Zee and Todd

Zee:

Todd noticed something strange about Zee’s expression, she knew it. Her devilish smile she gave whenever she liked to taunt him wasn’t that evil and she knew that she had a distant look on. Zee was lying on her bed in the late night hour, still dressed in her nice top and her make up was a bit smeared from her rubbing her eyes.
“Zee… is everything alright?”
“Besides my parents arguing in the kitchen? Sure everything is alright.”
“Parents always do that, it’s like their God given gift to embarrass their kids and argue when they’re off to bed.”
Zee rubbed her left eye and laughed agreeing to his remark. Todd asked again what was wrong and Zee looked away. The night would have been perfect, if three things didn’t happen. The night started off with Zee and Jack going off to the movies. Jack was blasting his music and the car windows were down. They probably annoyed their neighbors, but it didn’t matter. Zee was just happy to finally have a fun night out with her brother.
They rolled up to the theater and he opened the door for Zee asking if she was ready for cheesy space alien blood battles. She pretended to hold a space weapon and pretended to destroy a fake alien. They laughed and left for the theater. Jack bought a large popcorn and two drinks for the movie. The movie didn’t start for another fifteen minutes, but they lived up the time talking.
The night so far was going great, till the first problem showed up. Todd and Rosie entered into the theater. Zee noticed them right away but pretended to watch the early commercials. Jack leaned over and asked why they were there and Zee rolled her eyes. Todd had been watching Jack the past few days ever since he confronted Zee about the whole Carter thing. She just wanted to forget all about it. Jack slightly turned around to see them sit behind the two a few rows back.
“Twenty bucks that she has binoculars with her,” Jack smiled.
“Jack, this is Rosie. The girl who lives basically in the ghetto. She probably has a tazor and an entire pizza hidden in that little bag of hers.”
“True…”
The movie started and the movie was perfect. The perfect amount of cheesy violence and computer generated aliens and perfect hot guys saving the universe. The movie ended rather quickly, but it didn’t matter. Jack and Zee left as the credits came up so that they could beat the crowd of cars leaving the theater. Todd and Rosie stayed behind, and Zee was happy. She didn’t want her annoying cousin following her around. The night had cooled down rather quickly and Zee was hungry for dinner.
“I’m hungry,” Jack said reading her mind, “want to go find that hamburger stand by the park and walk around for a bit?”
Zee smiled liking the plan and they drove the car off to the park. They parked and started walking. The burger stand was just about to close, so they were able to get some burgers just in time. Zee remembered when her dad used to take her out to the park and they would get the same greasy hamburgers. She would always get double cheese and lots of catsup. Jack got a basic hamburger and laughed as Zee quickly licked up the catsup that was spilling out of the bun.
“Do you have enough hamburger for that catsup?” he joked giving her some napkins.
Zee rolled her eyes and they started walking. It was quiet for a bit while they ate. The main brick path that led through the park was mostly bare. There were other couples walking hand and hand on the path and a man jogging. The lights on the side of the path cast strange looking shadows onto the red path ground and buildings around the park were slowly shutting down. It wasn’t fun to be in the city and expected to see some stars. All of the light pollution ruined the view that they got when they were at home.
But the breeze felt nice, even if it was a little cold, and Zee loved the chatter of the wind pressing against the leaves on the trees. Jack tossed his garbage into a trash can and took Zee’s hand. He then gave a strange smile and ran off dragging her behind. She had some trouble trying to keep her balance and she kept spitting out her hair that flew into her mouth.
“Where are we going?!” she growled as they went off the main path.
He only laughed and continued to run through a hidden woods path. They kept moving and going deeper into the park woods. Zee didn’t even know that the park’s woods went that deep, especially since it was in the city area. It was as if they were somewhere else and running through someone else’s woods. Suddenly he stopped and Zee could hear water.
They were by the river. She forgot that the woods lead up to the river, but the main paths lead away from the river. The city’s reason was to keep kids from throwing trash into the river. Those teenagers would use anything for a trash can. They were no different in the past as they were then. As they drew closer to the water, Zee noticed something different to the way how Jack held her hand. His hand wasn’t hard like it was before, but gentle and safe.
He pushed through some more branches and Zee saw a small dip in the landscape. There was a slight clearing with tall grass by the river’s edge and a small water fall that splashed against some rocks below. The sun was setting and the view of the tranquil area was starting to disappear. Zee didn’t want to take out her phone so that she could see, but just as she reached for her phone, as if on cue, thousands of fire flies filled the air.
The thousands of lights twirled and flew around in the air giving off their yellow green glow to the land as if playing a song.
“Jack! This is so beautiful! How did you find such a place?” Zee said she twirled around in the tall grass.
His look was strange as he looked at her. He looked away saying that he was wandering around one day and found this place. Zee smiled and grabbed her brother’s hands showing him the fire flies.
“Look at all of this though! It’s just like magic!”
Jack’s hands then felt strange in hers. They were clammy and she could feel his pulse rise. It reminded her of the time that he was telling her that he was thinking about joining the army. He never went through with it in the end, but he was so nervous and didn’t even really want to tell anyone of his thoughts.
“Jack?” Zee asked turning to look at him, “is everything alright?”
Then suddenly everything stopped, the fireflies seemed to stop, the water fall’s noise, everything was gone.
Jack was kissing Zee.
Not like the family peck on the cheek as they left the house or the forehead kiss from dad, but a full blown kiss on the lips. The second thing that went wrong that night. At first Zee didn’t know what to think, she was shocked and mad, yet she liked it. She had to correct her thoughts for a second. She liked her brother kissing her?! But then her thoughts changed to when she was six. That was different. This was different. He was different.
Her mind then finally connected with her hands as she pushed him hard onto the ground. In the light of the fire flies she could see her brother’s expression. He had a strange look on his face and Zee gave him the worst look ever. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and spit onto the ground and demanded to know what that was. Then she saw it. His eyes. They weren’t blue like they were before, but a strange shade of gray.
Zee took a step back as he quickly got to his feet telling her to stop. He had an arm out as a friendly gesture saying that it was alright, but Zee knew it wasn’t alright.
“Zee, please-”
“Who are you?! Who on earth are you?!”
“Zee, please, I won’t hurt you!”
“Stay away from me!” She took some more steps behind her.
“Will you please listen to me!”
“Why should I listen to any word you say, Jack?! Or should I say, Carter!?”
He had the most disturbed look on his face. Zee wondered for a split second if the look was of realization that she knew who he was, but then the body posture changed. He was mad but heartbroken.
“Is that what you and Todd have been thinking this entire time?! That I’m that mad man?!”
Zee stopped backing up. His eyes were crushed by what she said. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.
“I’m a soldier, a spy against what that man has been doing these past years! My family’s job is to make sure that no rogue magic user will ever hurt the world again like Carter did to the world twenty five years ago!”
“Then where’s Jack? My brother?!”
“Jack ran away six years ago! I have no idea where he is!”
“Then why are you him?! Who in their right mind would ever take over the place of someone’s family member?”
Jack… or the man pretending to be him gritted his teeth and turned his head harshly away from Zee. She couldn’t understand why anyone would do such a thing. Did that mean that this guy was also a wizard too?
Jack looked up right into her eyes, “I have the same curse as Carter. I can have anyone else’s face but my own and I was tired of roaming around just waiting for my curse to leave. I then saw you, alright? I saw the little girl that needed a brother and knew that she was heart broken when she found her brother missing. I first saw this as a break. A break from running around and searching for magic users to being part of a family again.”
He then looked away saying that those feelings changed later on. He selfishly wanted the family and didn’t want to leave. He never had a family life ever like the one he had with Zee’s and didn’t want to lose that. His parents and co workers were getting on his case about getting back to work when he finally saw his excuse to stay. He saw that he was able to get on the inside of Carter’s gang that he had been requiting for, by staying as a teenage magic user. He was able to gain their trust and follow them from the inside.
“Three years ago I had all the information I needed and my coworkers gave me a new assignment. I then realized that I couldn’t leave. I was too intertwined in the family and I couldn’t leave you. I never realized until a coworker said that I had fallen in love. I couldn’t leave. I just couldn’t…”
The third worst part of the night then happened. Zee had the most awkward silence ever, and he looked up to Zee with hopeful eyes. Hoping that she would accept him, hoping that she would understand. But Zee did the worst thing she could ever do. She looked away, rejecting what he had said. This was all too sudden and she didn’t know what to believe. She pressed her eyes closed wishing that this was all just a bad dream. Zee then slightly looked up to see him turn around and disappear. The fire flies were gone and the waterfall’s water was all that she could hear.
She then took the long walk out of the woods alone. She didn’t know what to say when she saw that his car was still parked in the parking lot. She didn’t have his keys so she took a long bus ride home just thinking that she was just an idiot. An idiot for not seeing this before. An idiot for liking the kiss. An idiot for rejecting him in the end. Zee couldn’t help but think back to that time when her brother had “ran away”.
There was a note that he left behind saying that he was never coming back and Mom and Dad freaked. They searched for him all day but nothing. Then little Zee ran out of the house hollering her brother’s name with tears rolling down her face. She promised to him that she would be a good sister and leave his toys alone and not eat his favorite cereal again. She then heard a voice behind her asking if what she said was true. She turned around and saw her brother carrying a bag and was scraped up as if he was in a fight.
Zee couldn’t help but cry some more to see her brother there. And it hurt even more to see that he wasn’t there when she got home. Mom and Dad were arguing about something and then demanded to know why she was gone all night and where Jack was. Zee escaped to her room not answering their question.
“Zee?” Todd’s voice asked again.
“Oh, its nothing. I’ll talk to you later…”
Before Todd said anything else she hung up the phone and dropped back down to her pillow telling herself that she was an idiot again…