I stood next to someone I would rather not be standing next to, looking at a building that I’d rather not be looking at.

“We shouldn’t do this, you’re my conjoined twin,” said the person that I’d rather not be standing next to, looking at the building I’d rather not be looking at. The person was Stew, and he had a nasty habit of misusing words in an attempt to sound smarter.

“That’s not what conjoined means,” I sighed, digging through my bag.

“That’s not very superfluous of you,” he huffed.

I didn’t bother correcting him, although there happened to be the perfect example right in front of me. I briefly stopped digging through my bag to instead glance at one of my great woes in life.

Conjoined refers to to things that are connected. That could mean a set of twins who were born literally inseparable, or a rock attached to a stick to form a makeshift hatchet which you hope will help keep away the rabid wolves waiting just outside of the cave you’re hiding in. And superfluous simply means unnecessary.

Coincidentally, both of these terms applied perfectly to the building that I was currently looking at that I’d rather not be looking at. Crossroads Clinic was conjoined, although not to a gift shop or a free ice cream parlor. It was conjoined to the only school in this fading town, Crossroads Conservatory. It was also deemed superfluous, so superfluous in fact that it was shut down several months ago.

“Seriously, we shouldn’t be doing this, we could be gaffed or worse.”

I was tempted to ask him if he meant gaffed as in ‘having a social blunder committed against us’ or if he meant that we could be, ‘speared by a hook’. In this case one of those were correct, although I doubted that HE knew that.

I returned to searching my bag. I wished Soren was here, he was always much better at this kind of stuff then me. He was better at dealing with people like Stew; he was better at getting the girl, or guy, or whoever needed saving at that particular time; he was better at driving a getaway car, and he was better at helping an old lady across the street. He was braver, and he was more charismatic, and he was kinder than me.

I stopped for just a moment and allowed myself to feel helpless. Just one moment, where I was allowed to wish that my big brother was here. That we were at home, that we were making pancakes or at the library reading. But Soren was a thousand miles away on a ship discovering places. And I was here at Crossroads about to break into a hospital, in order to save someone that I was far to close to.

“Salem, are you even listening to me?”

I had, in fact, not been listening to Stew.

I stood having finally found the grappling hook. There was no going back.