We teleport back to our rendezvous, which is the field. Casey's already there, sitting down on the perfectly green grass and fiddling around with the cross hanging from his bracelet.

"Hey, Casey," I greet, though I get worried when he doesn't immediately turn. I crook my head to the side. "Are you... alright?"

He lets go of the cross and sighs. Dried tear marks stain the brown skin on his cheeks. Some of his mascara trickles down, but he wipes it off with his jacket's sleeve. 

"I don't wanna talk about it."

We stand there not saying anything. I don't know how Casey'll cope with such a loss. Even worse, how his family will cope with the loss of him. We keep mum until he stands up and lets out a small cough.

"I managed to link up with someone that might help us. He's not an ahli sihir, but I think I can trust him."

"Oh," Harmony utters in mild surprise. "He's got a name?"

"Zakwan. He's got a history of helping sorcerers lie low with his connections. His place is a condominium in Shah Alam, Selangor. That's quite a ways away from here so we'll have to use the commuter."

"Wa lao eh..." complains Harmony while throwing her hands up. "We're gonna take ages using that! Surely they'll find us if we're just sitting there waiting to be caught."

Casey stares at Harmony's eyes without so much as an eyebrow twitch. Harmony may be blunt at times, but even she knows that the conversation is over.

>>

I lean against the station's cold walls and stare at the empty tracks, not looking at anything in particular. The people here aren't very talkative. I like that. 

The worn G-Shock watch on my wrist shows that it's 10:40 AM. "Case, we're coming up on 15 minutes and this commuter still hasn't arrived. This normal?"

"It's Malaysian public transport. If anything, it's actually pretty early." Sitting on a bench next to Harmony, he checks his coloured fingernails with a bored face.

Right as he says that, our KTM commuter arrives at the station. The three of us stand behind the yellow lines waiting for it to fully stop. As the doors open, a few people exit with their luggage bags and whatnot. It's a Saturday morning, meaning a fair few people here are wanting to reach Shah Alam, one of Malaysia's biggest cities just like us.

We cram into the commuter making sure we aren't separated. The passengers take their places on one of the many front-facing seats, two on each side. I signal for Harmony to take a seat on one side while Casey and I take the other two opposite her. She raises an eyebrow but doesn't show her sharp tongue.

The commuter vibrates as it sets on its path. Five, then ten, then fifteen long minutes go by with nothing to note. Out of equal parts boredom and curiosity, I lean on the armrest and listen in on the subtle conversations of the nearby passengers. I can make out Malay, Mandarin, a few Tamil words and even some accents from up north I'm familiar with. I still remember the loghat and how to understand it after all these years.

I bend my middle and ring fingers inwards. In turn, I stick out my index, thumb and pinky fingers. I let the respective fingers touch as I bring my hands together. A thin veil of concentration wraps around my consciousness as I shut my eyelids. Even with my eyes closed, I begin to see colourful fluorescent waves start to radiate out of the passengers' heads. 

Parallel blue waves come from a tall Indian businessman in a black suit and red tie. Bright yellow and curvy waves bounce happily around an old Malay woman. More jarring, scattered and jagged red waves materialise from a quiet and stout Chinese man.

Tenangkan minda. Masukkan minda diri ke dalam minda mereka. Biarkannya digabung, dan menjadi satu.

II

Calm the mind. Place your mind inside theirs. Let them combine, and beco–

"That's enough."

Casey swipes my hand and breaks my mantra. I let out a small gasp as the waves disappear into thin air.

"My bad, Casey. Force of habit." His eyes don't stray from the green scenery going by outside the commuter's cracked window.

"Be subtle, Kiah. Other telepaths use that same hand sign too. JAKIS caught wind of that and informed everyone through the newspapers."

"Is that so? How'd they–oh, Jaxon..." I trail off, remembering how he got caught earlier today.

"They managed to break a proficient telepath's mind in less than an hour."

Grim. One can only wonder how they managed that.

"Kiah?"

"Hm?"

He looks at me. "Did you miss your family when you ran away?"

Similar to just about anything related to family matters, it's complicated. I guess I loved them. At the same time, I never quite did.

"I mean, they treated me well enough I guess. I remember I used to read the Al-Qur'an with my mother after the sunset prayers. She corrected my tajwid whenever I pronounced them wrong but was never cross with me on anything. Soft words were her method of teaching me. I kinda miss her, as well as my school friends who were all nice.

"My dad, though," a humourless chuckle lets itself out my mouth, "he wasn't a very nice man at all. I never missed him even for a second. He used to berate me for wanting to go freehaired, for being close with this one boy I didn't even like in that way, for delaying my solat, for forgetting some doa... list goes on. Everything I did that didn't fit his extreme ideals, I got scolded for."

Casey listens on intently.

"While I had better relationships with some parts of my family more than others, there was always a lingering thought at the back of my head..."

"...would they still love you if they knew what you were?" Casey finishes my sentence, looking at me.

I nod.

"I can sense that thought in your head too, Case. In regards to your ibu."

He stays silent again. I put a hand on his shoulder and he warms up to my touch.

"All we can do is hope that she'll be safe, as well as your sister Cassandra."

I retract my hand. He smiles for the first time today; a sweet, genuine smile that always looks nice on his face.

"Thanks."

"Any time."

He goes back to staring through the cracked window like he did before. I meditate in silence for the rest of the trip.

>>

Harmony stretches hard like a cat after a long nap as we leave the commuter. Two hours have passed and it's now almost noon.

"The guy next to me smelled like an ass."

"Good news, then. Seems like karma is real after all."

She tries to elbow me in the stomach but I block it with a wave of my fingers. She couldn't help but just laugh at how prepared I was. Casey leads us to the waiting spot for the Grab car to pick us up. The driver's the silent type, so I asked Casey to give him 5 stars.

After the short drive, we're at the condo where this mysterious Zakwan figure resides. I press the button with the number 15 inside the pristine silver elevator. Motivational art pieces cover the interior on all three sides. I never understood the efficacy of those things. 

Ding goes the elevator and we leave through the doors. We walk past a dozen units numbering 1 to 12, all the while admiring Shah Alam's skyline through the windows in all of its concrete jungle-ness. Casey stops at the thirteenth one.

"Rich guy eh?" Harmony points out, setting her sights on the shoe rack full of leather footwear. Our group leader rings the bell and we wait.

Something in my gut is telling me to be careful with this Zakwan character. Small footsteps come from the opposite side of the door. The shiny brass doorknob twists. The door opens.

"Oh, selamat pagi Encik Casey Reid! Come in, come in," Zakwan ushers us inside.

His face is dotted with bumps and smudges as well as the odd wrinkle here and there. A few strands of his untidy black hair cover his uneven eyes. A large dimple smack dab in the middle of his cheek sticks out like a sore thumb. 

If I were to estimate, I'd say he's around his late-thirties to early-forties. He's a bit shorter than me and Harmony, which means he's no match at all for Casey's height of 175 centimetres. Last time I checked, I was about 166 or thereabouts.

We step into his carpeted living space. The soft material feels soothing against the soles of my feet. Harmony whistles while looking around.

"Woah... nice place eh uncle?" 

A blast of cold air hits me. A welcome surprise from his air conditioner considering Malaysia's infamous high temperatures. His walls are painted a dark purple and have numerous abstract paintings on them that look like they cost a fortune—because they're terrible.

"Ah, it's nothing. You must be... Harmony isn't it?" He offers his hand and she shakes it. "And you are Masyitah?" I nod and shake his hand too. "Sit, sit. There's some keropok lekor here that you can munch on."

We take a seat directly next to each other on the huge and bouncy couch in front of his widescreen television. He sits on an armchair and crosses his legs.

"So, maybe I should introduce myself to you two if Encik Reid hasn't. My name is Zakwan bin Muhammad. Does that ring a bell to any of you?"

"Wait... you're the actor on TV aren't you? They call you Zack?" I hate myself for even knowing who he is.

He lets out a booming laugh and slaps his thighs. "Ah, thankfully someone recognised me since Encik Reid here hadn't a clue who I was when he contacted me. I was beginning to think people forgot about me already. You watch the dramas I'm in? 'My Wives are Gangsters'? They're good aren't they?"

"Oh, um... yeah, they're good." I sneak a look at Casey's cringing face. I remember many times where he told me he had to put up with his mother watching his shows in the living room.

I hate them. The plots are shallow, the acting is subpar and the dialogue sounds like it was written by an AI. They're all terrible. I'm beginning to sense a pattern with this man.

"Anyways, I've got connections high up," the man talks, "so I can help you lovely people not get caught by JAKIS. They'll never raid here so you can stay for a few hours while I find you a place."

"What's in it for you?"

"For me?" he repeats, pointing to his chest. "I have enough money and things to last my whole life and my children's lives. I don't want a single shilling from you. All I want to do is help you unfortunate people."

I could hear Harmony chewing on an aforementioned keropok lekor stick. "Good stuff here, uncle."

"Kasih, my wife made it. Oh!" he jolts out of nowhere and takes his phone out. "That reminds me. I have to ask her to stock up on groceries while she's out in the city. One moment, if you will." He walks off to a separate room typing on his fancy iPhone that I don't know the model of. They must be in double digits nowadays.

He walks off in his slanted gait to text his wife in another room. I lean closer to Casey and lower my voice.

"Shit, Case. Something's off about him. I know it."

"What is?"

"...I don't know! He's just fishy. No actor's this generous, especially a sleazy-looking guy like him." I rub my forehead with the back of my hand. "I can just sense something."

Casey breathes through gritted teeth. "I think so too, but what choice do we have? He's our only hope."

"There's always a choice, Case. I say we bolt out of here."

"And go where?"

"Hey," Harmony interrupts us with a wave of her keropok. She's almost finished with the whole plate. "I don't know la, but maybe he's just some normal middle-aged man that has too much time, connections and money to know what to do with it? Now, I'm no telepath like you Kiah, but he seems alright. Plus, his wife's a fucking great cook." She stuffs the last of the fish sausages into her mouth.

Right after she says that, I notice faint and almost invisible jagged red waves leaking out of the room he's in.

"Wait, I'm sensing something. Harmony, stop eating."

I close my eyes to concentrate as I did on the commuter. In no time, the red waves get brighter and brighter and clearer and clearer. They waft to me with sharp twists and turns. Through them, I sense his presence and his consciousness.

I extend my fingers in accordance to the technique.

Tenangkan minda. Masukkan minda diri ke dalam minda mereka. Biarkannya digabung, dan menjadi satu.

II

Calm the mind. Place your mind inside theirs. Let them combine, and become one.

I sense Harmony and Casey sitting up straight.

I open my eyes. Now I know what he is.

__

Loghat (LOW-ghat [the gh sound comes from your throat like you're trying to get rid of an annoying phlegm]): Malay word that roughly means an accent unique to each state in Malaysia (to the point that it can even sound unintelligible to standard Malay speakers)

Tajwid/tajweed (TAJ-weed): Arabic word that means the way or system in which specific letters are pronounced in the Al-Qur'an, depending on what letters come before or after it as well as numerous other factors and cases

Solat (SAW-laat): Arabic word commonly spelt 'sholat' or 'shalat' in reference to a Muslim prayer, the one where they bend, kneel etc. and recite Al-Qur'an verses

Doa (DOE-'a): A Muslim prayer where they cup their hand and recite prayers for special purposes before eating, entering a bathroom or just about anything

Encik (EN-chick): Malay word for mister

Keropok lekor (kerr-roe-poke lay-core): A form of fish sausages where fish meat is pounded with spices and sago flour then deep fried (and let me tell you, they taste a hell of a lot better than they look, especially if you find ones in Terengganu up north)