[ WP ] Ever since you were five , you could know every lie someone spoke . It is not body language or reading , you simply 'know ' . One day , you can no longer sense ...

I liked to call it my Spy Sense. That's what my sister Amelia called it when I always called her bluff out to Mom. It was a thin prick in the tip of my stomach, preparing my mouth to say,'LIAR!' 
 
 She got better. When she turned eleven, she grabbed some stuff from her room and snaked out the window. We had to call the police. When they found her sleeping in an alley a mile from our house, I was in hysterics. Mom knew I could tell if people were lying; she blamed me. 
 
 Mom never physically abused me. It was her silence. She did n't talk to me for a month after that first incident. When Amelia went missing again a year later, she blamed me again. The incidents became more frequent regardless. 
 
 I tried to catch my twin, I did. I slept by her door; she used the window. I barred the window; she bought a wire cutter after school and snapped the lock. Everything I threw at her, she threw back with a thousand times more force. 
 
 The year we turned fifteen, Amelia started smoking. Weed, first, then cigarettes. She snorted whatever cheap coke she could afford from her dealer and boyfriend. Mom hardly talked to me that year. Maybe once, two times. 
 
 Amelia got sneaky. She made sure I was n't going to catch her midnight escapades. Two weeks without catching her turned into two months. Our sixteenth birthday was celebrated with silence and stale cupcakes sitting on the counter. 
 
 I heard odd noises from the bathroom. `` Amelia?'' My voice shook. I willed her to say something, anything that would tell me if she was lying. 
 
 From inside the door, a muffled sniff; `` I want you to go away, Daniel.'' *Truth. * 
 
 `` What are you doing in there?'' A loaded question. I begged, silently, for her to answer. 
 
 `` Nothing I want you to know about.'' *Truth again. * Damn her. I was n't going to get anywhere like this. 
 
 I could n't deal with the solitary confinement. Mom would n't speak to me if I could n't figure it out. No more silent meals. I was going to do something desperate. 
 
 Crouching low, I peered under the door. I could see her knees, her feet wearing brown combat boots edged with faux fur. Her favorites. Pushing a finger under the door, I could feel the edge of the one faulty hinge. 
 
 The door cracked open. Lightning fast, I sprang up and wedged my shoe into the doorway before Amelia could close it. 
 
 `` What,'' She said said, pressing herself against the door. She could n't force me away. Even though she knew this, she seemed unaffected by the knowledge. `` Your Spy Sense not working?'' 
 
 I resisted the urge to laugh. The Sense was a constant for me. It always worked. 
 
 A cruel glint sparked through her eyes and she released her pressure from the door. `` Fine, them, if you're not going away,'' she opened her arms wide, `` come on in.'' 
 
 Confused, I did as she requested. A little baggie with white dust on it was sitting on the bathroom counter, a folded up index card by it. Amelia's eyes were red-rimmed. 
 
 `` Again?'' Coke. She was addicted. `` Really?'' I was shouting now, unable to control the level of my voice. It was a good thing Mom was n't home yet. 
 
 My sister's backpack was laying on the floor. The frizzy-haired redhead picked it up, slinging it onto her shoulder. `` Yeah, again.'' She shoved past me, stomping down the hall and to the door that dumped into our backyard. That is, if you could call a saggy, small patch of grass backing up into a winding alley a backyard. 
 
 `` Where are you going?'' I followed her. *Say something, say something. * 
 
 She did n't answer me, not stopping her walk until her pale, delicate hand was on the doorknob. The same hand that, years earlier, I had reached for in the back of a police car and found it cold, stiff. It was from when I followed her to her boyfriend's house and gotten arrested when I bloodied his nose and busted his cartel for the time being. 
 
 She still had a small, moon-shaped crescent scar on her index finger. I could squint and see it if I tried. 
 
 `` I'm not coming back.'' Her blue eyes were icy cold, neon in the dim light. 
 
 I waited for the familiar tug in my gut, saying *liar* and letting me sleep at night. 
 
.. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Nothing. Silence. 
 
 I did n't know. 
 
 
 

