248 Days

October 13th, Part 2

The Ryders did their best to make me feel at home. They tried to keep the conversation casual, but even with the small talk the severity of the situation loomed over us like a hushed fog of darkness. I couldn't stand it. Sat on the edge of my seat, ready to flee at any moment, painfully I watched the clock tick.

      Though my ringtone startled me, and I tended to hate phone calls, today, I jumped at the chance of excusing myself. The relief of leaving the three at the table, was short lasted. Screen reading Unknown caller ID, something churned in my stomach. Very few people ever called me, and of these few people none, but one, would call me in this state. I had never so desperately wanted to be called by a telemarketer.

      Holding my breath, I answered the call, unable to decline in spite of my suspected caller. My heart dropped when I heard the automated voice recording. "This is a call from Sacramento California State Prison, from Lucie Collins. Press 1 to accept the call."

      Hand tensing around my phone, I stared blankly at the pin pad, chest aching with heavy breaths as every part of me thought it unwise to answer but fingers involuntarily pressing the instructed number.

      As much as I despised what they did, part of me still saw them as my parents; part of me still loved who I knew them to be. The sense of loss only made me angrier, enhanced my sense of betrayal towards my real family.

      "Hello?"

      Immediately I recognized the voice. A voice in which I had once found solace and comfort now filled me with fiery rage, an anger of an intensity I hadn't thought in my capacity.

      "Alexa," My— Lucie tried again. "Sweetie, can you hear me?"

      The pet name may as well have been a dagger to my heart. I wondered if my real mother had ever used the term of endearment... wondered if she would still use it.

      "Alexa?" Andre urged. My ragged breaths surely revealed my presence, but I couldn't force any words from my tight throat. "Did you hear your mother?"

       My jaw clenched. My mother. Pictures of Emma Adams from today's search of albums flooded my mind. The brown eyed woman of whom I had only inherited raven hair but somehow still held an uncanny resemblance. Her face angular and features striking compared to my soft, subtle ones, still her plump lips formed the same crooked grin as my thin lips. Her dimples and squinted eyes when she smiled were identical to mine. From afar some may not have noticed the family resemblance, but it was unmistakable in our side-by-side pictures; the brunette hugging me tightly as I blew out candles, dancing together at some forgotten party, lazy Sunday picnics... My real mother. The mother they had murdered.

       "Lucie is not my mother," I bit through gritted teeth, eyes blurring with tears as my nails dug painfully into my palm.

      Lucie inhaled sharply.

     "I may not have given birth to you," she snarled. "But I cared for you. We loved you. We raised you—"

      "You did not raise me. You stole my childhood!"

      "We gave you everything you ever needed! We did what was necessary to give you the life you deserved."

      "My parents' deaths weren't necessary," I barked, voice cracking in agony. "And my little sister... She was only eight years old... How—How could you kill a child?"

      There was a short silence on the other end of the line before Andre answered.

      "That was a mistake," he admitted, and just enough to catch it, I noted an inkling of remorse in his statement. "We meant to take her too, but she didn't take the blow to the head as well as you did."