“What’s got you so worked up tonight, Li-Li?”

Liam raised his gaze from his carton of Chinese takeout, which he had only been poking absentmindedly with his chopsticks for the past several minutes, and glanced across the living room at his sister, Jezebel. Her head was quirked to the side, her short brown hair framing her face and showcasing her one raised brow that begged for some sort of explanation. It was rare for her brother to be this quiet, this silent, no matter the time or place. Even when he was sick and on strict orders not to talk, that wouldn’t even stop him from letting some words slip. He hated the silence.

Which confirmed all of Jezebel’s worries without ever saying a word. “Some idiot customers at The Nook again, or what?” she wondered, setting aside her takeout carton on the table next to her end of the couch. She knew the answer before she even asked the question, though; idiot customers at The Nook always got Liam fiery and bitchy, talking a hundred miles a minute. Or complaining a hundred miles a minute, at least. Either way, they never kept him silent.

Liam made an indecisive sound in the back of his throat but shook his head, taking once more to poking around the chicken and rice in his little container. He chewed on his lower lip for a good minute, sighed, glanced up from his cooling food, and paused. “I…” he stuttered across his words for a minute, gaining a well deserved furrowed brow from his sister. This is stupid, he settled with another shake of the head, resolving with a half-hearted smile, “It’s nothing.”

Jezebel cackled and kicked her bare feet up onto the coffee table, propping one ankle over the other. “Come on, baby brother, I didn’t order in a dish of bullshit for dessert,” she countered, crossing her arms against her chest. “Spill. Now. School, work, boys, come on, I’m not blind and it really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell something’s got you all hot and bothered right now.”

“I’m fine, Jezzy, really,” he insisted.

“Lies, you’re blocking your real thoughts, I know. Your thoughts are never this carefree and happy, not even on your birthday.” She smirked at Liam’s jaw that shot open in an offended manner. “Nice try,” she added, “but no.”

With a defeated sigh, Liam slumped his shoulders and sunk deeper into the tattered couch cushion. Setting aside his food, he unraveled, letting down his defenses that he had foolishly hoped would trick his sister. They never worked, but he figured they might as well be worth a shot. Even if she knew they were fabricated, maybe she’d at least have the courtesy to take a hint and realize that Liam doesn’t want her to know what’s really on his mind.

But no, Jezebel never was one for taking a hint. And so, Liam let down his guard, sent away the conjured nothings, and watched as his sister’s brows twitched while she took in the new information, watching as she dove headfirst into his thoughts.

Her eyes widened. “Shit, are you okay?” was her first line of thought, at which Liam sighed and nodded.

“I’m fine, save a little scrape or two.”

But that’s not the problem, he told her, voicelessly drawing her back in.

A crease dented itself along Jezebel’s brow as she plowed through the events of her brother’s afternoon. The plain, albeit interesting, thoughts of the random passersby, the sudden impact as the bike took him out from behind—a sudden pain that she herself could feel—the chaos, the confusion, the kid fussing over him with uncertainty, the fright at how new his voice was to not only his ears but also his mind, the uncertainty, and the silence.

“So what?” Jezebel asked and shook her head, brows knotted together even more than before. “I don’t get it, you ran into another Maeroksigne? What’s the matter with that? You know Mom said there are tons of us now; it’s not unheard of for somebody new to pop up in the area. He easily could have—”

“No, it’s not like that, Jez!” Liam interrupted, voice raising an octave. He stared at his sister for several seconds, hoping, really hoping she would understand and save him the explanation. But she only shook her head, lost by her brother’s unhelpful thoughts. Huffing, Liam scrubbed mindlessly at his face and started in the best way that he knew how. “The kid, he’s not… He’s not like us. It wasn’t like when we block out our thoughts. Even when we do, there’s still something, you know?”

She nodded. She did know. It was one of the things she hated most, that no matter how trained you were, no matter how long you had been working to cover up your thoughts, to build a wall, to protect yourself, you never were. Not fully. Not one hundred percent. You could try for ages to perfect the art of thought concealing, maediro, but you never would. Even the most powerful of the Maeroksigne, the most powerful that anyone knew of, could never entirely seal themselves off from others. The thoughts themselves could be covered up, the feelings concealed, but you always knew the others of your kind. You could always tell. When you tried to listen, you wouldn’t get any thoughts, but you wouldn’t get any silence either. There was always a faint little buzzing, an alarm of a sort, that told the invader to back away, to give up, that he was only wasting his time. It was a pain in the ass, as far as Jezebel was concerned. It made you always vulnerable. If you were concealing thoughts you were obviously trying to hide something or from someone. What was the point if the only people who could hear your thoughts anyway, could just as easily know you’re one of their own? What a vicious circle.

“Jez, he wasn’t maediro, he wasn’t.”

Jezebel raised her eyes from the little knick on the coffee table she had been so intensely staring at while grumbling to herself, and met her brother’s. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“Positive. There wasn’t a buzzing, there wasn’t a hum,” Liam continued with a shaking head. A look of terror had settled itself into his eyes. “There was nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. It was absolute silence.”

“But that’s not even possible,” Jezebel replied bluntly.

Liam swallowed thickly, the lump in his throat unmoving. “Like I don’t know that?” he bit back, crossing his arms over his chest and setting a glare upon the television set. The set was muted, nothing more than a bunch of flickering, bright, obnoxious images flashing upon the screen, and any outsider might say that Liam was pouting because of it. But his eyes weren’t looking at the television, not really, and his thoughts were far from anything in the room, the gears of his mind working a hundred miles a minute, maybe even a second. His teeth sunk into his lower lip like they always did when he was pursuing an answer that wasn’t there, yet trying to find it regardless.

It was a stance Jezebel knew better than to break, not with a word, not with a gentle touch. So she waited, trying to tag along with his dashing thoughts but swiftly falling behind. With a sigh, she resolved to wait like a normal human, away from her brother’s mind, out of his thoughts. It’s not as though she had much of a choice, though. She clearly was not welcome.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Liam finally spoke up, nearly a quarter of an hour later. He turned and met Jezebel’s gaze. “He was right there in front of me, right there, and it’s like he didn’t even exist. Not a thought, not a word, not a single letter. I couldn’t hear or feel anything, Jez.”

That gained an arched brow from the older sister. “His feelings were sealed off, too?”

“Everything,” Liam confirmed with a sure nod, his voice daring upon a wail. “He was completely and entirely blank. I’ve never seen anything like it. A totally blank slate. Nothing.”

“That’s so bizarre,” Jezebel commented, working her jaw as she pondered on the idea for a few moments to herself. And then she wondered, “What if it was you?”

Liam narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Jezebel began and swung around on her cushion, bringing her legs from the coffee table and curling them up beneath her as she turned to face her brother at the opposite end of the couch. “What if it’s not necessarily him who’s the problem, what if it’s you?”

His eyes rolled. “I could read everyone else just fine,” he replied, unimpressed. “I think it’d be pretty obvious if I just suddenly couldn’t read people.”

“I didn’t mean everyone,” Jez stressed, giving her brother a playful shove. “What I mean is what if you’re the only one who can’t read him? Like, I don’t know, maybe you two have some mysterious bond after he tried to do you in with his mountain bike,” she teased, making a spooky motion with her hands as she spoke.

Liam’s straight face slid off nearly as quickly as hers, and he felt victim to a fit of giggles. “Oh right,” he said between chuckles, “‘cause that makes total sense.”

“Hey, you got any better ideas, Einstein?” she prodded, raising a knowing brow.

Liam hung his head, guilty. “Point,” he mumbled in amiable reply, “but I really don’t think that’s the case. I mean why, have you ever heard of something like that?” He was genuinely curious.

Jezebel preened. “Nope, just pulling shit out of my ass,” she admitted. “But wouldn’t that be cool, I mean? Or oh, shit, what if the special, mysterious bond is a death note sort of deal? I mean, what if you two can’t connect because one of you is out to get the other? I mean, he did already clobber you with his bike.”

“He did not clobber me with his bike,” Liam protested defensively.

“Clobber, bump, tackle, manhandle, to-may-to, to-mah-to,” Jez joked back, cracking a grin and sticking her tongue out in a playful manner. “But seriously, I’d watch your back, baby bro. He might come full throttle at you with a tinted-window SUV next time.”

“Oh please, he’s, like, twelve,” Liam responded wryly. He rolled his eyes and tightened the crossing of his arms. “And besides,” he added on, “there won’t be a next time.”

“You say that now,” Jezebel chided. “Just wait till he comes at you with that monstrous mountain bike again. Who knows if you’ll even live to tell the tale.” 

“I’m shaking like a leaf, truly,” he muttered.

Jezebel reached across the empty cushion between them and jostled his head good-naturedly. Liam batted her hands away, gaining another push until Jez stopped. Abruptly. Her eyes met with Liam’s and her lips curled with a tiny, secretive little smile of the most curious kind as she caught wind of a thought Liam probably didn’t want her to catch. “Oh, so no second meeting unless you initiate it, huh?” she asked, smirking. “I see how it is. He brings the first blow and you plan to retaliate to finish the job and break the mysterious connection once and for all. That’s so sweet of you.”

Liam intentionally ignored her ludicrous out-to-get-one-another ramblings and shrugged, plaintively. “He’s blank, Jez,” he explained, simple and straight. “It’s not even possible.”

“So little Li-Li has to go and investigate, save the day,” Jezebel knew with a sigh. “Always up for a challenge.”

“It’s not a challenge, I just… Hell, tell me you wouldn’t bat an eye if you ran into someone and couldn’t hear a thing.” He looked to his sister expectantly. She opened her mouth to reply quickly in the negative, but she thought about it for a moment and her jaw pinned itself shut with the prospect. She would. If the situation arose, she would be hunting down a person like that in a heartbeat, confused yet intrigued, fueled by her interest. She couldn’t imagine just walking away, letting a person like that—a person with no thoughts—just disappear from her sight.

Which led her to question, “Why didn’t you follow him? Today, I mean? Right after?”

Liam heaved a sigh, lifting his shoulders in an uncertain shrug. “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I just didn’t think to. I was so… stunned and just horrified.”

“Horrified?” Jezebel cracked a grin.

“Jez, it’s a person with no thoughts. It’s not normal. You’d go apeshit too and you know it.”

“Fine, fine, you’re right,” she admitted, holding up her hands in surrender. “I’d probably freak out. I mean, god, you sure did. I feel all… ugh, antsy now. Jesus. Keep your feelings to yourself sometimes, will ya?”

“No one asked you inside,” Liam countered, sending her a glare. And with that, he put up his fabricated thoughts of little nothings once again and locked his sister out with the same message as a teenager slamming the door to his bedroom in his sister’s face. Sometimes he just wanted a bit of privacy. Jezebel didn’t need to know everything, especially not now, not as Liam’s curiosity was appearing to double, triple, quadruple in the matter of minutes. And the plans that were already coming to mind, he knew his sister wouldn’t like them. She’d prefer him to keep well enough alone, despite having admitted to showcasing similar curiosity of her own in such a situation.

Later that night, after parting ways with Jezebel (whom he didn’t escape from before getting a fair warning to just let it be, despite that Jezebel couldn’t smother the eager smile that conquered her lips as she tried to lecture him), Liam found himself restless. Sleep evaded him. He tossed, he turned, he flopped onto his belly, he curled up his legs, he face-planted his pillow, and he finally slammed onto his back with a defeated huff. His eyes situated on the ceiling, he gave up on sleep. His mind was running too fast to slow down.

The kid was all he could think about.

The kid was blank.

Entirely.

Not a single thought could be heard, not a tinge of an emotion could be felt. He was a blank slate, a page with no words, a being with no voice, a song with no sound, a painting with no colors.

It wasn’t natural, and it certainly did not sit well with Liam.