Eyes. Everytime she’s near I feel her eyes. Preying on me. Tracking me. Waiting for the right moment to pounce.

I take a deep breathe. Bracing myself for the unavoidable confrontation. It never gets easier, seeing your own face, looking into your own eyes.

Finally I make a quick turn on my heal and slam my reflection in the nearest wall. Digging my finger nails into her shoulders. Or is it my shoulders? It still confuses me. I shake the thought from my head as I practically scream in her face. “What do you what from me!”

“You know what I want” she replies, unamused, bored even. We’ve been through this a thousand times and yet still I refuse her command.

“I will not kill him.” I mean to shout but it comes out a whisper. Quiet, weak, desperate.

“I can not kill my brother” I tell her and myself. “I can’t and I won’t. “

“Think of all of the people that will die if you refuse to do it. Why save one and sacrifice millions in the process”. Now she is the desperate one.

“Because he is my brother. My family. The only family I have, we have. And you want me to kill him.”

All she can do is roll her eyes. “Don’t you get it? He’s not our brother. He’s not the one we love. He’s evil, wicked, an animal that needs to be put down.”

I jam forearm into her throat. “DO NOT say that about him. Not now, not ever. I can help him. You failed but I will not. I will be the one to save him. Do you ever think that maybe he knew that you would kill him and that’s the reason he’s became the monster that you say?”

She grabs my shoulders and before I can process what’s happening we’re switched and I’m the one against the wall. “You seriously don’t think that I tried to save him? I was foolish as you are now, and I thought I could help him. I was wrong.”

Her eyes glisten with unshed tears, she’s telling the truth and I know it. I shove her off of me. “Please don’t contact me again. I will consider what you say, but I need to make this decision on my own.

She stares at me, unmoving. She finally nods, uncertain. “I hope you make the right choice, for all of our sakes.”

It’s the last thing she says to me before she turns to walk away. Leaving as quickly as she came.