*Title-less Story* - A Story of a Psychic runaway and her Brother - Unfinished -Announcement, Please Read

The rain splatters endlessly on my window. And by endlessly, I mean endlessly. It’s been raining for what, ten days now?
My brother and I are starting to get stir-crazy….I glance over at
him. He’s a year older than me, but by the way he’s hanging upside down
off the back of the couch, you might think he’s several years younger.
“Are you sure you wanna risk going out in….that?” I say, nodding my
head towards the wet world outside.
“Duh!” he laughs, flipping off the couch and landing lightly on his
feet. Despite how dorky other people think it is, he loves his
gymnastic classes.
“I mean, Zack, come on, it’s like totally dangerous to do that!”
“And your point is…?” One of Zack’s blond eyebrows arches as he looks
at me; he laughs again, shaking his head. “Don’t be a party pooper, Iv.
I promise nothing’ll happen.”
I sigh deeply run my fingers through my black hair, my lips pursing. “You promise?”
“I promise,” he repeats. With that he darts to the front door of our cottage, plopping down and pulling on his sneakers.
Begrudgingly, I follow after. I mean, do I really have much of a choice?
Zackary and I have been together through thick and thin. We’re
adopted kids, but real brother and sister…for the past thirteen years
of my life (fourteen for him), we’ve been tossed around in different
foster homes. Several times we were this close to being adopted, and
then…
Something came up. They found out they had a long lost son. Blah blah
blah. You would never believe some of the sob story excuses they fed
us. Lies, all of them. They get your hopes up, and then dash them.
That’s how the system works for older children.
“Ivy? Are you coming or what?” Zack asks, standing by the door. His
hands are planted firmly on his hips and he’s tapping his foot in an
agitated manner.
“Chill, Zackie,” I respond, using the name I called him when I was
toddler, “You know it takes me like a half hour to lace these things!”
Now I’m sitting down by the front door, pulling on my tattered
converse.
He sighs deeply and kneels down, taking the laces from my clumsy thin
fingers and tying them before I can blink. “You’re slow,”
“And you’re stupid, but do you hear me complaining?”
Zack snorts and pulls me to my feet. “Let’s go now,” he whines, “I need some fresh air!”
I giggle, “Fresh air?” There’s a loud crack of thunder and I giggle again.
“Yeah! Don’t you just love the smell of wet grass?”
“Uhm…no…” I shake my head.
“Oh.” He shrugs. “Me neither.” With that, Zack throws open the door and trots outside.
Our cottage is located in the middle of a field; a farmer used to own
it, but he died, I think. And by “our cottage,” I really do mean it’s
ours…sort of…Of course we didn’t buy it with our own money (what
money?), but no one else was living in it, so we moved in.
Now, before I mentioned we’re adopted. Yes, we are, but with we each
have different families. My family, the Millers, insisted on taking
only me because they have eight boys and wanted a little girl. Zack’s
family, the Eugines, insisted on taking only him because they’re rich
and need a male heir who will inherit their money when they die.
They’re really old--in their eighties, I think--they smell like
mothballs, and have no other children. But they are the definition of
rich.
You may be thinking--why aren’t you two at home? Your families sound pretty nice!
When I was five and he was six, we made a promise. We’d never go
anywhere without each other until we found our real mom and dad. We
pinky-swore on it. And if you know anything, you know that you are
never supposed to break a pinky-swear.
We started to miss each other horribly. My parents wouldn’t let me
call him, write him, e-mail him, nothing. They made me their maid. I
cooked and cleaned, took care of their youngest when they wanted to go
out, and had to serve the older boys, too. They wanted to rename me
something “practical” not “stupid” like my current name is, so they
tried to change my name to Mary. Now that pushed it too far. I love my
name--how many people do you know that are named Ivy?
Personally, I think that it’s a beautiful name. But the Miller’s didn’t.
Zack’s family was also treating him badly. They didn’t want anyone to
know he existed, so they locked him in the basement. Apparently, they
thought he was ugly. My brother is certainly not ugly! He’s two heads
taller than I, very tall for his age. His skin is tanned from fourteen
summers spent playing in the sun. His hair is blond and shaggy, curling
slightly at the ends. His eyes are a crystal shade of blue. He’s built
thin and wiry like myself, despite this he’s quite strong. I don’t know
why they didn’t think he was worthy of being seen in public.
We managed to escape one night, and both of us made it to the park.
Thankfully, both of our families lived in the same town, just on either
side of it. We discussed what we wanted to do, and when we came to a
agreement, we figured we’d just leave. There was no point in staying,
no point in trying to get back to the orphanage, no point really in
staying in that not-on-the-map type Pennsylvania town.
So, two nights later, we met at the park again, bags packed. And we
left. We walked for a few days, looking for a place to stay. And
finally we found the cottage. For the past three summer months we’ve
been living here, and both of us love it.
Every so often, when we go into our new town, we see signs proclaiming;

MISSING CHILDREN, IVY AND ZACKARY ARION.
Then our pictures from our most recent school year book.
AGES; 13 AND 14.
REWARD $1,000,00 IF FOUND.

You don’t know how hard Zack and I laughed when we first saw that. We
know that no one would ever actually get the million dollars that was
promised, and we knew that no one would ever find us.
I used to have long, straight black hair. Now it’s premed into a
short black curls that end at my jaw line. I used to wear glasses. Now
I go without them. Zack’s hair used to be in a sort of buzz-cut. Now
it’s shaggy and long. We used to dress like we actually had money; now
we dress in almost rags.
I stumble about in the high muddy grass, laughing as I almost
instantly am drenched to the bone. “This is wonderful!” I squeal,
grinning over at Zack.
Zack is making mud-angels. “Tell me about it!” He grins up at me, and
I grin back. It’s so rare that he’s this happy anymore…He has a job
now, and he works a lot, to keep food on the table. Sometimes he tries
to act like a father would; he makes me do my homework, makes me eat my
veggies, and makes me go to bed before midnight. It worries me how
grown up he tries to act, because I know deep down, my big brother just
wants to be a kid with a mom, dad, dog, and little sister, living at
least a semi-normal life.
Above us, the storm rumbles violently. Lightning lights up the sky,
traveling from cloud to cloud, and slowing down time like strobe lights
do. One moment I see barely anything, then the next I see Zackie
sitting up.
One moment I see barely anything once more, then the next I see Zackie’s eyes widen.
One moment I see barely anything for a third time, then the next I see Zack’s jaw drop. “IVY, LOOK OUT!”
A bolt of lightning strays from the clouds. It’s looking for anything
high enough to strike; it zigzags its way down to the field. Soon it
spots a short, thin girl who’s screaming her head off, frozen in place,
staring at it as the its friends force time to an agonizingly slow
rate. She looks like a nice target; after another extremely brief
moment, it hits her.
Oh, did I forget to mention? The girl that just got hit by lightning? Yeah, that’s me.