Questions for Answers

Chapter Seventeen

Her brows raised, "How'd you pull that off?"

Tristen spoke up before I could, "We stick together. So if you want her, you get me too."

She raised her hands, "Hey, I'm not complaining, I just want you to be as committed as we are with this. We don't need more opposition."

I put my hand out, "Don't worry about him. Just tell me what you need us to do."

"Well, you guys should get some rest. We'll start going through that book of yours when we all wake up. We should meet up at-"

"Now hold on, we don't have anywhere to stay. This was supposed to be our last night at the hotel and we already did an early check out", Tristen interrupted.

"Well, why'd you do that?" She asked with her arms crossed.

"Because you—River, I'm gonna-"

"Is there any way that we could maybe stay with you? At least for tonight? We can get another hotel, but without knowing how long we'll be here, it's kind of hard to do that", I said.

She rubbed her chin as if she was deep in thought, "You know what? It's probably smarter if we stay together. I mean, I did ask you guys to delay your trip back for this, so it's only fair if I let you stay with me for the time being. Besides, I can't help you guys pay for multiple nights in a hotel, so this is just way cheaper. Now that that's settled, follow me."

We agreed and followed her back down the stairs and to her car. She didn't live too far from the hotel, so it was a fairly quick trip to her place. She unlocked the door and pointed to the wall, "You guys can set your stuff against the wall. And by the way, I live here by myself so I only have one bedroom. You guys will have to sleep on the couch or something."

"That's fine, thank you", I said setting my bag down. She began walking off and I called out to her, "Wait! Uh, I feel like we should try to get to know you a little better. You know, since we'll be spending a lot of time together."

She turned on her heel, "Yeah, sure. What do you guys wanna know?"

I spoke up, "How different has your life been since you found out the truth about what your parents did?"

She crossed her arms and smiled through her scoff, "Come on, you don't wanna ask me what my favorite color is? Or my go-to coffee order?"

"Respectfully, we don't really care about that stuff", Tristen said harshly.

She looked at him and slid her tongue across her top teeth, "You know, just because you add the word 'respectfully' in front of what you're going to say, doesn't actually make it respectful, right?" She then turned her head to me, "Is he gonna be a problem?"

"No! Guys, stop. I think we're all just a little on edge about everything. Look, if you don't wanna talk about it, it's fine. We'll get to know more about each other as time goes on", I said intending to calm everyone down.

She took a seat in front of us on the table that sat in front of the TV, "My parents dying really did a number on me. I lived in an orphanage for seven years until my best friend's parents agreed to look after me. I didn't really go through the same things you did, mainly because the people who killed my parents never found out about me. But my time in the orphanage was less than ideal. I won't talk about certain things just cause...yeah. But, yeah, um after I learned what my parents did for work, it didn't make me hate them, but I just felt like I didn't really know them. I guess I was kind of mad at first. It's a pretty dangerous job to have and to add a kid to that? I guess I thought they were selfish. But I grew out of that because I just wanted to know why. Hopefully, with that book of yours, we can finally get our answers."