HIDDEN (Hide Or Die)

Chapter 37

KYLE'S P.O.V.

"Did you ever find out what became of my brother after that night?"

Immediately that question left my lips, I knew it was a bad idea.

Granted, these few days had opened my eyes to the fact that I didn't really know much about my mother as I always claimed I did; but that, for sure as hell didn't take away the fact that I still knew her to a considerable decent extent. For example, I could always tell what an eye roll from her signified at different points in time, or what a scowl implied when directed at a target which was mostly always me, and in this case, I very well knew what this tightening jaw expression meant.

There was absolutely no hope.

"A year after your birth, I once met a man at a restaurant where I worked at the time," turning away from me, mum let out a shaky breath. If there was any hope lingering in my mind before, it was completely dead now.

"At first, I thought he was just a regular at the restaurant but then I noticed he never ordered anything, and all he did every time he came around, which was every day, was to sit quietly in a booth at the very end of the restaurant and just stare at me working. So, I concluded he was just an admirer and so I chose to ignore him, after all, he was the least of my problems." Mum's face clouded with pains and... guilt?

"Every time I walked past him while waiting, he would sit in the same booth and try to talk to me. Whenever he tried to talk to me, he always appeared timid and a little scared, and I was of course uninterested in anything he had to say; he was cute and all, but at that point in my life, my head was already full." My heart sank as tears streamed down Mom's cheeks. What was she about to say that would be worse than what she had already said?

"I remember yelling at him one time when he followed me to the trash cans where I used to hide you. I was terrified that he would see what I was hiding, which is why I yelled. He seemed like a nice guy, and I didn't mean to scare him, but I couldn't help myself. In the evening of the same day, on my way home, I was discovered by some enforcers sent by James to bring me back home, so I started running with you in my arms, not really knowing where I was going, I just really knew I had to escape, that was all; but eventually, I was trapped, and my only option at that moment was to teleport, which was completely useless because they would simply follow suit even if I did. So, as I stood there completely terrified, a car unexpectedly pulled right in front of me, and there he was, the strange man I was practically ignoring, yelling at me to get in.

My mind immediately went to work weighing my options. It was either the enforcers who didn't know about Kyle and simply wanted to take me back home, although I knew once they found out about him, they would have taken him without a second thought. Or a shy stalker stranger that I knew nothing about. My decision was made in a split second, and I jumped into the man's car as he sped up the asphalt road. He drove like a madman, and in no time, we were able to get rid of the enforcers, or so we thought."

******

EMILY'S P.O.V.

The room was completely silent as Kyle and his friends all stared at me with wide eyes, waiting for me to continue. What I was about to tell him was difficult, and I had kept it a secret for many years, mostly because of the immense guilt I felt every time I remembered what had happened, but I had already begun on the part of truth, and I was going to stick to it until the end. I took a deep breath and kept going.

"After months of trying, I finally get to talk to you alone." The man had said this as we were now parked beneath a bridge after losing the enforcers. My mind was so jumbled at the time that I had completely forgotten I was with someone until he spoke. I had almost started panicking but when I turned to look at him, most of my anxiety melted. He didn't appear to be dangerous, and even if he was, I had the option of teleporting away before he could harm me, so I let myself relax a little.