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Anya knows what a soulmate is. It's someone who is supposed to be your other half. Someone who is supposed to be with you forever. Anya thinks it's a little weird—she isn't half an Anya, she's one whole Anya! But the pretty image on her chest, right below her collarbone, says otherwise—it's Mr. Chimera, like Anya's favorite plushie, hugging Mr. Griffin. Anya remembers someone telling her that the Chimera is probably a Ms., but she doesn't care—Mr. Griffin can be the Ms., because Anya knows that it's the Mr. that does all the work.
(Her mind changes a little on this after she finally gets the 'family' she's been looking for, but not by much.)
Anya has a soulmate because Anya has a soulmate mark. When Anya was still in the lab, surrounded by the people in white coats, they had often wondered if Anya's powers would be transferred to or affect her soulmate. They had wondered at the effects a soulmate mark might have on such a power.
Because Anya wasn't supposed to have a soulmate, they had said. Anya was an artificial girl, made to save the world, and artificial girls weren't made to find their other half and be with them forever, because then they wouldn't have time for world peace.
So Anya had said that she didn't feel anything from her soulmate mark. Anya was a liar. Anya had always been a liar. Anya did not want another kid to be brought to the lab like her, and then forced to do tests that hurt, and study things they didn't understand, and brought in front of potential 'buyers'.
The truth was that Anya could hear it, sometimes—what her soulmate was thinking and feeling. It was in bits and pieces—he wanted his dad to care about him, he wanted his mom to spend time with him, he wanted his brother to look at him. Anya's soulmate was a boy, and she thought that he was a very sad boy.
She thought of him when she chose her new family. Her spy papa, her assassin mama, and her dog, Bond, her partner-in-...not crime, but missions, who could also see the future. Her papa needed her for the mission, but Anya could hear his heart, and she knew that he really did care about her, even if it wasn't enough to keep her after the mission.
(Papa lied to himself too.)
Mama treated Anya like a real daughter, even though she told herself that Papa was her ‘fake husband’ a lot in her head. Anya didn't know why she was different from Papa, but she thought maybe that Mama might keep her after everything was done, and Papa went away.
(Papa thought so too, sometimes.)
But at the end of it all, she felt like she was loved, even if it was love that came from liars. That was okay, because Anya was a liar too. And because Anya was a liar, when she met her soulmate, she pretended that she didn't know who he was.
It helped that her soulmate, the target of Operation Sticks' Plan B, Anya's bonus B Plan, and the s-yon (scion) of the Desmond family, Damian Desmond, definitely didn't want to be her soulmate. He was mean as often as he was nice, and initially, Anya had been relieved her soulmate was so unlikeable.
Anya's Mama and Papa didn't have soulmarks. It was why Papa was a good spy, and why Mama was a good assassin. It wasn't like everyone had soulmarks, after all. It made their relationship easier, and Anya could tell they liked each other a lot even without soulmarks.
But Anya's new friend, Becky, never stopped talking about soulmarks. She said that they were 'the height of romance', which Anya understood to mean that it was something like when she had said that love could make people fly. Anya had not told Becky about her soulmark and didn't plan to.
Papa and Mama knew about her soulmark, but when she had thrown a (fake) tantrum about not wanting a soulmate, they had stopped bothering her about it. That didn't change the facts, though.
The facts were that Anya did have a soulmate, and that S-yon Boy was her soulmate, and he could never find out. Except S-yon Boy had started to be nice to her on occasion, and Anya didn't understand that.
Anya started to realize that S-yon Boy wasn't always so mean, not just to her but to anyone, and that he hurt a lot more than he showed, and that made her feel bad too. She wished S-yon Boy could have kept being always mean to her. He was still mean to her, but it was always jokes about being poor, which got old after a while, especially when Anya could tell that being rich just meant your Mama and Papa never had time for you.
(That was what all the Eden kids' minds said, anyway. Anya knew she shouldn't say that out loud, so she didn't.)
If S-yon Boy found out she was his soulmate, he would want to be her friend, even if she was a commoner. Anya was sure of this. It was because she had read it in his mind.
S-yon Boy's parents weren't soulmates. They both had soulmarks, but they didn't match. S-yon Boy thought about that a lot. He was sure that if his parents were soulmates, his family would be happy. He thought that when he met his soulmate, it would be perfect, and she would be his other half, and he would finally have someone who really cared about him.
Anya didn't know if she could do something that big. Even though it would help Operation Sticks, Anya wouldn't let him know she was his soulmate. Not just because of what he wanted from his soulmate, but because of the people in the white coats—
—The people who wanted to test Anya's soulmate. Even when Anya had thought S-yon Boy was mean, she hadn't wanted him to be taken back to the lab. Now that she knew he wasn't always mean, she definitely didn't want the lab people to know about him.
So Anya kept trying to be his friend with her own methods. She was sure that it would work, eventually. Papa and Mama loved Anya because her methods had worked, and so did Becky, and so did everyone else in the class. S-yon Boy didn't need to love Anya, just like her enough to make her his friend and take her to his house.
(She didn't think it was a bad thing if it took a little longer, though, because the faster Sticks ended, the faster Anya would lose her family.)
And when it ended, her soulmate would probably never see her again. Anya thought that she might be a little sad. She thought he might be sadder to know that he'd never see his soulmate again, instead of just that he'd never see Anya again.
But S-yon Boy was unfair. S-yon Boy turned her own plan back on her and was really cool for a moment! And then another moment! And for a little bit, the weird shivers she felt at the too strong feelings in S-yon Boy's head went away, and she thought that he was really pretty, and she wanted to not be a liar for a few minutes.
She was relieved, after she got angry at first, when he didn't believe her. She had almost made a big mistake! Why would she tell him, anyway? S-yon Boy wasn't even her best friend, like Becky was!
A few days later, she realized the mistake she made was bigger than she thought, because S-yon Boy didn't forget things quickly like Anya did, and he'd started staring at her when she wasn't paying attention. She could hear him thinking about her, sometimes, but when she looked at him, he'd start thinking about boring things like math or the history of the Desmond family. Anya realized that he had probably realized she had been telling the truth.
She could pretend that he hadn't, as long as he didn't try to talk to her about it.
So she did. Until the time came, during lunch, that he cornered her on a day that Becky was out sick, and his two 'henchmen' were busy doing other things.
"You really can read my mind," he said. Anya didn't like that it wasn't a question.
"Anya doesn't know what you're talking about."
"You don't really need to admit it," he said. Since I already tested it out. You should thank me for your good grades this week.
Anya felt her cheeks turn red with embarrassment. She had wondered why S-yon Boy had been more focused than usual this week, and she realized that she had been a little dumb to not realize that he was testing her faster.
"It's not perfect, though, your power, right?" S-yon Boy sat down beside her and put his chin in his hand. "You're not always reading my mind, and sometimes you look like you're not paying attention to anything when it's too crowded."
Anya flinched. "...Anya can't turn it off. Anya can focus on one person, but it's hard, especially if they're far away. And animals think too, which makes it harder." If he already knew, there was no point in trying to lie, but Anya could use this to help Papa with Plan B. Maybe he would believe her about world peace, now.
"Wow," he said quietly. "You can even hear animals?"
Anya nodded. "You can't tell anyone," she said.
He snorted. "No one would believe it. It's good to know that even with mind-reading powers, you're still dumb."
Anya scowled. "S-yon Boy doesn't have to be so mean all the time, you know," she snapped. "I have a lot of black mail on you!"
"...You mean blackmail?" He raised an eyebrow. "Well, no one's going to believe you over me, so that's not really a scary threat. Anyway—how did a commoner get something like tha—"
"I don't want to talk about it," Anya said. "It hurt a lot, and it still hurts sometimes, so even though it's cool, Anya doesn't think you would like it."
S-yon Boy frowned. "Did someone hurt you?" he asked. Anya could feel that he was upset—not through her mind-reading, but through the soulmate bond.
Anya shook her head. "It was a long time ago, and Anya is safe now." She hopes that's not a lie.
"That's..." He stopped talking. "Okay. I won't tell, don't worry—but who else knows?"
"Only S-yon Boy," Anya said. "So be happy—Anya told you her biggest secret. Will S-yon Boy let me go to his house, now?"
S-yon Boy frowned. "Why are you so obsessed with that? You realize that I can't even give you permission for that, right? That's up to Father, and if you—"
He paused. "...You weren't there. When your dad met Father...but you were waiting, weren't you? Are you trying to—to read Father's mind?"
Anya felt a twinge of relief. She'd almost thought he'd realized that Papa was a spy, but this was better. Anya could use the truth in this lie too! "Tha—That's right! Anya wanted to read the ev—S-yon Boy's Papa's mind to see if he wanted to fight a war with U-es-alis, for world peace!"
S-yon Boy's frown got deeper. "Father wouldn't do that. That's..."
"S-yon can't read minds, and he doesn't see his dad a lot, so he can't say that," Anya pointed out. "But Anya can make sure! And Anya can see if his mind will tell Anya what S-yon can do to make him pay attention."
She could feel how upset S-yon Boy was at her first sentence, but he perked up at the last one. "That's...that's right, you can. Wait, hold on—how does it work, for you?"
"How does what work?" Anya tilted her head, confused. She felt a little bit of panic from him, even though she was trying not to read his mind for once.
"The mind-reading thing. Do you just see words floating on top of peoples' heads or something?"
Anya laughed. "S-yon Boy is silly. No, Anya just knows—Anya can hear them with her ears, and feel their feelings, and sometimes it's like other people are putting their thoughts in Anya's head instead. When Anya was littler, she couldn't tell the difference."
S-yon Boy looked a little scared at that. "That's...terrible. That doesn't sound cool at all." His lips got all pinched, the way Mama's did when she looked at her cooking, or her crazy Unkie's did when he looked at Papa.
"It's not that bad," Anya reassured him. "Anya hasn't made that mistake in years!"
"That..." S-yon Boy sighed, and then tilted his head at her. "You can feel what other people feel, too."
Anya nodded.
"...Can you feel crushes?"
Anya blinked. "Like...beating someone up? Mama did that when weird guys tried to kidnap Anya and sell her."
S-yon Boy looked alarmed. "When WHAT? No, never mind, we can talk about that some other time. No—Forger, you're friends with Blackbell, how do you not know what a crush is?"
When Anya just stared at him blankly, he sighed. "You can feel when people like each other, right?"
"Oh!" Anya nodded. "Like Becky likes me and Papa and Mama, like Mama and Papa like each other and me, like Unkie likes Mama and Papa's weird scary lady work friend likes him."
"I'm gonna ignore that last sentence," S-yon Boy said. "But okay—are all of those the same to you?"
"Um..." Anya paused. "Well, Becky and the scary lady are weird about Papa. And Unkie is weird about Mama. Sometimes Mama is weird about Papa, too, but she's not weird like those three are."
"...Right. So...so have you felt the...the weird feelings anywhere else?"
Anya shook her head. "They're always screaming LOVE in their heads, and everything is weirdly pink and red. Anya thinks it's scary."
"...Hey, what does my head look like to you?"
Anya blinked at the sudden change in topic. "S-yon Boy's head is sad, a lot. And mean, sometimes, but mostly sad or noisy."
S-yon Boy looked like he didn't know how to feel about that. "...What do you mean by noisy?"
Anya tried to figure out how to explain it. "It's like...It's like when the TV goes grey and black, and makes your ears hurt. Sometimes there are explosion noises, and a lot of random words that Anya can't make out. To be honest, Anya really thought S-yon Boy hated her a lot."
S-yon Boy just stared at her. "...You thought I hated you?"
Anya nodded.
"...Have you been reading my mind, right now?"
Anya shook her head. "Anya was trying to focus on the other kids far away. Anya didn't want to hear if S-yon Boy was thinking mean things. Anya read your mind in the beginning, but then Anya stopped. Anya is trying to not be weird and creepy."
"Okay." S-yon Boy took a deep breath, and then nodded his head. "Read my mind."
Anya blinked. "Is it okay?"
"You did it all the time without permission, how are things different now?"
"...Anya doesn't want S-yon Boy to hate her for real. It's different if someone doesn't know, because then Anya knows the truth. If they know, then they can lie for real to Anya."
"Okay, then read my mind. Please."
Anya nodded slowly, and pulled her focus back. To be honest, if she'd kept doing it for longer, she might have gotten a nosebleed—she'd just realized her head was starting to hurt a little. It was probably better that she didn't get a nosebleed in front of S-yon Boy.
I don't hate you, Forg—Anya. I thought I was supposed to, but you aren't that terrible. There are way more people out there that are worth hating more than you.
Anya frowned. "Anya can't tell if S-yon Boy is being mean or not." Inside, she felt weird, like someone was tickling her, but inside her. She squirmed.
S-yon Boy snickered. Maybe a little. I mean, come on, can you imagine us being nice to each other?
Anya wrinkled her nose, scrunching it up. "Ew. That's weird."
Cu—Uh, I mean, right?
"Is that all S-yon Boy wanted to say to Anya?" She was a little disappointed, but she didn’t know why.
No, actually. There was one more thing.
Anya nodded. "What is it?"
S-yon Boy tilted his head at her as he spoke in his mind. You're my soulmate, aren't you?
The disappointment she had felt for a few seconds was quickly replaced with bone-chilling terror, and S-yon Boy startled. "Hey, no, wait—what's wrong?" He stretched a hand out towards her, and she flinched back.
"Anya doesn't have a soulmate," Anya said, as calmly as she could. She could feel her lower lip trembling. She bit it, hoping to make it stop. Anya is a good liar. Anya is a good liar. Anya has to be—
"You—" S-yon Boy looked around quickly, and then spoke in his mind again. I felt it, you know. When you were scared, just now—and it's not the first time—
"Anya doesn't have a soulmate," Anya repeats. "Anya—Anya's not a real girl, so Anya doesn't have a soulmate, S-yon Boy."
"What? Obviously you're real, stupid." You have a soulmark, don't you? On your chest. It's a griffin and a chimera, wrapped around each other. "Why do you lie so much?"
"Anya isn't a liar!" Anya is the best liar! "Anya doesn't have anything anywhere! Not a griffin, or a chimera, or anything else, just like Anya's Mama and Papa."
"...Your parents don't have soulmarks? But your family's so—" Happy.
"Because there's no soulmarks! Anya's family doesn't need soulmarks to be happy. Anya doesn't have a soulmark and Anya doesn't need one!"
S-yon Boy looked hurt. Anya could feel it too—like Mama's needles stabbing into her chest. She already felt guilty. But she didn't want S-yon Boy to get hurt with real needles. Feelings needles were okay. Anya had gotten better from those, so S-yon Boy would too.
"...Do you not like me?"
Of course not! Anya wanted to say.
But she couldn't. Something was stopping her from saying the final mean words that would make S-yon Boy go away.
Because she didn't want him to go away. He was the first one that learned her secret and came back to learn more. He was the first one that let her listen to his thoughts.
“Anya—Anya doesn’t not-not like you!”
S-yon Boy's needles went away, and Anya realized that she had made a mistake.
“So, you like me, even if it’s just a little.” S-yon Boy's lips curled slightly into an annoying smirk. "You're bad at lying, Anya, even though you do it a lot."
She stared at him. "Syon Boy used Anya's name."
"Yeah. I did. You should use mine, too, Since we're—" —soulmates, after all.
Anya shook her head stubbornly, refusing to let him win this one. "Anya is a bad soulmate for S-yon Boy. We can be friends instead."
"We can be both, can't we?" He tilted his head. "Why aren't you a real girl? Why are you a bad soulmate."
"Anya isn't going to be here forever." Anya can't share Papa or Mama's secrets, or even that she's adopted, but she can share this. "Papa can't keep Anya at Eden forever. It's too much money. It's only for a little bit."
S-yon Boy haughtily folds his arms. "Well, I'm a Desmond. Obviously, I can pay to keep you here. Father wouldn't care, but Mother would, since she likes your mom, and since you're my—"
"Don't say it!" Anya hissed. "Listen, S-yon Boy! If anyone is Anya's soulmate, they're in danger. People will want to hurt them! So Anya doesn't have a soulmate, and Anya doesn't feel anything besides what the people around Anya feel, okay? Anya doesn't need another half. Anya is a whole Anya."
S-yon Boy thought deeply. Anya was surprised to see that his thoughts were going too quickly, like Papa's did sometimes—S-yon Boy didn't think nearly as quickly as Papa, but there were still enough overlapping thoughts that Anya gave up on trying to read them.
"Okay." S-yon said finally. "You don't have a soulmate. Then neither does Damian Desmond."
"...Eh?"
"Come on, Anya," he said, calmly, getting up. "Lunch is almost over, so we'll talk about this another time. But you said a lot of stuff that's scary, and I'm starting to get why you act like that sometimes."
"...Anya doesn't...understand."
"You don't understand a lot of things. It's fine if you don't get it right now. But remember—we're friends now, right?"
"So Anya can come to S-yon Boy's house?"
"You—! Like I said, I can't control that..."
Anya followed after S-yon Boy back to the classroom, not understanding what just happened. S-yon Boy continued to think about a lot of things all at once, but Anya suddenly felt tired. She stuck her hand in her uniform pocket, and found a half-opened packet of peanuts. With a grin, she opened it and popped one into her mouth.
Cheese flavor!
She blinked when she heard S-yon Boy snort. "...Yeah, nothing's really changed, huh?" Guess I worried for nothing, before...
"What's wrong, S-y...Da-mi-an?"
S-yon—Damian's face turned pink. "Nothing...nothing's wrong. Come on, we'll be late."
Anya looked down in surprise as S-y—Damien grasped her free hand in his and tugged her towards class. She smiled a little, looking at the back of his head.
...S-yon Boy…No, Damian…is...a good person, after all. Anya’s sure now.