Next-Generation Grimm (A Grimm Fanfiction)

Chapter 9: Sisters; / Epilogue

You'd think it would be easy to recognize your twin. You'd think that another person with your face couldn't possibly be anything else. You'd think somebody would tell you these things after almost twenty years, for crying out loud!

Twin sisters? Seriously? What kind of sick joke kept us apart for our entire lives, and then when we finally meet for the first time, she is so freaked that she tries to kill me?

There were two sets of stairs leading to the front doors of the church, on either side of an elevated landing. She sat on one, I sat on the other. We just stared at each other over a distance of five feet. She spoke first.

"Well, ah, this is—"

"Weird?" I finished. "I know!"

She frowned at me, "Don't do that." She watched me again. Then she asked, "So, um, did you, uh, like know my—know our parents?"

I had never even thought about that; were we separated at birth? Did Dad know that we were twins? Mom must have known; I had not the slightest inkling of the possibility I would ever hear someone else refer to my parents as "ours." I shook my head. "No; they died when I was—"

"Three?" Now it was her turn to finish my sentence, and my turn to be creeped out by it. "Yeah, that's how I remember it, too."

So we were victims of the same home invasion; why hadn't Mau-Mau's friend rescued both babies, instead of just one? Did Mau-Mau know one of us was missing? She never let on that she did. Was this other twin left for dead?

She slowly shifted to the top step and scooted closer to me. Not very much closer, but closer. I could see some kind of scar on her hand. Her nails were short; I wondered if we had the same habits, being twins and all-like biting our nails.

"I'm Raven, by the way," she said at last.

Raven; I liked the sound of that name.
"Brooke," I introduced myself.

Raven scooted just the tiniest bit closer. "So...where did you learn to fight like that?" She brought a hand up to the shiner I had left on her cheek. I didn't see offense, though; she appreciated combat.

Meanwhile, I tried to figure out the best way to sum up the last few months when this girl Raven also had no idea of the twenty years preceding them. "Well, when the foster home where I was raised got ransacked by a pride of Lowen, a Klaustriech named Bergen let me join his crew and taught me what I needed to know."

Raven gave me a disgusted sneer.
"I don't believe this; you ran with Wesen?"

The way she said it, one would think I spent my life in a leper colony. "They're not all bad, you know!" I rose up in defense of my friends. "They taught me that it was in a Grimm's nature to want to help the Wesen, that their skill set was one that could bring balance without the tendencies and urges of a regular Wesen."

Raven snickered darkly. "I'll remember that next time I have to stick a Fuchsbau who doesn't want to help."

I was even more horrified by the fact that she enjoyed the thought than I was at the suggestion itself. "Why would you do that?" I cried. She was looking at the mark on her hand again. Was it some sort of brand? "Raven, who trained you?"

She tossed back her hair with a flip of her head and announced proudly, "The best of the best. I was trained in the same battle school where our parents trained. I grew up in Europe," she bragged. "France, actually."

France! While I had to stay in Oregon. I wondered where we used to live, as a family. Why would one be taken to Europe and the other left behind? I sighed and acknowledged my envy. "Someday I want to go to Europe."