Paladin

I Feel Like I'm Living His Life

The car ride home was quiet mostly. Which was perfectly find with Illyria. She happened to like the boring silence. She tried to talk to Michael, the Montrose's chauffer-well Duchess's chauffer- but he put the divider up after he accidently caught her mother's in the rear-view mirror.

Illyria decided she didn't even want to talk to Michael.

The car stopped at a four-bedroom house, the most normal (read: boring) looking place in existence with its white picket fence. Umma left the car, frowning and rushed into the house as if her heels were on fire. Illyria felt a sense of foreboding and followed blindly. She walked slowly and paused at the threshold.

"I told you so," Illyria's younger sister, Sofia giggled which only served to irritate Illyria further.

At the top of the stairs, she mouthed I told you so before disappearing from her older sisters' sight completely.

Umma said tersely, from the living room, "You know she learns from you."

Illyria followed her voice, "Now you know that's not true..." She trailed off when seeing a woman sitting in her seat, commanding all attention to her.

"That's my seat," Illyria said, "And what the hell are you doing here?"

"You remember me," The women sipped from her teacup daintily, her lips pursed as she looked Illyria up and down in a critical manner.

"Sit down, Illyria," Umma said in that stern voice of hers, leaving no room for argument.

"Of course, I do," Illyria said vehemently, making no move to sit down. "You're the reason why we had to move."

"That's not how I remember it," She raised an eyebrow and Umma got up to get a paracetamol from the kitchen.

Lord knows she needed it to get through the next three minutes or three hours.

Illyria's father attempted to mediate, "Amanah is only going to be here for a bit. Just sit down and we'll get through this together." Baba's warm smile wasn't what prompted Illyria to sit down, but the fact that her mother came back into the living room with Baklava and ice cream.

Amanah Baten surveyed me the adolescent if she didn't know what to make of her and then she shook herself out of her reverie and at last stated, "She's so...grown."

"That's what people do," Someone should've really taped Illyria's mouth up if they wanted a reasonable conversation. "They grow. And then they grow some more."

"As you can see, we have everything under control so there is nothing to discuss, Amanah," Umma said, through gritted teeth, sounding like this wasn't the reunion she was waiting over twenty-three years for; some people are never happy.

"I don't think you understood the first time I explained this," Ms Baten sighed, obviously on her last nerve, "Your cover has been blown because someone," She looked at Illyria who was digging into her dessert as if she hadn't used her telekinesis on a magnitude that could not be ignored; sooner or later the past was going to catch up with them all, "couldn't keep their powers under lock and key. You are all at risk of being exposed. Just like France."

There was brief silence which was broken when the Father of the Year asked daughter oh-so-gently, "Mon coeur, what happened today at school?"

"What's with all the French?" Everyone ignored Amanah; the female Montrose's had given up at this point with Baba's love of European culture and his...adoption of it.

Illyria had two options. She could tell her parents about her secret boyfriend of a year or so and how she had found out he had been cheating on her in the middle of the hallway. Or she could lie.

She decided to lie.

As a brown girl, lying came easy to her, "I don't know."

This is when Amanah steered the conversation to what she was leading up to, "This is why your daughter needs to go to Champion Academy. She's out of control," She had a point there, "Look, I took a huge risk by coming here. This is out of my jurisdiction. The commander of this cohort was initially going to come here. I had to call in multiple favours from the class of 95 to even be here," Umma and Baba snapped their heads to look at her, "Now are you understanding how close you were from being caught?"

"Do I even have a say in this?" Illyria whined. "What about home-schooling?"

"No," Everyone else said, without looking at her.

Baba and Umma had a silent conversation with their eyes and then Baba spoke first, "I think she's right. Sending Illyria to the Champion Academy means she can hone her ability and give us some time to think about what to do next. If they don't find out what caused the explosion, then more people will come searching for answers."

"At the moment I have control over this case," Ms. Baten said keenly, leaning forward in her seat, "I can manipulate evidence and make it seem like she's an anomaly-like she has actual human parents. I can protect her. Protect all of your identities. If you leave now, more people will just come and pick up on your already hot trail."

Umma groaned, rubbing her hands over her face, smudging her makeup slightly, "And there's no other way to do this?" She asked Baba, grimly, "We can't- we have safe houses. We have actual back-up plans!"

He shook his head, "We should give this a chance. She needs to learn how to control her powers. What if this happens again and they start to notice a pattern? They could track us by her outbursts..."

"I'll go," Illyria said loudly, she didn't mean to hurt Oscar if she was honest (even if he did deserve it) and she didn't want to hurt anyone again if she could help it, "I don't want to leave. This is my fault and...we should stay."

Baba looked surprised as if he thought he would have to drag her kicking and screaming whereas the frown lines on Umma's forehead deepened, the corners of her mouth tugged down, and she looked at her lap where her hands were wringing the bottom of her blazer. Until finally she jutted her chin up and gave a steel nod.

Ms. Baten smiled, relaxing her body into the homey loveseat, "Perfect. I'll get you for your first day of school on Monday. In the meantime, I'll sort everything out with the team base residing in this city and to distort a few facts concerning our newest student."

She got up to go, smoothing her connected suit out and looking at Umma with softer eyes, "This is the only way to do it and you know it. I'll take care of this. I promise."

It hadn't been the first time Illyria heard those words from her Eima.

Umma and Ms. Baten looked at each other, years of longing, hope and not knowing if the other was all right or even alive. They had been sisters once. They still were. They hugged each other after getting over their initial hesitance; Umma made the first move and strode to Amanah. Amanah left soon after, walking outside and leaving the elephant she came in. Umma looked like she couldn't believe what was happening while Baba seemed to have aged ten years before my eyes.

I coughed, slowly getting up from my seat, "Well I should colour coordinate my clothes or alphabetise my books..." Even though her room wasn't even clean, and she had gone paperless a few years back.

"Sit down," Umma suddenly came back to life, her eyes flaring with anger.

Illyria sat back down.

Edited: 19/06/2020