His Legacy

Chapter 6~ Powdered Prints

I've had to take an emotional break from editing Now and Forever because it's so stressful how they don't know how their love story ends... I might feel the slightest bit bad. 

I step into Seb's old house.

The house.

My house.

I can hear Isla laughing from the kitchen, so that's the sound I follow.

The entrance to the kitchen has little white prints that look like they're made of powder leading inside. I raise my eyebrows and follow them.

Inside the kitchen is Rosa and Isla both covered head to toe in flour standing with their backs to me.

I clear my throat and Rosa swings around sending a cloud of flour into the air.

She's holding a mixing bowl in hand and a wooden spoon in the other.

'Isla spilled the flour.' She says as soon as she sees me.

'Oh.'

She nods. 'I'm cleaning it up.'

She moves to the side to put the mixing bowl down revealing Isla. Covered in almost every ingredient under the sun.

She giggles and reaches out her hands when she sees me.

I shake my head. 'Oh Isla.'

Rosa moves to pick up Isla from her high chair, but I stop her.

'How about I clean her up and you go clean yourself up.' I say.

She looks hesitant at first before nodding her head.

I smile at her and walk Isla to the bathroom.

I clean Isla off and I'm changing her when Rosa walks in. She's showered and changed.

She walks up to the opposite end of Isla's changing table. 'I can do that if you like. If you have work to do.'

'Oh um, I mean-' I step to the side, I'm not really too sure what I'm supposed to say.

Looking after Isla is her job... but I'm her mother.

Rosa moves to dress Isla but stops midway when she sees I haven't left the room.

She turns to me. 'Okay how about this, when you're not around or you're working, I'll look after Isla and when you are around you can look after her, I'll take a step back.'

I nod. 'Okay, yeah sure.'

She steps back and gives me a smile before leaving me with Isla.

_____________________________________________________________

I spend the next few hours with Isla before deciding I need to do some work.

I take the memory stick from my back pocket and plug it into the computer in my office upstairs.

The drive pops up and I click on it.

Fifteen files pop up all labelled by date.

What is with everyone and dates.

I click on the first one.

Empty.

I click on the second one.

Empty.

They can't all be empty.

I click on every other file and they're all empty.

I reset my computer and plug the USB back in.

They're all still empty.

Fuck.

I push back my chair, storm out of the house and go to see Axcel.

I slam the memory stick on his desk and he looks up at me shocked.

'Its empty.' I snap at him.

He leans back in his chair and sighs. 'Duh.'

'What do you mean, duh?'

'I mean, duh. What did you think he was going to do, hand everything over to you because you were so kind as to let him go?'

I glare at him.

He shrugs. 'I told you not to let him go.'

'Well-'

I'm really struggling to find things to blame him for.

'Well, it's still your fault. You have to find him again.' I say eventually.

'Absolutely not Alexis. You let him go, you find him.'

'No. You can't do that.'

'Watch me.'

I cross my arms. 'Axcel, I will get people to kill you if you don't do what I say.'

He laughs. 'Alexis, your threats are weak. Please improve them.'

I let out a frustrated groan.

'Just tell me how to find him.' I say.

'Ask around.'

'That's not useful.'

He shrugs again. 'That's what I did.'

'I don't care what you did. Tell me what I should do.'

'I really don't understand what you're trying to ask me Alexis.'

Why is he so calm? It's frustrating.

I place my hands on my hips. 'Why do you not seem to want to find out what Seb was doing before he died.'

Axcel stands up suddenly and presses his palms down on his desk. He takes a deep breath. 'Because if Sebastian didn't tell me about it, then it's probably not something I need to know.'

'Well he's dead. So you do need to know, so we can figure out who killed him.'

'Alexis, leave it.'

'No. Just let me find out whether it's my fault he's dead or not.'

He looks at me for a while, looks down and then looks back up. 'Alexis, it's not your fault.'

'Well how do you know that?' I ask.

'I mean- Alexis, it was Seb's choice. What he did. He didn't have to jump in front of that gun. If anything, it was my fault.'

I shake my head. 'No-'

'I know you think it was my fault.'

'No, Axcel. I don't- I just-'

'You do.' He looks down. 'And it's fine because I blame myself too.'

'Axcel, no. None of us could've known what was going to happen.'

'If I was paying attention then-'

'No.' I say firmly. 'Leave it.'

I pick the memory stick back up.

'Alexis-'

I hold up my hand to stop him. 'It's fine.'

He sits back down in his chair as I turn to leave.

Why does everything have to be so difficult?