Runaway ~ TUA (Book 3)

Chapter 13

Viktor walked into the same room Taya happened to be in, the teenager was sitting in a corner, silently sobbing. She looked up at him when she heard the door closed, whipping her face as she looked at her uncle, drawing in a shaky breath. The two stared at each other for a moment, neither of them saying anything until Viktor broke the silence.

"You okay, Tay?," he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," the teen lied, "What about you?" Viktor also said the same thing, he didn't want to pressure Taya into talking and upset her even more, so the two of them just dropped the conversation.

The two of them sat in the room silently, the only sound was Taya humming a random song quietly in an attempt to help calm herself down. It was a song that she and Claire would always sing together when they got bored. Taya ran her hands through her hair as she rested the back of her head against the wall, her face had been stained with tears and her hair was frazzled.

Taya jumped slightly when she heard the door open, she looked over and saw Ben walking inside. Taya moved over to the side as she stood up, letting Ben get his jacket from the chair, not listening to anything Viktor and Ben were saying to each other. She just didn't have the energy.

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Later that night, Taya went downstairs to check if she had left her sweater in the family room but she stopped in her tracks when she heard Lila and Allison talking. The teen stood behind one of the large pillars, listening to what the two women were talking about.

"Just champagne," Lila snickered, closing the cabinet as she stood up again. "Absolute wankers."

"Speaking of wankers," Lila continued as she began to open one of the alcohol bottles, "any inside tips on how to get your stupid brother to accept my apology?" Allison shrugged as she took a sip of the drink in the glass that she was holding.

"People don't want apologies," Allison replied simply, "They want confessions. They want you to stand there and list all the shitty ways you've hurt them so that they know you understand. Unless, you're Viktor, in which case nothing's ever good enough." Taya felt her face fall slightly but she continued to listen.

"You know, I thought killing Harlan would make me feel better. Or worse. Jesus, just something," Allison admitted, "But it didn't."

"Or, maybe, you're just feeling everything all at once, and it all kind of cancels out," Lila suggested.

"No, I think I'm finally starting to understand everything," Allison replied as Lila leaned on the back of the counter.

"How do you mean?"

"Well, the way that I see it, in a few days, we'll all be dead. Or in some new timeline where Harlan probably never existed anyway," Allison explained before she began laughing, almost as if she was mocking someone but she wasn't. "It's all bullshit. I mean, none of it... none of it's real. Nothing stays."

"You've got the spins," Lila chuckled, swinging herself over the table and sat on the counter next to Allison, Taya still standing in her hiding spot as she continued to listen in. "Okay, look. Fapping about with time travel, it's a massive head trip, I grant you, but, things are still real. They're just moving by so fast, you get dizzy with the changes. It's like figure skaters and their triple Salchow doggy-style... whatever it is, you gotta pick a focus point. Something concrete to lock onto, no matter what changes around you."

"And what if I had two, but I lost her and the other one most likely hates me?" Taya felt her heart crack at what her mom had said, she didn't hate Allison. She was just upset at how Allison had been so blinded by her feelings about Claire being gone that she overlooked her feelings on it.

"Then find another one. Or you can try to make things right between you and Little Red," Lila replied and Taya couldn't help but smile upon hearing the nickname Lila had given to her.

"Hi, Taya," Five said as he walked past her, giving away the fact she had been there the whole time and Lila and Allison looked over at them while Taya slowly emerged from behind the pillar. "We're ready."

Lila and Allison got up, both realizing Taya must have heard the entire conversation, the red head grabbed her sweater and put it on as she was starting to get cold. Allison walked past but stopped for a brief moment, looking at the teenager and the two of them made eye-contact. Taya was the first one to continue walking.