Black Equation - The Gifted Ones

Epilogue

The two boys stood silently, holding each others' hands, and only stared at her.

"What? Let's play!" she patted the empty space beside her. "Is that pretty lady your Ma?"

The brown-haired boy glanced over his shoulder, and he nodded.

"Let's make a crown and a necklace for her!"

"How about our Poppa?" asked the smaller, blonde. He had a nice voice. Soft and gentle, like the morning wind outside Katerina's bedroom windows.

"We can make him a crown too."

The two boys decidedly ran away and came back a minute later with their hands full of pretty flowers. They took too many that they managed to create three crowns and two necklaces. When they were done, the sun had become very orange and Katerina could hear her Ma calling her to come inside the house.

Katerina wore the necklace made with all white flowers.

"Pretty!" she laughed merrily.

"Will Momma and Poppa like them?" the blonde boy asked with an excited smile.

"Oh, yes they will!" she grinned.

"Princess!" her Ma called out again. "It's getting cold out there. Come here, darling and I'll make you a cup of hot milk."

Katerina gingerly picked up the three crowns and necklace. "Here."

The brown-haired boy shook his head.

She thrust the flower jewelry again to them. "Take it."

"We can't," the blonde boy mumbled under his breath.

She frowned. Why?

"Uhm, I still don't know your names."

The boys merely looked at each other and the blonde smiled. "I'm Jeremy, and this is my older brother, Dylan." They held each other's hands again.

The brown-haired boy finally spoke. "Atom will be home from school. Give the extra crown to him."

She tilted her head. "Atom?"

"Please tell them that we love them. Okay, princess?"

"Okay," she beamed. "Let's play again some time?"

But Dylan and Jeremy were gone, leaving her alone in the dark, cold garden. Quickly, she waved at them and blew them kisses before she skipped towards the pretty, pretty house.

Her Ma helped her clean up for supper, and when she went down with the flowers in her hands, she saw Dylan and Jeremy hiding behind their Momma's chair. They were listening carefully as an old boy with weird eyes told everyone on the table a story about a girl he met in the Academy.

Katerina hopped to her tall chair as she listened too. Her Ma and Da told her that when she's older, they might send her to a special school somewhere far, where people like her Da used to stay. They told her that they would watch her, and if she receives a gift, they would send her. She hoped that Santa would give her that gift so that she could go to the Academy. Maybe it was a plane ticket or a boat. She didn't know because whenever she asked, her Ma and Da would not tell her. Older brother Viktor went there last winter, and she wanted to go because she missed him terribly.

"Excuse me. Are you Atom?" Katerina asked politely after the old boy finished telling them that he learned to fly a bird robot.

"Yes?" he asked, and her brows furrowed. He looked nothing like Dylan or Jeremy.

"Are you their eldest brother?"

The old boy stiffened as he locked his eyes on her. Weird, weird yellow eyes. . . but the pretty lady had pretty green eyes, and the man beside her had blue summer eyes.