𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐓𝐘- a labyrinth sequel

𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐆. Standing in the kitchen, Aurelia looked at the area code, recognizing it as a Connecticut one. She debated answering it, but eventually picked up the phone and answered the call. For all she knew, it could be something important. Perched up on top of her kitchen counter, Aurelia set her popcorn down as she brought the phone up to her ear. "Hello?" She said, only hearing silence on the other end momentarily. "Is someone there?"

"Hello," a voice said on the other line, rather timidly. "Is there any way I could speak to Celia Clairmont?"

"Who's asking?" Aurelia asked defensively. If someone had to reach her mother, they knew that they could reach her on her cell phone. No one called on the landline, let alone someone of importance. The woman on the other line fell silent for a moment, and Aurelia frowned, wondering if it was who she thought it was, but it couldn't be. Could it? Would Isabelle Clairmont really have the audacity to try and contact her mother after all these years, knowing what she put her through?

"Nevermind, it was a stupid idea to call-" She started, her voice cracking slightly. 

"Yeah, it was," Aurelia said harshly. "You think I don't know who you are?" She demanded. She had no right to call, and to try and act like she was a victim. "Haven't you caused my mother enough pain?"

"I have," she admitted. "I know I have." Isabelle Clairmont told her. Aurelia knew better than to trust her. This woman killed her own father, and her brother. She knew how to play the game, how to manipulate a situation. And she needed to stay away from her family, period. "All those years, if I could take it back, I would," she told Aurelia. "I spent so many years being angry with my father, when I should have been protecting them. Protecting all of them."

All of them being the other two Clairmont grandchildren. Liam died, and Rebecca went crazy. Isabelle Clairmont had some weird fixation with the two of them, and sometimes it felt like she cared for those children more than her own son. 

"Well, it's too late for that," Aurelia declared. "My mother and my uncles will never forgive you. And maybe you really are a better person, I sincerely hope you are." Aurelia meant the words. She'd always been one for giving someone the benefit of the doubt, and she wanted to believe that maybe Isabelle Clairmont was a better person. But better person or not, she didn't want to see this woman put anyone of her families members in pain again. If her mother had answered the phone and not Lia, she would have been a wreck. 

Celia Clairmont wasn't aware of this, but when she was six years old, she witnessed her mother having a panic attack while she was supposed to be in bed. She'd gone downstairs to ask if her father would read to her, despite the fact that she was perfectly capable of doing it herself. Halfway down the steps, she'd heard the sounds of stifled sobs and quivering breaths, and the quiet whispers of her father trying to soothe her. "I don't want to wake Lia," she'd cried, covering her mouth with her shaking hands. It had been the anniversary of her parents death, and she clearly wasn't handling it well. "Let me help you," her dad had pleaded, gripping her shoulders gently. "Take a deep breath, Cece." Feeling as though she were interrupting on something she shouldn't have been, Lia snuck quietly up the stairs and back into bed, and eventually drifted off to sleep. The next morning when she'd woken up, her mother put on her brightest smile, as though she hadn't completely broken down the night before. Lia didn't pry, but she noticed the dark circles below her eyes, and the slight puffiness that indicated she'd spent the night crying. Still, Celia Clairmont put on her brightest grin, and she did that for her daughter. 

So that Lia wouldn't have to worry about her. 

Now, Aurelia had decided it was her time to do the same. She was going to hang up this phone and not utter a word about it to her mother. Celia Clairmont had spent seventeen years protecting her from the skeletons in her family's closet, and Aurelia could protect her mother from this one thing. She could do that. She could protect her mother from getting hurt again.