The Barker family home was a mid-sized, wonderfully boring suburban house, a mercifully short bus ride from the campus, in a peacefully cliché neighborhood. In fact, the Barkers themselves were probably the weirdest—the only weird thing about it.

Onyx and I walked side by side from the bus stop to my home, passing several near-identical houses, including hers, just next door to ours. But she did not stop there, instead following me up to my porch and through the door.

“Hi-YA!!”

Right past the threshold, I dived out of the way of a shouting blur, which quickly focused into my younger sister, Shivaya. Younger sister. Eighteen to my twenty years. Can’t well say “little” sister, though, since she’s been taller than me since she hit puberty. Meanwhile, puberty failed to hit me in any significant way.

Now, brandishing a Japanese bokken, that bigger younger sister jumped forth and slashed down at my best friend.

Onyx barely blinked. She sidestepped the strike, caught Shivaya’s wrist, and in an instant, my sibling’s face made forceful acquaintance with the floor. “Ow!” With casual ease, Onyx held Shivaya’s arm twisted behind her back and pressed a knee against her spine. “Argh! Give! Give!” the younger woman slapped the floor.

Onyx did not let up. “Kid, what did I instruct you about surprise attacks?” she spoke evenly. If holding down the struggling athletic teenager was any strain, Onyx did not show it.

“Errr…” Shivaya drawled sheepishly. “Not to… announce them?” But she quickly bounced back. “I got overexcited, okay!? And I’m not a kid! I’m a grown woman with agenda, hopes, and dreams! Now let me up, you Hollywood stereotype!” She wiggled, and Onyx stared, unimpressed.

Shivaya snapped her gaze to me, her dark, rainbow-beaded hair whipping around her face. “Bro! Help! Get your sexy bodyguard off me!”

I knelt down to untie my shoes. “You shouldn’t have attacked her. That’s on you.”

“Treason!” she wailed.

“Survival,” I corrected. “And she’s not my bodyguard.”

“Bullshit! She’s—owowowowow!” Shivaya suddenly writhed in pain on the floor. I glanced at Onyx, who returned a face of blank innocence even as she released Shivaya’s thumb.

The half-Chinese finally straightened up and stepped off. Then, acting as if nothing had happened, she strolled into the house in her gliding runway walk and disappeared into the kitchen. I heard my adoptive mother Aponi’s verbose welcome and Onyx’s monosyllabic response. Meanwhile, Shivaya pirouetted to her feet, dusted off her short bright red skirt, and flipped her wooden training sword onto her shoulder.

“Seriously, Shaya.” I sighed, standing, and put my shoes away on the rack by the entrance. “Why do you keep doing this?”

“Isn’t it obvious?!” She pointed the bokken my nose. “I have to defeat the fierce Amazon in single combat to win the right to court her!”

She spouted that cringe line without an ounce of shame.

This sister of mine… She continually amazed and worried me in equal measures.

I sighed, again, deeply. “Just ask her out normally.” That would be one less temptation to worry about, and then I would be free to limit my freak-outs to Hunter’s sexy abs.

Yeah~ Sarcasm.

“What?!” Shivaya gasped strongly, which did things to her overstretched electric blue top. I’m sure her many girlfriends appreciated it. Personally, it just made me uncomfortable. “And perjure my oath to myself and my pride as a warrior!? How can you say that?”

Always with the theatrics.

I rolled my eyes but declined to comment.

Once again, my lethargy was put in sharp contrast with Shivaya’s constant hyperactivity. I would have wondered if she had hogged all the energy available for both of us siblings, except, of course, we did not share a drop of common DNA… or maybe we did. I don’t know how DNA works.

The point was, Aponi and Gerald had never hid that I was adopted.

I’m not sure how they would have either.

Commander Gerald Barker, former marine, was Afro-American to the very root of his sharply buzz-cut frizzy hair. Similarly, Aponi’s native ancestry jumped out almost aggressively to the eye. That was even disregarding the colorful feathers she loved to intertwine in her hair—remnants of a hippie phase she never truly outgrew. Shivaya looked the part of their offspring too, tall, dark, broad-featured, athletic, and exotic.

Meanwhile, I was short, wiry, and whiter than Hunter’s Irish butt cheeks.

Easiest game of “find the intruder” ever.

Shivaya had been a surprise. The Barkers thought Aponi couldn’t conceive, which was how yours truly entered the picture. Why me and not another baby who could have fit better in the family pictures? Back then, I had yet to get a clear answer.

Be it misdiagnosis or quirk of genetics, however, a little over a year after my intrusion into the family, Aponi suddenly became pregnant, to the utter bafflement of everyone involved. Nine months later, Shivaya came into the world kicking and screaming, loud-mouthed even then.

Although their new biological daughter made me superfluous, the Barkers never neglected me. They raised and loved both of us as equally as they could. As parents, they were as loving and giving as anyone could dream of.

And yet… I could never shake up the feeling that I’d somehow stolen half of the attention Shivaya deserved—like an ugly cuckoo chick invading in her dove nest. So, over time, I let myself fade to the background, leaving her to spread her wings in the space that was rightfully hers.

And yet, the greater she became, the more I feared that one day, they would all wake up and notice the fraud living among them. Meanwhile, I certainly woke up, often, in the dead of night, sweating and tense, half-asleep and wondering if this would be the day the mask fell off and they kicked me out.

I knew. Intellectually, I knew it was irrational. It spoke of my own faults more than any real possibility. But my brain refused to listen. Something was wrong with me. I just knew it, and my subconscious latched on every scenario, no matter how implausible, that might explain this wrongness.

“Aw, bro. What’s with the gloomy face?”

I blinked, realizing I’d been staring off into space.

Suddenly, Shivaya’s arm was around my shoulders. Due to the height difference, the position shoved her right tit into my face. I stiffened but forced myself to relax. I’d never done well with physical contact, but Shivaya was a very touchy-feely person. So I endured because she was my sister, and despite my guilt and fears, I loved her.

Brows furrowed, she stared at my face—bringing hers far too close. Personal space, sis. Personal space!

“Ehh…” Her frown suddenly turned into a leer. “Did you finally jump that beefcake who follows you around like a puppy, and he liked it, and now you’re freaking out about having to the top in the relationship?”

I nearly choked and swallowed my tongue. “What?!” I wheezed. Except, it came out sounding more like “Awhhhhhhhuaaargh?!”

“I knew it!” Shivaya fist-pumped triumphantly.

“What?! No!” I looked around fearfully and dropped my voice to a nervous whisper. “Hunter doesn’t follow me around like a puppy!”

That’s what you’re focusing on?! I wanted to scream at myself.

“Oh, please. Throw him a bone and watch his tail wag.” Shivaya smirked. “I don’t hear you denying the rest.”

I opened my mouth to deny everything thoroughly, but no sound came out.

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. Images came unbidden to my mind, of Hunter in nothing but swimming shorts, a memory from one of the rare times he’d managed to drag me to the pool. The hills of his pecs and abs that went on for what seemed miles, glistening with droplets of light. The bulge in his trunks. What monster was hiding down there?

I ran away from the thought, rejecting the way my body reacted to it.

But I could imagine the controlled strength of his arms, wrapped lovingly and possessively around someone in the afterglow of passion. Someone. Not me.

Never me.

I couldn’t see me there, all wiry and hairy, my erection pressed against his muscular thigh.

My stomach quaked. Bile shot up my throat.

“Bro? Bro! Are you alright!?”

I heard Shivaya calling out to me. But I’d already shoved her away and was racing down the hall and into the bathroom.

“Bro! I was only kidding!” Her voice sounded muffled and distorted, as if underwater. “Shit.”

I didn’t bother to close the door. I dropped to my knees in front of the toilet and hurled out the content of my lunch. I heaved and coughed, head spinning. I felt cold, cold and sick. I was shivering.

Someone kneeled next to me. Onyx. I recognized her cold fingers on my arm and let her drag me into a hug. I didn’t like people touching me, but Onyx was always the exception. Maybe it was the coolness of her skin, or her own awkwardness with physical contact.

She’d told me once she had a condition that prevented her body from heating up properly, and it was also the reason her emotions felt muted. Something about hormones not reacting correctly, or her body lacking the energy to function like ordinary people did. I didn’t understand most of it.

I only knew I could trust her.

Her hand ran through my hair. Short and manicured nails scraped against my scalp. “Shhhhh,” she whispered over my shoulder. “It’ll be alright. You’ll be alright. I’m here.”

“It’s not me… It’s not me…” I didn’t even know what I was saying, only that I needed to say it to someone. “It’s not me.”

Her arms tightened around me. “I know. I know. Shhhh. I’m sorry.”

Why was she apologizing?

“It’ll be alright,” she repeated and gently rocked me as I cried, humming a strange lullaby under her breath, barely audible. Her words were neither English nor Chinese, nor any language I recognized. Yet it felt familiar. Feelings of peace and quiet and safety, sensations half-forgotten, floated at the back of my mind.

Droned out in Onyx’s monotone, the childish rhyme gradually calmed me down. My breathing slowed, and my erratic heartbeat steadied. I felt exhausted but finally more clear-headed. I leaned back and looked into Onyx’s intense black eyes. I thought I saw something like guilt, but it was gone by the next blink, and I believed I must have been mistaken.

“Better?” she asked. I nodded. She let me go and helped me up.

By the door, Shivaya was hovering anxiously in the hallway. Her expression was far easier to read than my half-Asian friend’s. She always wore her heart on her sleeve. There was fear in her frown, and worry, and a good helping of obvious guilt.

“I’m so sorry, Ter. I shouldn’t have teased. I…” Her hazel eyes fluttered to Onyx, whose profile was stiff, and she faltered, dropping her head. “I should know better.”

“It’s fine,” I managed. I was too tired to deny whatever was left unsaid. “I know you tend to speak without thinking.”

She shook her head. “It’s not fine. But… okay. Okay,” she repeated. “I’ll… I’ll go make you some hot chocolate. Would you like that?” she asked, hopeful. For once, she looked the part of the younger sibling.

“Yeah.” I smiled tiredly.

“Okay. Great! I... I’ll go then.” She spun and ran away. I sighed, again, again. At this point, it was becoming a hobby.

Doing so, I realized the acrid taste of vomit in my mouth. Also, my entire body felt sticky and moist with drying sweat. Ew. Ew-ew-ew! My brain revolted. I turned to Onyx, who was still glaring at the empty doorway.

“Onyx. I need a shower.” My friend reluctantly stopped glaring into space—she liked glaring. “It’s not her fault.” I did not know what I was trying to defend Shivaya for, but I felt I had to.

After a moment, Onyx relaxed minutely. “I know. I’m not angry at her.” Again, a strange expression flitted over her face, like a brief ripple over a tranquil lake, before she quickly turned to leave. “I’ll go tell Aponi you’re better.”

Ah. Of course, Aponi was worried. I had not been precisely discreet.

But the lady of the Barker house also believed in not crowding people. She must have seen Onyx was handling the situation and returned to her dinner preparations. If I knew her, she’d add something I liked to the meal. Later, she would quietly take me aside to remind me she was there to listen if I ever wanted to talk.

That had been her modus operandi for Shivaya and me since as far as I could remember. As a parent, her methods were very hands-off. She let us to our own mistakes, but she was always hovering at the periphery, never far, ready to act as a safety net at a moment’s notice.

I showered fast, keeping my thoughts as blank as possible and my eyes off the bathroom mirror.

Opening the bathroom door, I spotted a pile of folded clothes just outside and whispered quiet thanks no one heard.

Clean and dressed, feeling somewhat human again, I made my way to the kitchen. I was startled to see Gerald sitting at the head of the table, frowning at his laptop. He seldom got home this early. I could only think of one reason he would, since he obviously wasn’t done with his work for the day. Warmth filled me even as I held back a sniffle.

At times like these, I hated myself for ever thinking they’d throw me out. They deserved better than an ungrateful moron like me.

“Sir,” I said in the way of greeting.

He looked up as if only now noticing me. “Son.” He nodded. Rich brown eyes scrutinized my face. “How was your day?”

No pointed question, no pressure, like he wasn’t here early because of my breakdown, letting me greet him on my own terms. I briefly wondered if that was how he put people at ease back when he worked as an interrogator for the marines. Did he always know how to guide others into spilling more than they’d initially planned by simply allowing them to speak at their own pace?

Even sitting in the small cozy kitchen, he looked tall and somewhat intimidating. You could see whom Shivaya got her physique from, though she’d inherited most of her others features from her mom.

“Fine,” I answered after a beat of silence. “We’re heading out to the hills with Hunter and Onyx later. There’ll be a meteor shower tonight.” Just speaking of it, a smile spread on my lips of its own accord. I bet it would be grandiose. I could hardly wait.

“You’ll be careful out there.” It wasn’t a question.

I saluted. “Of course, sir. Hunter is taking us in his new truck, and he’s loaded for bear.”

“The Geraghty boy?” Gerald sounded pensive. “Hmm. It should be fine then…”

“Sir?”

He waved me off. “Nothing. We had a bit of a situation at work. False alarm, probably. But I might have to head back after supper.”

My eyes widened. Gerald never spoke about his job. Shivaya and I knew he worked for the Department of Homeland Security in some capacity. But that was about it.

“With that said…” Cutting through my stupor, an easy smile bloomed on the older man’s face. The simple, slight tilt of his lips seemed to re-arrange all of his stern, drill-sergeant-like features into something almost laid-back. “I wouldn’t miss Poni’s meatballs for anything on this Earth or beyond.”

My throat tightened. Aponi’s meatballs were my favorite. Not very original, I know. But, hey, that was me. Boring to a fault except in all the wrong ways.

We were supposed to eat fish tonight.

“Where is she?” I managed to ask.

“Poni? Oh. She went upstairs with Shaya a little while ago. And Onyx went to check something in her house. They should be back soo– Ah. Call names of angels.”

Just then, Aponi entered the kitchen with my sister in tow. The older woman stopped briefly to land a soft kiss on my forehead then went to talk with her husband.

Faint redness circled Shivaya’s eyes. She gave me a rare shy smile before hurrying to the hotplate, returning with a pot of warm melted chocolate. She poured three mugs, slid one to me, and took one for herself.

Before I could question her about the third, Onyx padded softly into the room and snatched the mug without a word. She looked more alert, somehow. Her movements were sharper, and her eyes moved attentively around the room. Her gaze met Shivaya’s, and she nodded slightly. Something passed between the two, and I could only mentally shrug.

Just another quiet evening at the Barker home.

. . . . .