm and the brewing conversation turned her stomach like something rotting at her feet.
“That – that's not the way home.” His breathing shook as though he had run up every single flight of stairs in the building, words carved into his posture like invisible scars only she could read.
“I know.” She twisted her arm but he didn't let go, even when she looked down at his hand. “Can you –?”
He pulled her back towards him slowly, away from edge of the roof, and for a moment his step faltered as if he were about to pass out.
“Hey …” She lifted her arm just in case but his low plea distracted her along with the lightning bolts of pain shooting down her side and across her upper body.
“Please let me take you home.” His voice remained steady but his gaze quivered and roved her face with the desperation of a plane crash survivor crawling through a desert in search of water.
I wasn't going to do anything. She almost reassured him. Almost offered him the relief he was so obviously looking for. But she didn't know him nor owe him that. Unless he was telling the truth.
“What if I don't want to go home?”
“Where else would you go?” he murmured. His eyes flitted towards the edge of the roof.
“Back to the Langs.” She tried to pull away again. His hold loosened but remained iron-like.
“Why don't you call their house your home?” The question was a charred stake poking her in the chest.
“Because I don't have a home any more.” A stake that had burned after touching her. “Saytarnia, your cousin, made sure of that, remember?”
“You do have a –”
The door to the roof swung open and they both turned to look, the conversation momentarily blotted out by the potential threat.
“What the heck –” The handles of the white bag containing their breakfast rustled in Jason's fist as it tightened at his side and thunder rumbled through his features. “– are you doing?”