13 Collision course

"I will find my way," Sylvester responds, shaking his head to the offer and turning around to leave.

Shoving his hand into his pocket, Rai pulls out a little yellow envelope, flinging it at Sylvester.

Holding the envelope between his index and middle finger, Sylvester looks back at Rai.

"What's this?"

A smirk tugged on Rai's lips, "wouldn't you know when you open it?"

Lila reaches out for the envelope, snatching it from Sylvester's hand.

In his arms, she rips it open, a cutout picture falls onto her belly.

Picking one of them, Sylvester narrows his eyes at a chimney cut out, gathering up the rest in his palm, "What's this?"

"Ever played with jigsaw puzzles before?" Rai asks with a smile, amused by the confusion he had created.

"Brother Sylve, what's a jigsaw puzzle?" Lila's squeaky voice interrupts as she blinks repeatedly in confusion.

"It's a lovely game that you can play by rearranging cutout pictures like the one with Sylvester," Rai interjects.

Lila's curiosity is suddenly peaked as she reaches out to find out what the picture could be.

Holding her in his right hand, he raises the pictures with another so she couldn't reach it. "Stop it or I'll drop you, Lila!"

When a glare is shot his way, Rai takes a step back.

Surrendering to Lila's pleas, he nods at her. "At least someone's eager to know what those cutouts could reveal."

Crumbling the cutouts in his hand, Sylvester throws it down and stomps on it.

Rai's mouth gaped open in surprise at what he witnessed before slowly getting frustrated by Sylvester's actions.

He points at the flattened paper, "you didn't even try to see what was in it!"

Sylvester snarls as his eyes glow. "Your tricks won't work on me!"

Pulling out another envelope from his pocket, Rai raises it above his head. "It's a good thing that I have a backup."

Lila giggles, pleased with Rai's words, much to the disappointment of Sylvester.

Instead of cutout pieces of the picture, What Rai puts in front of him was a picture of a house.

From the outside, the house looks snug and comfortable. It has been built with spruce wood and has white stone decorations.

The roof is high and rounded and is covered with wood shingles. Two large chimneys sit on either side of the house.

Lila looks at her brother, pointing at the chimney in the picture. "It's that weird pipe thing in the one you picked up, brother Sylve!"

Not wishing to comment on what he had seen, he tries to ignore the constant tug on his hair by Lila, as she eagerly points at the picture.

Grabbing her hand, he shook his head, "that hurts."

"I'm sorry," Lila mutters, composing herself.

Turning his attention back to a smirking Rai, "I don't understand why you think I would be interested in a house."

Rai looks at the picture, to be sure he was holding the right one and nods his head.

"You don't know this place?" Rai asks, pointing at the picture.

With the way it was asked, Sylvester chooses to reconsider his words.

Repeatedly patting the picture with his finger, Rai had to ask. "You don't know this building?"

Sylvester shakes his head in a no, blinking and looking over to his sister, an awkward silence between the three arises.

Ahem!

Rai clears his throat. "This is the building you're searching for–your parents' house."

Lila looks at her brother and shakes her head in denial. "It's so big! That's not mommy and daddy's house."

'What?! It looks the same as it did a year ag–'

Rai's eyes bulge at the perceived foul play. 'Could it have been that our reality was altered and we didn't realize the change?!'

"Again with altering reality?" Sylvester points out, tilting his head in confusion at Rai's thoughts.

Rai shook his head, refusing to believe that could be the case if Sylvester couldn't recognize it.

Narrowing his eyes at the picture, Sylvester opens his palm. The corner of the picture which was held by Rai rips off, gliding in the air with the rest before landing on his palm.

"We were sold like livestock. They must have gotten a new building immediately." Sylvester scoffs at the thought of that being the reason for his pointless search on their previous home.

Rai stood dumbfounded for a while at the method Sylvester had used to get the picture from him. "You could have just told me you needed a closer look."

Ignoring Rai's words, Sylvester studies the environment around the house in the picture for clues as to where they could be.

Rai covers part of his face as he lets out a chuckle at Sylvester's futile effort.

"It's pointless to deduce that way with your level of variation, you need my expertise for that." He proudly suggests with a grin.

Taking a step forward, Sylvester threatens. "I could break your mind and search through your thoughts."

"Woah! Woah!" Rai takes a step back, waving his hand in front of him, "I just need your help in exchange for the information. We don't need to resort to such extreme measures."

'This wasn't how this was meant to play out!'

Rai offers his hand to Sylvester, "all I need is your word that we could meet up once more in a much better environment and you consider my proposal."

Sylvester stares at the outstretched hand, then looks up at Rai. "Then I get the answer I seek?"

Awkwardly dropping his hand to his side, Rai forces a smile and nods. "That is correct, and I never go back on my word."

Taking out a black digital LED square watch from his pocket, he slowly makes his way to Sylvester.

"It's something I invented myself, so it's 100% reliable," Rai assures with a thumbs up. "The coordinates are saved in it, all you need is to let it scan the picture and it does the rest."

Inspecting the watch, Sylvester hands it over to Lila so she could have a fair share of satisfying her curiosity about the gadget.

"Honey Petals," Sylvester mutters.

Rai cocks a brow in confusion, "an open place? Why a popular restaurant?"

"Brother Sylve and I know the kind ma–"

Sylvester covers Lila's mouth before she could spill more information on their activities, "you don't share your activities with strangers, do you get that?"

Nodding her head obediently, she gave an eye-shut smile.

Before leaving, Sylvester says, "meet us there in two days, alone."

"That's something I can do!" Rai calls out to Sylvester.

He shrugs to the simple instruction, 'There's no way I'd be telling my teammates about this anyways.'

Lila squirms in Sylvester's arms, leaning on his shoulder so she could take a glance at Rai.

With a big smile, she waves at Rai. "Bye-bye!"

Subconsciously waving back, Rai let out a sigh of satisfaction when he witnessed Sylvester sneak into the back of a truck.

Leaning on the wall to catch his breath, he was glad to be alive after a personal encounter with the siblings.

His upbeat mood was short-lived when he turned around to head back but was met with a flying heel on the face.

Wham!

Flying across the road, Rai skids and tumbles along the ground, uncontrolled.

Colliding with a nearby parked car, his head shoved through the windscreen, a painful cracking tone resounds as the glass shatters from the enormous pressure from the attack.

A trail of blood dripped across his face as he slowly raises his head to look at the attacker's face.

The ringing sound of the car slowly fades away as his vision blurs and his hearing deteriorates.

...To be continued.

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Author's note

¶ How did you visualize that flying heel on the face?

¶ Do check out the weekly auxiliary chapter[Bonus chapter task] to know how you can participate.