Attacca ─ Five Hargreeves

24. Our Personal Hell

Now that they had gotten rid of the stench of the dumpster that had been mounting around them for hours, the two indulgently found themselves in Klaus' boudoir, each breath drumming in the silence. The Academy seemed even more somber that day, she had accidentally overheard Allison and Luther canvassing about their humanoid mother killing Reginald on her way to the kitchen, then she had walked back to the room without saying a word since any words literally got lost in her throat. Klaus probably didn't care, did he? The old man had put every sibling through hell, he didn't deserve any sympathy, so she kept quiet until it was time to elaborate on what had happened in her house earlier.

"Wait, your last name is Kilday?" Of all the explanations about her encounter with her brother, it caught her off guard for a moment when Klaus decided to pay more fixation on her name. "So, we're talking about the Nikolai Kilday?"

To say Genevieve was somewhat mystified by how they articulated her brother's name was understandable. Whether Nikolai was worshipped or looked down upon, was not interpreted further. It was merely similar countenances, they would be addled and insist on confirmation, leaving a pile of questions and assumptions poising in her mind.

Just what kind of persona he had built amongst the public?

"We are. Yes," she quirked a brow, "you're the second person who seems surprised by my last name."

Klaus shrugged casually. "Well, the news said the sister died a few years after her accident. I would never guess it was you."

Someway, somehow, the present would drift back to the past. Genevieve was genuinely never aware of the details of her life after the age of six, it was like her life passed her by without a trace. She would recall pictures and voices, but they were blurry, cryptic, and left her shaky. At some point, it was just forgotten, decaying into shrivelled mementoes, the only tread was probably the phantom pain she suffered from time to time, and unknowingly, she overlooked it and started on a new plate. But now that she could get a glimmer of an answer, she became curious.

"How did the news describe the accident?"

"Gruesome," he flinched while his mind harking back to the news years ago. "She fell from the prototype spaceship, which was quite high up. Their mother, as anyone else would do now, was damned criticised and charged with child abuse."

Perhaps her mother deserved that, because who in their right mind would comprise a six-year-old in their defective project? Did she honestly think involving a child was necessary? Wasn't her mother supposed to be the smartest one in the family? There was a part of her that intensely condemned the decision that was made, even though Genevieve no longer remembered anything from that day, it was the onset of the rift in her family dynamic, still the impetus she kept getting excruciating headaches.

The girl huffed out and stared at the ceiling of the room blankly. "Did she go to jail?"

"Almost. As usual, money talks," said Klaus, his hands busied taking the snack he brought from the kitchen, "and there was someone particularly clever on the team who was able to twist the game around. Like literally choking off the judge."

If Grace wasn't in the right frame of mind, Nikolai would step up to rectify it. That was the strategy she knew.

"What else do you know about my brother?"

"Nothing much," he answered, "he's never on the news after the sister's death, but everyone in the underground knows him."

Genevieve glanced at him. "Underground?"

"The dark side of society, that's how I called it," he responded, "assassins, terrorists, sex offenders, drug dealers, human trafficking—just a bunch of bad guys and criminal activities."