Kurt came back, today. And this time he brought his satanic spawn with him.

Cain Marko.

Cain, in essence, is the spitting image of his father. The same illusion of innocence cast by blond hair, the same beady blue eyes, the same crooked smile. I detested him on the basis of his gene pool alone.

Cain didn't bother with the formality of a hello. Or a handshake. Instead he traipsed his eyes up and down my scrawny figure and uttered something along the lines of "Is he Sharon's nut-job?" to his father.

Charming(!)

With did snap my attention was how his father was swift to clip him on the ear for such a condescending comment. An assumption could be made that Kurt favoured his hands as a tool of punishment, and neither me, nor Cain were an exception to his sadism.

We had afternoon tea with the Markos; a cafetiere, a teapot and a plate of sugar-dusted jam scones. Though I was nearly certain that the drink in my mother's mug wasn't tea or coffee.

I sipped on my steaming brew with reticence whilst the only Marko child turned his nose up at the foreign drink at a whiff; a blatant derision written across his face. He broke off a crumb of the scone, popped it in his mouth before spitting it back out on a saucer, encapsulated in spittle.

He had politesse of the same calibre as his father: none.

Cain is four years older than me. With those four years comes an advantageous stature, refined cunning and an air of authority. He made his authority known with sneering looks and refusal of our household customs and customs of our heritage. Though he had a prestige of age, he did not hold rank on the basis of maturity.

"Uh, Charles!" My mother had piped up, trying to break the tension that had amounted between me and the other boy; we were glaring at each other like two hounds in a dog-fight. "Why don't you go and show Cain the grounds? Go and play a game of cricket with him and Raven?"

Cain was the first to snort scornfully. "A girl can't play sport," he mumbled - a terribly repulsive habit, I must note, accompanied by a sickeningly sexist snide.

Raven sunk in her seat self-consciously, trying her best not to appear wounded, and as a direct result of my telepathy, I felt her intimidation and inferiority. I slammed my teacup down on the saucer, droplets of milky tea sloshing over the side. "I'm sorry, why is that?"

"Girls belong in a kitchen," he stated aloofyly, smirking at Raven. He nudged the saucer with his munched up and saliva oozing bit of scone on it towards her, almost as an insinuation she should be playing butler and catering to his mess. "And are far too physically weak to play sport!"

Kurt gave a nervous laugh at Cain's words. The very concept of him being nervous unsettled me, but I knew the nerves were rooted in self-interest. My mother laughed weakly along with that, taking a gulp of the whiskey-filled teacup.

"And cricket is a game for pansies," Cain chuckled.

Those words felt like an insult to injury. I downed my teacup pacifistically and excused myself.

"Raven, come with me, we're going to go and play cricket on the lawn like a pansy and a girl," I deadpanned, a hand outstretched as an invitation her to accompany me. And Cain was most certainly excluded.

"Charles!" My mother chided, an outraged look cast across her features and gauging Kurt's reaction to my outburst.

"No, mother!" I snapped, meshing my fingers with Raven's.

"Sharon, it's quite alright..." Kurt soothed, inconspicuously lacing his fingers with my mothers. His defensive attitude jarred on me. "Charles has a valid reason to be upset," he cooed in a misleadingly impartial tone. "My boy was rude to him and his sister..." The joint in his jaw pulsed with rage as he turned his attention to the smug looking boy next to him. "Charlie-" my skin crawled. "Raven, please, go play as you intended, I'll have a word with my son."

So Raven and I dawdled through the door, deceived by the demeanour that disguised an ugly truth.

Escaping from that room was a breath of fresh air, Kurt's presence could stifle a room. The insults felt like my head was being held underwater. Momentarily, basking in the summer sun, normality was restored and it no longer felt as if the Markos were waging a siege on our family unit.

It was my turn to bat, patiently awaiting Raven's killer bowl - and I assure you, if it hit you on the head, it would probably kill you - and as the ball hurtled towards me, a blinding flash of pain impinged on my mind. It was like a glowing-hot needle piercing my skull.

Projected into the surroundings was a rush of agony, a babbled cacophony of pleas and a hint of anger.

It floored me.

I dropped the bat, collapsed to my knees and covered my ears, the sound was as deafening. It was relayed in my mind, and amplified like it was bouncing off the walls of an auditorium.

Trying to pinpoint the source of such ghastly pain, I discovered a new facet to my abilities.

I disembodied myself.

I slipped into the physicality of another; occupying the same headspace, all by displacing another's mind. Looking up through another's eyes was disorientating to say the least and it took me a moment to acquaint myself with the body I had been transported to.

I was in a heap on the floor, with the long limbs of another's body. I brushed blond curls out of another's tear-soaked face and peered up at their aggressor.

I could feel their anger pulsing through their body. I could feel the pain throbbing in their face. I could feel their heartache in their chest, like the weight of a neutron star.

"Do you want to get out of that fuck awful apartment in downtown Brooklyn?!" The figure was obscured in such dizzying pain, concussion I suspected. "Huh? Do you?!" Their ears were ringing like a shotgun had been fired at close range.

A tang of iron forming in their mouth, I spat out a puddle of spit and blood onto the floor, barely able to prop their body up.

"Mop that up!" A heavy boot pressed between their shoulder blades drove their face into the floor, dirtied with their bodily fluids. It smeared across not-my cheek. "If you don't wipe it with your sleeve, I'll make you lick it off the floor!"

Threat issued: I managed to take the reigns of the body I was in control of and polished the mess off the varnished floor with clumsy rotating motions.

"Sharon is our ticket outta poverty! All you gotta do is behave yourself until pops puts a ring on her finger and the stupid bitch drinks herself to death. Think you can do that?" The ringing cleared from the body owner's head and their vision drew into focus.

Kurt, he was the one who had done this. He was standing over - I checked the distorted reflection in the tarnished and dusty radiator - Cain.

Outside of the body I was currently residing in, I was aware of Raven howling my name in the formal gardens. Her distressed calls were enough to sever my focus and our consciousnesses twanged apart like the snapping of an elastic band.

My consciousness was transplanted back into my body and I startled back into activity, gasping a shuddering breath.

"Charles! Charles, are you okay?!" She had seized me by the shoulders and was trying to shake the sense into me, still not all pieced together, I stared blankly at her. I'd paled, I knew I had.

"Fine... Fine!" I scrambled to my feet, scuffing the green pastures until brown dents were dug into it. "Cain isn't fine!"

By the time I had lugged my traumatised body - still trembling with the aftershocks of mind displacement - to the door and tumbled into the hallway, the situation had been rectified beyond suspicion. Cain dabbed the remnants of congealed blood from his nostrils, Kane glaring at me to cure my suspicions.

"Is he alright?" I spluttered. "Cain, are you alright?" I was babbling like a lunatic, a sheen of sweat having broken out above my brow; I looked fevered.

"Why wouldn't he be, kid?" Kurt growled, not putting on his angelic attitude without my mother to impress.

"Cain, your nose, is it bleeding?" I approached, my legs like jelly under me.

"What does it matter to you?" Kurt grumbled, a face like thunder.

Ignoring every word coming out of that brutish man's mouth, I spoke to his son. "Is it?"

Kurt's hand clasped Cain on the shoulder and his knuckles turned white. Shifting his shoulder with discomfort, Cain averted his gaze. "I'm fine. It doesn't matter..." And he wriggled away like a salmon that had been mangled under a bear's claw, rubbing his swollen joint.

His son having left the room, tension simmered. Gritting my jaw and glaring at him, I slithered into Kurt's mind mind, scouting his motives and emotions. It was like running into a concrete wall and he deflected my invasion.

A hand shot to my head to soothe my throbbing temples and I winced.

"Something wrong, Charlie?" His syrupy sweet tone was back and he smirked slyly at me.

Still quaking from exhaustion post-mind transportation, I struggled to string a sentence together. "Ah, I-I... I don't know..." I narrowed my eyes discerningly at him. No one had ever shielded their mind from me like that before, and that provoked a raised eyebrow.

Wandering over and cupping my flushed cheek, then resting his hand on my forehead "You don't look very well, you should go for a lie down," he instructed. Though the words seemed coddling, there was a sharpness to them and he remained stony faced.

So here I am, supported by a stack of pillows, with a duvet up to my chin, scripting the page with details of my day.

Today has been eventful; I've met Kurt's little psychopath, discovered I can possess other people's bodies and found out that Kurt's mind is as guarded as Fort Knox.

Mind transplanting - so to speak - is one of the more unpleasant things I've ever done. Whilst being in control of another's physical form, you can feel their consciousness battling against yours: thrashing and screaming and thriving for control. It's like holding them prisoner in their own body, in the backseat.

You share their thoughts feelings, and they meld with yours; it's hard to distinguish where their personality starts and where it fragments off into yours. Those stirred and shaken feelings are so strong and unyeilding, the burden is paralyzing.

It zapped the strength out of me, really it did. My mind feels numb, my abilities dulled. Not to mention it was an invasion of privacy: power comes with responsibility and all, I should respect that. I have no reason to try that again any time soon.

What's really disconcerting is the fact that I can't penetrate Kurt's mind. That he fended my telepathy off as accurately as a swordsman's parry. That has to show some awareness of my presence in his head, surely? Awareness of my kind?

And that's not the only thing that worries me about him; the fact that he's using my mother as a financial transaction and intends to leech off my father's wealth like the filthy creature he is makes my stomach churn. By god, he intends to marry her.

And I can't do anything to stop it. What am I supposed to say 'Oh yes, I psychicly implanted myself into Cain's body and listened in on Kurt's diabolical scheme after he took a punch at his own flesh and blood.'

Dear diary, I'm so very, very fucked.

A/N - Fancasting for Cain Marko is Alex Pettyfer, because A) I adore him B) He played a convincing bad guy in 'In Time'; great movie if you haven't seen it, it has: Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried and Cillain Murphy! Wherein time is currency and the concept is really made the most of! C) He's of a plausibly young age, and I still think of him as Alex Rider from Stormbreamer tbh - again, great book, decent film if you aren't familiar!

P.S - I'm so pleased that the previous chapter was well recieved! Thank you so much for all of your support!

Dedication when I have a laptop to hand!