Chapter Thirty Eight

"Good evening ma, can I speak with Shully?" The voice that answered wasn't Shully's, but her mom's. I got worried on why her mother was the one with her phone. Was she still mad at me?
"Camilla, where have you been? you are such a bad best friend. Rumours have it you ran away from home. But why? Your father is a great parent, and he has missed you so greatly since you left. He has lost so much weight." Why would shully give her mother the phone to convince me to come home? I understand that she missed me, I missed her so greatly too. But involving her parent was out completely out of it.
"Please ma, I would love to speak with Shully." I repeated myself, ignoring her questions and nosey attitude.
She sighed. "Shully is in the ICU and cannot make any calls, so I have her phone. She was diagnosed with stage one cancer and kidney failure. She has been in a state of coma for days now and will remain that way according to the doctors, until there's a new kidney."
"W-h-a-t!" I didn't realize that tears had dropped from my eyes.
"Are you okay?" My mum looked at me, but I didn't find my voice.
"What hospital is she at?"My voice trembled, my hands shook. I had a lot of questions for Shully's mother. While I was mad at her for not checking up on me, for blocking me, for hanging up on the last conversation we had, I didn't realize she was having the worst time of her life and battling with life and death.
"Who is hospitalized?" My mum asked again. I still said nothing, I was too busy listening to Shully's mom.
"The general hospital here. Please come and see her, if you can. She has been in a very terrible state, and who knows? Maybe having you around would help." I said nothing in response to her request, when she was done speaking, I said good how and hung up the call. My phone dropped from my hands, simultaneously with the tears.
"Baby, what is it? You called someone, and the next thing you are crying. Who is hospitalized? If it's something money can fix, I assure you that I'll give. Speak to me, baby. Don't let anything or anyone ruin our perfect moment."
"It's not like money can fix it, we need a kidney donor." I sighed. "Mum, she is my best friend, infact my only friend. She was there for me, mum. When everything was going the wrong way, she made sure that I was okay. And now, things seem to finally be working out, she's sick. She's in a coma. She can't speak. Her mother says she is in the ICU."
"It's okay." My mum held my hand and squeezed it tightly. "We'll go and see her when things are better over here, but for now, I want you to focus on our family. Focus on making these findings about your father. You should understand what is going on with him, and why he joined the gang. If it was a deliberate act, you have my word. Go ahead and kill him. But if otherwise, we'll know what to do."
I stared at the green grass, while pondering on what she said. My presence wasn't going to make Shully better, but what if I could donate my kidney?
That would mean that I would be hospitalized for days, which something I needed to avoid. For the moment, I had to busy my mind with tricking the Mafia gang sisters, and coming up with excuses to make them believe that I was trying my best. And then, I had to secretly make findings about my father.
"Okay!" I said with a deep breath. "Do you have any idea on how we can track him down, or his relationship with these gangsters?" I was yet to understand what any of it had to do with him raping me multiple times, but I was going to listen to my mother and do things calmly.
"I have a few ideas. But before that, tell me baby. Where do you stay? Who do you stay with?"
I stared at her big eyes calmly, wondering if I really wanted to disclose my identity to her, and put the sisterhood in danger. At a great risk of being discovered. "Common, baby. I need to know if you are safe. Cos, if you aren't, you can always move in with me. You don't even need to go back and get your stuff, I'll take you shopping at the mall."
The mall? I had a bad record there already. I had stolen a lot of things in one day, I was supposed to go down in history.
"I'm a mafia gangster." I looked at her closely, observing her facial expressions. It was hard to know what was going on in her head, her face was just as neutral as it was before I began speaking.
"Go on." She said calmly.
"Well, nothing much. I stay with the gang of sisters at the gang base. And I assure you, I'm fine. I don't want to attract unnecessary attention to you, so I'm fine"
"Are you sure you are in no way at risk with them?" I expected her to overreact, but she wasn't acting disappointed or unhappy.
"No, mom. I'm fine with them. As long as I live by the rules, I'm fine. Their rules are easy to live with."
"Okay! Are you happy to be a gangster?" She said this on a slightly emotional note.
"No, but it seemed like the only way anyone could survive here, and so I joined them. Infact, I was sort of pressured into it. But it's all cool now, they promised to help me kill my father, so it's fine."
"Remember, you are not to do anything until we are able to discover his reasons for behaving In this manner."
"Yes mom, I know. But what do I tell the Mafia sisters that I spent the whole day doing? I can't go back without at least achieving something. My mission today was to track them."
My mom smiled. "I know their base. Come, I'll show you"