everyone around him dies

Part 2

Admittedly, most attempts at Cale's life weren't quite as dramatic.The curse was slow and insidious, introducing normal dangers into day to day life and giving them a lethal edge.

Cale, well accustomed to living in a state of hypertension, had taken to it like a fish to water.

What he didn't take to as easily was curbing his temper.

Cale had a pretty strict policy about how to deal with scumbags. It went pretty simple. It involved taking the alcohol that they liked to overindulge in and use as an excuse for despicable behavior and smashing the damn bottle over their fucking head.

A bottle smashed all too close to hitting Roksu's fragile body as the old bastard screamed on about the pair of them leaching off of his goodwill and causing him bad luck gambling by their mere existence.

Cale took in a slow and calculated breath.

The important thing is not to lose his shit at this point.

Treat this moment as an opportunity to learn. Listen carefully to what their uncle had to say, gather any relevant information, and use that information to consider the best possible course of action.

And then lose his shit. But with a certain style to it.

He was low on his luck. He'd already burned through all of the children's meager inheritance and as he'd lost most of it, he felt that the eerie children must have been the cause of his runny luck.

Cale smiled.

It was a nasty smile.

"Uncle." His voice wasn't loud but it managed to cut through his rant as Cale stepped neatly between his twin brother and the blithering idiot. Roksu was standing stockstill and despite his impassive expression, Cale could tell by his shaking eyes that Roksu was currently paralyzed with fear. "Would you like to lose more than your money?"

It was a threat. An overt one at that. A sane or sober man ought not to have considered the six year old child's threat as nothing more than a child's over-inflated ego. This bastard had left drunk behind a few hours ago and now he was in the far reaches of alcohol poisoning within which he really might not survive to see another day.

Cale knew he would though. It was never the real bastards who actually drank themselves to death. They drank other people to death.

He knew it'd been the right move when he saw the man flinch away from his words, swaying drunkenly as he snarled at Cale far more defensively than he ought to. In all reality, Cale was nothing more than a scrawny malnourished child and he was an adult with enough heft to merely smother Cale to death if he so desired.

But Cale had caught the keywords in the drunkard's speech. Creepy and unsettling and all sorts of vaguely religious allusions that spoke of a man who didn't know much about religion but had learned to be superstitious.

Cale had a gift. He'd had it since he was an actual child more than forty years ago. He'd always had a knack for reading people with exceptional accuracy.

He read that this idiot was creeped out by twins. Most especially twins like Cale and Roksu, one with maturity beyond his years and the other with a bright mind masked by an incredible poker face. They probably looked possessed by something demonic to the idiotic old bastard.

Cale was more than willing to use that.

"Don't come near me, you disgusting–" Cale tuned out the rest of his speech and deftly caught the bottle that his uncle threw at him with a fiendish smile.