CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN
Everywhere was ransacked.
It was like a hurricane had come through our house and scattered everywhere, leaving our childhood memories all in shambles.
The pictures Mom lovingly hung atop the fireplace were scattered on the ground, the frames torn apart, our cheap carpet was cut through as though they were looking for something on the ground, the couches torn apart and the TV I guess Mom bought after I left was broken on the ground.
“What were they looking for?” Anna asked as we all took in the damage.
“Roe, maybe you should stay outside, this doesn't look safe,” I said to her as she was standing at the door, shock written on her face.
“Are you sure? I'm really okay with –”
“Don't worry, we're just going to go upstairs and see what really happened here,” I said and then I spotted the stool Dad used to stretch his legs on before he got the surgery and I got it for her. “Here, sit down and wait for us. You can call your family. We'll probably take you home before we start cleaning up here,”
“Cleaning? We're staying here?” Anna quipped.
“Yea, I mean, it's not like we have any money to go anywhere. And I think this is the last place they'd expect us to be at so it was a perfect hiding spot until we could figure out where to run to. A week or two max.”
“That's a good plan. Don't look so forlorn, Anna, your sister has a good head on her shoulders when it's not far away in the clouds,” Roe joked and we all chuckled.
Once I confirmed she was comfortably seated, I carefully walked around the debris and joined Anna on the stairs as we went up.
As we got to our parent's bedroom, the chaos in there got me thinking. Something about this whole library thing was way off. I mean, you didn't want us to know certain things, sure but the punishment for it was too extreme. I mean, what did he plan to do with them if we hadn't escaped?
How many lies had he planned in the future for me? Once again, I felt like a stupid fool for believing his crap. I was tempted to take out his phone and do some sort of damage to his personality but something told me I would regret it and besides, I didn't know his password.
“Dad used to love this plushie pillow so much. Said I gave it to him as a gift when I was little,” Anna said as she picked up its pieces from the ground. I noticed a bit of dried blood on it, and my heart sank. I knew she was close to tears, way more than I was anyway so I went to her and hugged her to my neck.
“What if they..” she sniffled before continuing, “what if they're dead, Tessy,”
I moved back in shock, the thought nerve wracking.
“Don't say that , please. There's no way he'd be that wicked, okay?” I refused to believe that, for my own sanity. I'd hate myself forever for sleeping with the man who killed my family. There's gotta be another explanation. Besides, who knows what they were actually looking for? If they'd found it, they're probably just trying to punish them a little bit or something. He wouldn't do that,” I rambled on, my heart palpitating as the thought sank deeper into my mind.
Would he?
I was ashamed to admit that I didn't know Xavier as much as I thought I did and funny enough, I knew this wasn't his father's work. That kieran loved an audience for his drama but this, this had the handwriting of someone trying to hide something and needed to get things over and done as quickly as possible.
I guess Anna noticed my panicked response and changed the topic.
“I hope so. Do you remember the path to the library?”
Dad had stopped her from reading at the age of twelve because she couldn't keep calm about the things she read. We'd gotten lots of reports of her arguing with teachers about what she was being taught.
I guess his warnings didn't get to her and Anna always wanted to make an impact in her life so seeing the confusion, she wanted to know which was accurate.
“Yea, this way,” I moved the curtain beside the bed aside and was going to push the wall beside it when I saw that there was no need for that.
They'd destroyed the entire mechanism and ravaged the secret library.
Nothing could stop my tears at that moment. I had an emotional attachment to this place, it was somewhere that my Dad and I bonded over books that he'd had the chance to read. Family time was precious but each time he was sad or frustrated with his legs, he'd come here and read and once I didn't see him anywhere, I'd disappear from the world and join him here. We'd read in silence so no one would realize what was back here at least three hours everyday. I learned so much, became so much all because of this little part of our house. It houses probably about five thousand different books and I'd nearly read everything before I had to go for the SOS event.
And now, Xavier sent men to destroy it and cart away my parents to gods knows where.
“Tessy?” Anna called and I cleaned my face a little bit before turning to her.
She was standing at the other side of the bed with her attention focused on something.
“What is it?”
“I think we're being watched.”
“Wait, what? How?” I quizzed and ran over to where she was looking at and true enough, there was a small camera right on top of the bedside table.
“Who knows how many of these are scattered all over the place?”
“We need to leave. Now!” I excla
imed and we ran down the stairs to notice that Roe was gone too.
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