14.

When I woke up my entire body was aching. I figured I must've had a bad dream and tried to reach for my blanket, only to discover I was naked on a table.

"Holy virgin Mary!" Someone yelled and to my surprise, I was in a morgue.

"Harry!" The woman yelled, a woman with black hair and brown eyes with a small face, she was gorgeous despite looking terrified. A tall, skinny man with red hair came into my vision, as I noticed how cold it felt. To make this situation even worse, I was naked, now it was my turn to look terrified.

"So I was shot, three times and the entire thing was all over the news," I simply put together the entire story.

"Yes, and you were declared diseased until, well, until you scared Anya to death," Harry said.

"So what now?" I looked at Harry and Anya, not knowing what would come next. "We could send you to your mother's place," Anya said.

 "You deserve some rest after all of this, throwing you back into the system wouldn't be the right thing."

"And bringing in the media attention to that wouldn't help either," Harry added.

Just like that, I was dropped off in the Bronx, after twelve hours of driving in a van with black windows so no one could see me. For the first time in years, I rang the bell to my mother's apartment.

"Jade," my mother brought out and hugged me. She seemed relieved yet not surprised. 

"Hi mom," immediately she brought me inside. I walked into the living room, with the floor finally finished and my old bedroom carpet laid like a rug, the black leather couches and the old tv that would hurt my eyes showed my picture along with the other children who used to live in Summerville.

They showed pictures Lillith and I took, my school picture, and I just stood there, seeing what the news was about while former classmates, Lillith and Jake talked about me. Before I could read or hear what they said my mother changed the channel.

"Sit down Jade," my mother said and she poured me a glass of whiskey, handed it to me and I sipped the whiskey as I used to do when I was a little child.

"Mom, I should be dead by now, why aren't you at least shocked to see me?" I asked when I finished my glass and my mother already has gotten up to pour me another glass.

"Jade, I would love to explain but it isn't my place."

"Then who's place is it?" I wanted to know. I should have been dead, with all of them."

"There's something about your father I didn't tell you, Jade, please rest today, and I'll explain it tomorrow." 

"Okay," I felt tired, still hurt and heartbroken, confused and my body was aching. As my mother handed me a plate with dinner while my life the past months went through my head. 

When it was in the middle of the night, and my mother finally drank enough to gain the courage she started to talk while she started to talk out of nowhere.

"Did I ever tell you about our family, the Mercier family?" 

"No."

"We have... Abilities. Your older sister Esmeralda has no gifts, she is just herself, your sister Odette, she sees. She sees the dead, ever since she told me I told her not to talk about it with others, just like I told you when you were young, maybe too young to remember."

"Why shouldn't she?" 

"Because people fear what they don't understand."

"And I had dreams, things that didn't happen yet, or even before I happened, as if I was there, I knew languages I never spoke, I know France and Spain as if I lived there hundreds of years ago," my mother explained while looking into the flames on the candles she lit earlier.

"Well, I never had any of that."

"No, you are more, you always knew things you couldn't know, it has always been as if someone whispered knowledge in your ears, and with some people, you can partly read their minds, energy, whatever you want t call it."

"How did you..."

"Because you are a healer, someone who can feel it when others hide their hurt, so much you will feel as if you're hurt yourself sometimes. You have more feeling for some than others, but the moment I saw you with that boy I knew you found one of those people."

"But mom, what does any of that have to do with this situation?" I wanted to know.

"That, honey, is the gift your father gave you, or better said his curse, tomorrow you'll meet him."

"But he was dead." 

"So were you a few hours ago," my mother finished her drink and fell asleep while I was left wondering what was real and what wasn't.

The next morning it felt strange to wake up in my old room, or better said, my sisters' old room which I later took over.

We moved here when I was eight, and in the first place, this room was given to my sister Odette, who painted it in the ugliest shade pink I had ever seen, the other room I shared with my mother. When she was sixteen she moved out to live with her father, because my mother couldn't take care of any of us when she had breast cancer. 

This room never felt like mine, it still looked like her room, aside from the fact that this room was also used as a storage room while the both of us have left the house. The first thing I noticed was how cold the house was, even before I noticed what room I woke up in, but seeing this room as I opened my eyes made me feel weird. 

Throughout the years of living in group homes I got use to the sterile white walls, the central heating and lack of personal items around. It felt weird to have color on the walls, to feel this cold, and to know I was at a place I was supposed to call home, but felt like something completely different. 

When I had to come out of bed, my mother was dressed nicely, usually she only did that when we had to go to court, today it would be for something entirely different. 

"Good morning," she said while she was watching some crime documentary. 

"Morning," I walked into the livingroom still in my pyama. 

"Are you ready to eat breakfast?" 

"No, you know I don't do breakfast, it makes me feel sick," I replied and sat down on the leather couch while I looked at the tv, wondering if I have seen this episode before.

"You know you could gain weight by skipping breakfast," my mother said while she poured me a glass of whiskey. 

"And you know that I don't care." I took the glass of orange juice she handed me.

"Your choice honey, all I say is that some day it will be too late and then you'll care," my mother ended her criticism on my body and weight. 

My father came with a boy my age, he looked like the younger version of my father, they were both tall, Native American, while my father had short hair, wore a black suit and had brown eyes the boy had the exact same eyes as I had, grey, seemingly changing with his mood.

"Ahiga, meet your daughter, Jade," my mother said while the heads of my father and the boy next to him turned my way. My father had the same cheekbones I had, and while he looked like a gentleman of old pictures, he looked at me with curiosity, the same look was in the boys eyes.

"Jade, please sit, we have a lot to talk about," he said with warmth in his voice, as if he already accepted me. As I sat down my mother gave me a glass filled with whiskey. "Jade, this is your brother, your twin brother to be correct."

"Sebastien," the boy said while he held his hand in the air to shake mine. I shook his hand. "Jade."

"So, Jade, would you be okay with leaving to one of our houses in Europe?" My father asked after two hours of talking.

"I guess it would be the smartest option since I'm all over the news here." My father smiled. "I know, people get scared by what they don't understand."

My items would be sent to my mother, for now however, I barely had any clothes. Today I would leave to another continent with the clothes on my back, leaving behind all I liked and all I hated about my life here. I would start as if none of this existed, the only question was if I could ever forget any of this.