Nikki's POV

It soon became tradition for Neil to come over into our tree house and be bombarded with questions from us. Even Saturdays.

He would come in, greet our parents and then we would all go to the tree house.

Mike ended up warming to Neil quite quickly after a few meetings. They would talk with each other for hours, not necessarily all about Wagadu or magic but also about normal boy things. I did not warm up to him in anyway and neither did I want to. He may be this charming and charismatic person when he wants to, but he was going to have to do a lot more than smiling and drawing pictures of me to make me think of him as anything other than the boy with obsidian eyes.

When we found out that Neil had not read or watched Harry Potter, we were so appalled that we gave him our books and demanded that he start reading immediately.

“Is this based on a real person?” Neil asked, turning over the book over his hands like a foreign thing. Mike and I looked at each other. Has he been living under a rock his whole life?

“It’s fiction” Mike started to explain “Like it’s not real. Someone sat down and made this up in her head and wrote it down”

“Interesting,” Neil said, turning the book over again until he was staring at the front cover “What’s the point?” Mike and I scoffed, insulted.

“It’s for fun” I said “You know, top tier entertainment?” Neil thought for a while, before making this next statement.

“I still don’t understand”

“Look buddy, it was either fiction or the bible” I said a bit too harshly. Mike shot me a look and I shrugged in reply. It was an open secret that we were not very religious because of our parents. My mother would get so worked up about the simplest things and blame them all on witches and wizards after our lives while my father would just roll his eyes and stay away from her when she was on one of her famous rampages. She would be allowed to do whatever she wanted to do as long as she did not involve us. The fact that nothing happened whenever she swore something would and the vileness and thievery of whatever church we went to cemented the fact of the probability of religion being a farce.

“What do you do for fun?” Mike asked. Neil sat back in the bean bag, his facing falling and avoiding eye contact with us.

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“I do not do anything for fun. Everything I do is to improve on the quality of my life and the life of those around me” The way he spoke was like he was repeating something that had been shoved into his ears many times, Mike noticed it too, his face falling and even I couldn’t help but feel even a little sorry for him.

“Fiction is like what most people call myths” I said, remembering what our father had said when he was talking with us about creations stories and which one was real “It doesn’t matter whether it’s real or not. It’s a truth wrapped inside a lie and sometimes lies are not so bad.”

“So, what’s the truth about Harry Potter and what’s lie?” Neil asked, finally raising his head.

“The truth is that you choose your destiny. You choose what you want to do and it’s not even determined by your family, your past or your blood, or even your soul” when I looked at Mike, he was smiling “And the lie is that you just need a wand to be powerful”

There was a loud silence after my last statement and I hated it. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable when Neil spoke,

“Alright I’ll read it. Just don’t tell my mum” Mike let out a whoop of joy and Neil’s face broke into that his winning smile, like he was the most innocent soul on the planet.

Like he hadn’t almost killed me.

Then it hit me, he wasn’t assigned to just me, he’s just sent when someone was breaking the rules. As I looked at him, I wondered how many people he had killed, people like me who did not know what the fuck they were doing. Mike picked up on my thoughts and glared at me.

What the hell! Neil would never do something like that!

I got up, leaving the tree house “to get snacks”. Before I left, I looked at Neil.

“How sure are we, Mike?” then I turned to look at Mike “How sure are we?”

When I reached into the house, I reached into the fridge to take the bread to make sandwiches. As I worked on the sandwich, I felt something buzzing against my ear. I lifted my shoulder to scratch my ear, as I did not want bread crumbs in my ear. The buzzing came again, I tried to ignore it then it was like someone had punched me in the ear. I dropped the knife and the sandwich I was holding to hold my ear. As I turned, I noticed my mother in the doorway.

Since she came from the visit to her sister’s, she became even weirder. She did not even speak to me, only speaking to my dad and Mike. She would sit somewhere far from me, and just stare at me, like I was something evil. Like if she associated with me, she would get whatever I had. I tried to pretend I did not care, but as annoying and hypocritical as she was, she was still my mother and it stung. It stung a lot.

I felt something liquid drop from my ear. It was blood.

I looked up at my mother, she had this triumphant look in her eye. I used my shirt to wipe the blood.

“What are you doing?” I said panic rising in my stomach. I was not surprised that she also had abilities, but I was surprised that she would use them against me. She did not answer me, then I felt buzzing in my nose. I tried to use my hands to wipe away the blood flowing from my nose and I saw how much my shirt was bloody.

She’s going to kill me. Her eyes were dark and full of malice. She had her hand outstretched towards me, mumbling words I could not hear.

“Mum stop” I screamed, something was hitting my nose over and over again. Blood fell from nose and ears like water from a tap.

Mike! Mike!

For the second time this year, I was going to die.