Unshed Blood | Criminal Minds

chapter three - the past

CHAPTER THREE

[SOREN]

I PULLED up to my childhood home, getting out of the car as I went over to the front door. My dad had called for me to meet him and Sybil at our old home where we used to live so that we were able to sort through the home before selling it. Sybil made it clear that she didn't want to sell the house but none of us lived there and we needed to sell it to be able to move on.

I noticed my dad standing in the driveway with a box in his hand, and once he saw me his face lit up. "Hey, hun. Your sister is in the back."

"She cried yet?" I asked, needing to know about her emotional state before seeing her. I was never good with dealing with emotional people.

"Not yet, looks like she could any second though." Dad shrugged, like me, he was never someone who was emotional. In fact, I had only ever see my dad get angry once in my life and I can't even remember what happened then. "Go check on her, Soren."

I nodded, heading into the back garden where I saw Sybil standing in front of the flower garden that our mom had been making since she was a child. "Sybil, what are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be helping dad pack everything away."

Sybil flinched when she noticed me, her eyes widening ever so slightly. "I-I was. I just wanted to look at the flowers one last time."

"Why? They're just flowers." I shrugged my shoulders, I didn't understand what the big deal was.

Sybil looked angry after I had spoken but again, I didn't understand why. "There not just flowers, Soren. Mom spent her time out here doing something that she enjoyed and loved, it's the only thing left of her that we have. How do you not understand that still?"

"I just don't think that flowers are going to do anything." I replied, "I think you're overthinking this too much. Flowers are flowers."

She stayed quiet for a moment before scoffing loudly. "Flowers? You don't even care at all do you?! You're just like dad! You two don't have a caring bone in your body and it's sick!"

"I do care." I declared, nodding my head confidently. "I do care, Sybil!"

"Really? Then why haven't you shed a single tear yet, huh?"

"What's going on, girls?" Dads voice called out, walking through the garden without any boxes in his hand and a calm expression plastered on his face. "I can hear you two shouting from down the road."

"Nothing, dad." Sybil suddenly became silent, as she looked down at the grass.

"Ain't nothing if you two are yelling about flowers, is it?" Dad sarcastically replied back crossing his arms over his chest. "Soren? Why you yelling for?"

"Sybil thinks that I don't care that mom is dead." I bluntly told him, glaring at Sybil from the corner of my eye. "I do care though, Dad. I do."

"I know you do, Sybil, your sister just doesn't know how to show her emotions but that doesn't mean that she doesn't care." He told her, looking directly at her as she slowly nodded her head.

Sybil glanced at me, her eyes softening ever so slightly. "I'm so sorry, Soren. I know how much you loved her. I shouldn't have assumed anything."

"Damn right, Sybil." I was still angry with what she had said, and was taking it out on her.

"Soren." Dad warned me, "Get back to work, we need to be done by four before any one come over to the house."

________

I stared with going through the things in the basement, packing everything up so that it was all organized and ready to go into the storage container's. I finished taping up the last of the box I was on before moving to a different section of the basement, the back corner.

I had never been down to the basement when I was a child and I needed to pack this all up before the clock hit four o'clock. Making my way over, I picked up a diary that was on the bottom of the ground, picking it up I flipped it over not recognizing whose diary it could have been before I flipped open the first page. My birthday was written across the first line.

August 1st 1985,

My daughter was born today. My fiancée - Summer - wanted to name her something beginning with 'S' like her older sister, Sybil. She said that she wanted them to have a closer connection to her and apparently giving them a name that began with the same letter was the same thing.

So, I suggested the same Soren.

The name Soren is usually used for a boy, but I knew that my little girl was going to be a daddy's girl. So the name seemed perfect, the name means God of Thunder. Soren was always strong, Summer used to complain about how hard she would kick when she was pregnant so it seemed even more fitting. The name is also Scandinavian and every since I heard of it, I loved it.

I'm going to raise my little girl to be just like me. I already know that she is, she has the same look in her eyes when she was get angry at something or needed to be fed, my baby girl is a carbon copy of her father.

We would soon learn if that is a good or bad thing.

Time can only tell.

- Arlo Hale.

I closed the diary over, keeping it close by my side as I planned to read it later on. It was clearly my father's diary and I was intrigued to know more. I continued cleaning the basement up, putting everything insignificant into the boxes and just as the clock his four o'clock I had finished everything up.

I walked back upstairs, quickly hiding the diary into my bag as I met back up with Sybil and my dad who were also putting the last things away. "Here." I handed over my final box, dusting my hands off my pants. "Is that everything?"

"Yeah, do you want to go out for some food. I'm starving." Sybil groaned, placing her hands over her stomach. "Pizza?"

"You read my mind." I grinned at her.