#siblings!!!

I take my time to finish reading some reports from the city before walking to her room. I'd offered for her use as she pleased. It's rare for her to stop by without invitation, even rarer still for her to actually use the room. Better to give her a chance to unwind a little first.

There's no answer when I knock on the door. Curious. I try the knob after a few moments, and it turns open with a soft click. It’s mostly dark, the thick heavy curtains drawn tightly shut. The bed is still perfectly made and unoccupied, the room largely untouched, but for the armor neatly piled on the carpet. Reckoning shucked to reveal Riley. There's a gleam of red across the black in the light from the en suite door left wide open. She's had a busy evening. She could have at least not put her bloody armor on the white carpet, though.

I turn towards the en suite, not intending to catch her so unawares. She’s standing in front of the foggy mirror in nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs and sports bra. A little water drips from her flattened mullet down her shoulders while she leans over the sink and brushes her teeth vigorously, like there's an awful taste in her mouth. 

But that’s not what’s really caught my eye. She's shown me a glimpse of the tattoo, of course. A little peek of proof under a rolled up sleeve accompanied by a hard glare as she repeats that she can't be who she looks like, but the glare just made me think of my sister more. Her silvery grey gaze that matches my own, narrowed under too similar thick brows. A pouty mouth in a perpetual scowl, needing a smile teased out of it. Cora had been a happy child, but such a sour teenager. 

I lean against the doorway and look her over, curiosity outweighing the courtesy to leave and wait for her to make herself presentable. The tattoo is so much more in-depth than I imagined, covering her from her collarbones to just past her elbows and knees. Wide bold circles mark her joints, connected by skeletal lines just as thick, and an array of dizzying circuitous patterns densely fill the spaces between. There's something wrong about it, the color far too strong to have been applied with normal human methods. The vibrant orange practically glows against her tawny skin like a dart frog's warning. In between the lines, I can see the purple blooms of fresh bruises. A hard fight then, for such marks to be left under her armor. With whom? 

She spits and looks into the little circle she’d wiped clear in the foggy mirror, startling slightly when she sees me. Then she regains herself, her eyes narrowing again in that very same glare.

“I don't remember inviting you in here," she snaps and doesn't deign to face me properly as she continues her self care routine. 

“It's my mansion," I remind her with a little smirk that makes her snort and roll her eyes. “Besides, you left the door open.” An invitation, whether she acknowledges it as such or not. 

“Fuck," she mutters and drags a hand up her face, brushing the shaggy damp locks back. It's a swear directed more at herself than me. She's getting too comfortable. Too careless. The thoughts are clear on her face before she ducks her head again under a towel again to finish drying her hair. Her lean muscles ripple under her heavily scarred shoulders, not at all like Cora's. She'd been so soft and slim, a teenaged girl playing at being grown. Not a hardened criminal, layered with stories and secrets I may be able to tease out later. 

Would Cora have ended up much the same, had she not been taken? She had always been too eager to fight, to prove herself, despite my attempts to shelter her because she was so young. Maybe that was my real mistake. Maybe she wouldn't have rebelled so hard if I hadn't been so quick to try and curtail her. Mother wouldn't say no to her baby. Someone had to. 

“The fuck are you staring at?” she growls, and I startle seeing that she's spun to face me, bristled and tense. I hadn't noticed her turn. 

There’s a barcode emblazoned on her chest just above her breasts, but the only orange dipping down her bra is a line running along her breastbone to the pattern that picks back up along her lower ribs. Marking her, marking Cora’s DNA, property to be kept and toyed with in experiments. How many more like her have been made? The thought makes my chill in my veins. 

The gnarled ropey upside-down Y of a surgical scar catches my eye. It’s sown slapdash and careless across her belly, ripping through the unnatural geometry tattooed across her skin. It’s too low for a proper autopsy scar, I've seen enough of those to know this. But it's still far too easy to overlay the image in front of me with Cora, knowing now where she truly vanished. Pinned open on a sterile stainless steel table, like a butterfly on—

“Hey!” she snaps, breaking the reverie and drawing my attention back to her face. Her snarl has shifted into a frown, glare tempered by confusion and then understanding. “I'm not her,” she says, voice rough and tired as she pushes past me into the bedroom. 

“I know.”

She gives me a skeptical look as she roots through the dresser for some clothes. I hadn’t known that she’d actually stashed some there. But it’s really not that surprising. She likes to be prepared for anything. And she should make herself at home. Better here than her decrepit little water plant in the city, or that idiot’s apartment. She’s playing with fire, keeping up her farce of innocence with the Rangers. But as she's much too fond of reminding me, it's not my business who she beds. 

Once she's decent, if one could call her patched and ratty denims decent, she catches sight of my smile and rolls her eyes again. But there's a glint of amusement flashing in them as she pulls on a flannel, fully covering her tattoo once more. It's unnerving to think about how many others there are others like her, but utterly loyal to their creators, manipulating people with a hidden agenda. And you'd never know as long as their clothes stayed on. 

“So, what's for dinner?” she asks, letting go of my indiscretion with a casual familiarity that makes my smile widen. “I have something I need to talk to you about.”