Assassin's Secret

Chapter 22: Safety first.

The idea of letting a person in on secrets is to form a much deeper bond with said person. Trust can grow from this.

Unfortunately, you can never truly trust in your younger siblings as I'm now realizing.

"I didn't tell him everything, but he guessed most of it without me replying back," Alex wailed. I guess our little kidnapping scene wasn't really a secret we discussed we were going to keep between us-- but I thought it was implied. Alex continued pacing the floor in my room as I sat on my, bed watching him go back and forth. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, "This is all my fault. I'm real bad at keeping secrets."

"How much did you tell him exactly?" I asked.

"Well, he asked me where we were last night, and I told him we were just out walking. He kept drilling me about walking outside for more than an hour," he stopped pacing and shot me glance, "Seriously, I don't know why he's so uptight all of a sudden."

"Yeah, me either," I responded quietly, my tattoo coming to mind. "So what tipped him off about our whereabouts last night?"

"He asked me about your bruise."

"My bruise?" I thought back on the moment, remembering that I hadn't covered the stupid bruise on my face before heading to John's room last night. Chase had distracted me. "Damn, I was hoping he wouldn't notice." I chewed my bottom lip in contemplation. I'm gonna have to come up with a story for the bruise.

"I accidentally told him that we were jumped by some thugs while we were walking," Alex sheepishly added. 

So much for a story.

I sighed in defeat. Welp, there's nothing we can do now. I don't know what conclusion John has come up with. 

There's only one thing to do: keep my earlier promise.

"Alex, it's time for me to teach you some basics on self-defense."

"No offense, Annie, but what do you know about self-defense?" Alex asked.

"I know enough to defend myself," I responded. No need to go into details just yet.

"Prove it." he challenged.

I looked at him confused, "How?"

"Catch this fly that's been bothering me for the past 20 minutes," he pointed to a little sucker flying lazily around the room. Self-defense against a fly? Never heard of such a thing.

"I can't fight a fly," I stared at him with a 'duh' look. He laughed out loud and agreed. 

"I mean, I guess you're no Jackie Chan," he snickered.

"Jackie Chan? Alex, anyone can catch a fly," I laughed. "You don't have to have special training for that." This banter with Alex is helping me relieve some stress I've been carrying around. Who knew he was a cool kid?

"Alright then, I wanna see you catch that fly," he playfuly demanded.

Just to appease him, I smiled as I stood up and targeted the poor fly. Maybe I can catch it without squishing it.

There it was, zooming near the window. I crept closer, keeping my focus on its darting body. In a second he was enclosed inside of my outstretched fist. I felt him tickling the inside of my hand and I smiled on my great feat of not squishing it.

"You're kidding," Alex stared at my fist, waiting for it to open. I shook my fist first to disorient the fly, so he wouldn't escape immediately, then I slowly opened my fist. I looked up to see Alex's awestruck expression. So this is what it feels like to hang out with a loved one.