Familiar

Chapter Twenty One

"This," He gestures to himself. "isn't me, Kara." A cold dread fills me. I should have realized what he was saying before, I think, panic setting in again. It's the same thing that's happening to me.

"This," Ryan says again, "was really Eli's body originally." 

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TW: Accident, Death, Guilt

I'm trying to process what he's saying, and I can't. 

It doesn't make sense. 

"You're - You're Eli?" I say, not following. He shakes his head. 

"No, just that - this was Eli's body. My twin's body." Ryan explains slowly.

"So, you're-"

"It's like we've swapped consciouses, but I was - am" He waves his hand in an irritated gesture and runs his hands over his face exasperated. "I'm Ryan, in Eli's body." He says finally. 

I nod, contemplating this revelation. I can't speak, I don't know what to say. 

I grab the hospital bed covers and pull them up to my chin. It feels like a childish gesture to me, but it's comforting, and I'm trying to make sense of everything.

"Why aren't your marks - or Eli's, red?" I ask quietly. Ryan shakes his head.

"I don't know. Maybe they changed back once I took full control, but I honestly don't have an answer for that." He gave me a small smile, as I tried to sort through my thoughts. 

"Are they really tattoo'd over?" I ask. He nods. 

"Yeah, Eli must have gotten it done." 

"Okay, so you didn't have a familiar then? It was Eli's?" I remember thinking back to what he said about Kya. His face turns sad. 

"Yeah, Kya was his. Again, it's all a little unclear." He gestures to his head as if meaning his brain. "I think he traveled with her to that halfway place, the last time." His words die off, and I'm not sure what else to ask. Then I think of something.

"That trick you do with your hands?" I ask the partial question. 

"It's a side effect I guess. I'm always cold. All of me." He shakes his head. "It's uncomfortable, but I've learned to live with it." He shrugs. "I figured out how to do that spell because I was startling people when they shook my hand while doing events." 

He offers me his hand at the edge of the bed. I put my hand into his, and it's like submerging your hand into ice water. Then he shifts slightly and his hand blossoms into warmth. 

"Wow." I say, retracting my hand. "How do you do that?" Ryan shrugs again. 

"I've always been able to do - other things, without performing the spells directly." Ryan look uncomfortable. I nodded.

My mind raced back to growing up with Cayden. I learned I could move things sometimes, if I focused. I remember him crying and I shake my head. Trying to stifle the images. 

"Me too." I whisper, and I look up at him. Shock fills his features, and I knew from my own research, that it wasn't that common. I mean, performing spells, making tinctures, that's direct influence of you doing something, interacting with something. But influencing things on your own - I mean, it wasn't unheard of, but it was still rare. 

"You too?" He asks, frown lines appear behind his eyes. And I realize how tired he looks. 

"Yeah, since I was a kid." He nods, resting his hands on his knees and leaning forward. He seems to decide we can talk about that later.