Finding Maisie

Finding Maisie: Chapter 23

Finding Maisie

Chapter 23

It was funny really. I had spent this whole time being afraid of the abductor, knowing that he wanted to kill me. But now was the first time I actually wanted to be in a room with him, despite the fact that he was still trying to kill me. Now I was finally going to get the answers I needed. I was finally going to understand what this whole experience had been about. The list of questions I had was endless but all I wanted was for at least half of them to be answered and that would make me happy.

We were all sat around in the attic; Callum, our fathers and me. Colin was walking around, gripping his gun tightly, obviously showing his control in the situation. However that control in his stature didn't reach his face. Whatever my father had spoken about earlier had struck a nerve with the abductor. It was like looking at a different person. Broken, distorted and, well... Vulnerable. The abductor looked fragile and that was a first, but it wasn't necessarily a good thing. Being vulnerable meant the abductor could act recklessly and that would only mean the pain or death of one of us.

Colin had an intake of breath signalling his start to speaking. The whole room was silent in that second, a silence so precise that I felt inhibited to breath in case it made a sound. I tried to hear over the drumming of my heart in my ears to listen to what Colin was going to say. The answers. It wasn't so much as just the cause of trying to kidnap us that I wanted to find out but how Colin planned this, how Maisie was treated and much more. The abductor opened his mouth and I knew that this was it; time to find out the truth.

'It started.. Well it started when I was born, if I am to be precise,' Colin said, 'I trust you already know that I am fifteen years younger than your father, Poppy. For a lot of people that wouldn't be a problem, but for my parents it was quite the predicament. I obviously wasn't a planned child and they liked to tell me that.'

'That's a lie,' my dad interrupted. 'Our parents never did anything of the sort.'

'Perhaps not physically to my face but I overheard them speaking many a time. They only planned two children. First off was Melanie, they're beloved first child. She was quite the intelligent one and did them proud with all her school work. She was never a burden to them. And then next was their hoped for son, your dad, Poppy. Already having a daughter they had wished for a son, and that wish had been granted. He was their golden boy. Never getting into trouble at school and having a leadership position there. He got into any university he applied for. My parents treasured him. And then there was me. The accident child, the one they wished they never had. They had finished raising children, both of their previous ones were already teenagers. They didn't want to have to go through it all again, they were ready for retirement. I could see the tiredness in my mother's eyes. She looked at me as a chore rather than a child. And whenever I spoke to either of them I could tell they were imagining life without me; how they would be able to relax now that their children had grown up. But no, wait, I was still there and I knew they resented me for that.'

'No, that is not true,' my dad said. 'Yes, I admit that sometimes they may have thought about how life would have been without you and that, yes, you were an accident, but they loved you dearly.'

'Stop interrupting!' Colin interrupted. 'You do not know what it was like being me. Our parents liked you!'

'Stop,' I said. 'Carry on, Colin.'

Colin looked at me angrily for a moment, obviously irritated that I had commanded him to do something. I sunk a little bit further back where I was sitting. His penetrating stare really was intimidating. But still he carried on.

'Then came along your father, Callum, when my parents fostered him. Even then, even with him not being blood related my parents still favoured him over me. He was never much work to them, always polite and well kept. And then there was me. I acted out against the coldness and feeling of being unwanted by misbehaving. Obviously, this did not help my parents to care for me, it just allowed the resentment to grow. I didn't care though by that point; I had accepted the fact that my parents were never going to want me. The feeling of loneliness though, that was so engulfing. I felt like I had nobody to speak to.'