Out of Time

chapter 23 - faith

The Bernard family are going to be the death of me. They are all just everywhere, and always, somehow finding themselves in my business, and just ... there. They need to stop.

Xavier pushes his way into my apartment, ignoring my groan of disgust.

"Xavier, get the fuck out of my house," I complain.

"Firstly, this is an apartment, not a house. Secondly, the apartment isn't yours. It's Kieran Wright's. So, nothing in that sentence was correct, and I'm sitting down".

He aggressively jumps onto my untouched couch, dust clouding around him. "You're so mess- achoo". I burst out in laughter as he stumbles to his feet, rubbing his eyes to remove the dust from his eyes. He (tries to) glare at me in disgust, muttering curses in between his sneezes. I close the door and push him back onto the couch.

I unsheath the knife attached to my hip and zip towards his falling body. Straddling him, I push the blade into his neck, drawing a hiss from his mouth. "What the fuck do you want, Xavier?"

He takes a deep breath, takes his sinuously tattooed right hand and simply pushes me off him. I fall onto my grey rug, flushed, as he crosses his legs on the now-clean sofa. He picks up my knife and examines the detailed hilt. It's a gift from Kieran, actually.

Kieran gave it to me after the ordeal with Dillon, I guess, as some sort of apology. I did accept it eventually, but only after he rebuilt my faith that I had barely entrusted him with. I never found out what happened once Dillon had hit me across the head apart from the fact he had sported a black eye for 2 weeks after. I had a bout of memory loss for a while after. Though, it did all come back eventually.

He places it on the side table, creating a cloud of dust like before.

"I'm paying for a fucking maid or something," he mutters after sneezing. "Now, the reason I came here - wait, no. Lara, stand up."

Still slightly shocked by his power, I climb up and collapse onto the chair next to Xavier, not quite ready to stand after he threw me off him. He wipes the blood off his neck, smiling slightly.

"Do you have bandages or anything?" I nod, not moving to get it. I cross my legs, similarly to him, and lean back. The dust settles onto me, and I sneeze. Xavier barks out in laughter. "Yeah, I'm paying for someone to clean this place."

I roll my eyes and remain silent, beckoning him to begin whatever he has to so-desperately tell me. He fishes out an envelope from the leather briefcase I didn't see him enter with. "The DNA results. I had it bumped up the queue so you wouldn't have to wait," he explains.

Visible hope swirled in his eyes. They were misty, glassy to some extent, almost as if he knew what was in the results. "Have you opened them?" I asked. He shakes his head, showing me the unopened seal. "Alright, let's get this over with."

I rip the papers from his hand and tear open the top of it. I pull out the sheets and fling the empty envelope behind me. 2 sheets have highlighted portions, so I pick through them first. I shove the rest of them onto my tiny side table, on top of my abandoned knife. A table of random numbers and letters, some, rather-irregularly, being circled and others left as they were printed.

The alleged father, Henry Bernard, is not excluded as the biological father of the tested child. Based on the DNA loci testing, the alleged father has a probability of paternity of 99.987%.

My heart freezes. Or maybe it breaks. I'm not sure. I shakily pass the scratchy paper to Xavier, my tears threatening to break through the barrier I had put up around me. I pick up the other one and read through the details. It's similar to Hen- my father's results, although the 99.987% is instead 99.995%. "What the fuck," I croak, setting the results on the couch between Xavier and me.