Visions of Fate

FORTY FOUR: THE CONFRONTATION

I didn't see Mom when I got back home, after duck-taping Ava's mouth to muffle her screams and kissing Ethan goodbye. He had dropped me off in my street, but not quite in my house. I had insisted he shouldn't, as Dad wouldn't be too pleased seeing me being dropped off by my boyfriend at that time of the night.

The look on Dad's face made my decision irrelevant. Because it seemed that at that moment, there was nothing I could do to make him angrier than he already was.

He had his hands firmly crossed I'm front of him, and his jaw clenched so hard, I wondered if it hurt his teeth.

Being the only noise in the room, the door creaked heavily as I shut it, and I glanced around to see Abi, Ben and Zara practically trembling under Dad's presence.

Way to come up with a sensible excuse together.

"H-hey Dad," I said, offering him the most awkward smile in the history of awkward smiles.

Dad didn't reply me. Instead he pulled his phone from his pocket, turning it on and pointing it in my direction. I was absolutely clueless about the motive of his actions until he spoke up.

"Eleven fifteen," his voice was firm and stiff, increasing in thickness after each word. "I leave you home for a day just to meet you out by almost midnight. You know the worst part? I told your mother this would happen. I told her not to let you out of this house, unless you would turn into these mindless teenagers walking around the streets everyday!" His hand was pointed at my three friends, who had a look of both hurt and embarrassment on their faces.

Even Zara was shaken by his words.

I didn't notice I was crying until I felt a trail of tears running down my cheeks. I looked at Dad, my face flushed with hurt, anger, and shame and guilt. Emotions so contradictory, I don't know how I felt them all together.

But what I knew was, I couldn't look my friends in the eye again. Not when Dad had called them mindless with an accusing finger pointed directly at them. I was sure our friendship was over at that point. And that they'd give me the silent treatment, like in the movies.

So I didn't speak. I didn't reply to anything Dad said. The weight of silence felt rather like lack of oxygen, but I didn't speak. I waited for that recognition and alert to dawn on Dad's face. That look of shame and regret at his words and actions.

But it never came.

With tears still in my eyes, I shook my head and stormed off. I felt like dying. I felt like dipping my head inside a bucket of water, or burying myself alive, just so the effect of Dad's actions wouldn't eat me up inside. So I wouldn't live to experience the grief that came with losing my three friends.

I tried not to think about their faces as I rounded the corner to my bedroom. I tried not to think about the reason for the hatred Dad had for me, or the way it seemed to brutally ignite mine for him.

I buried myself in my bedsheets and let the hot saltwater run down my cheeks, but I wasn't sobbing. I wrapped my arms around my knees, pushing my legs closer to my chest, but I wasn't screaming or squealing like I thought I would be.

Instead I remained there unmoving, until I heard a knock on my door. I thought it was Dad, until I felt a weight at the foot of my bed, as if someone had sat next to me. I knotted my brows in confusion. Dad never confronted me after yelling, it was like expecting it to rain and snow at the same time.

So, I pulled my cover down to meet Mom smiling at me. She was in a simple blue dress, crispy hair cascading down her petite frame. The cast on her arm was gone, and the scratches and scrapes almost unnoticeable to anyone who never knew they were there in the first place.

I didn't know when I rushed to her until I was in her embrace. Mom hugged me like she was gone for a year, and I did the same. Her familiar scent was almost gone, being replaced by the thick scent of antiseptic and the covers of the hospital bed.

Still, I tightened my grip around her, burying my face into her hair. Words weren't enough to describe how much I missed that woman. At that moment I discovered that, I didn't realize how just much I missed Mom until she was right there in my arms.

It might have taken lifetime, but eventually we pulled away. I sat crosslegged beside Mom, and smiled up at her when she cradled my face in her hands. "Thank you," she said, and I eyebrows reflexively dipped.

"For what?"

"For saving me," immediately she said that, my eyes exploded and my heart dipped. My dry mouth that had now become especially noticeable didn't move either. Instead, I waited to hear what she was going to say. If it was what I thought, or if I was just too emotional to comprehend normal words.

"I know what you did in the hospital, Emily," Mom continued, her voice sounding plane and rushed. "I know you're also a Visionari." For some reason, my throat constricted at her predicament, my racing heart draining all my energy, somehow fueling it at the same time.

But I still didn't speak, heck I didn't even know if I could. "I was awake when you healed me," Mom said. "Slightly unconscious, but not hammered. I heard your words and felt everything you did to me then. I was very grateful, but also very guilty," Mom chuckled at my face crumpled up in confusion. Or at least tried to chuckle.

"Emily, your father and I, we're also Visionari," her voice became hoarse and cold, almost as if she was ashamed of herself for being one of us. "You see, long before you were born, the Visionari were being killed by the Vegants. They were being unfairly slaughtered and mercilessly tortured. Think of it as the worst kind of racism man has ever experienced.

"Your grandfather, Lucas Ross was also killed by the Vegants. When he died your grandmother was so devastated, God, she was torn. She couldn't handle the weight of a world without him. As if that wasn't enough, they haunted down the Ross family. Your grand aunts and uncles, and everything bearing the Ross name.

"Your grandmother was the only one to escape. She was heavily pregnant with your father at that time. She was hoping that he would look like his father. That his skin wouldn't be white like hers, rather the dark complexion of his father. She was hoping he would have dark eyes and curly hair like Lucas," she paused, taking in a heavy air, like she was drowning in a ocean, gasping desperately for air when she resurfaced.

I didn't interrupt her, didn't move my body by an inch. The only way I knew I was still breathing was the fact that I was still alive. Else I would have thought I'd become inanimate.

When she spoke again, her voice sounded calmer, more reserved, as if the air was just what she needed. "Your father didn't take after his father. His skin was white, and his hair wasn't made of kinky. His eyes weren't black or brown, like a typical black man. Your grandmother loved him, nevertheless. And when he began having visions, she told him about the Visionari and their history.

"She told him about the Vegants and their cruelty. But most of all, she gave him her last name, and not his father's. Because another person bearing the family name would only be a threat to her growing family. So, he took the name Walker, and lived like a normal person.

"When I came into his life I, too, was like a normal person. I was a Visionari, my family and I, but no one ever came out with the truth. We weren't killed simply because we didn't accept our Visionari.

"So, when you were born, we thought it was only right to protect you from the hands of the Vegants. Among many reasons, that was why we never permitted you to step out of this house. We never told you about the special gift you had because we feared you would do what our family never did – accept it.

"So we kept you in this house and treated you like a normal child, hoping that, since you didn't have the moonstone, your powers would never come," Mom gazed down at me with teary eyes. It was then I realized that mine, too were filled with tears.

Then she looked down at me with a spark of confidence and brutal honesty. And I felt it, I knew then she was tired of hiding the truth. Tired of lurking in the shadows while the Vegants had their way.

"I don't know how you found your powers, Emily, but I want you to embrace it. Embrace everything that comes with it, and display it to the Vegants. It was about time someone stepped up to them, anyways."

A/N

Is it weird that I wrote this chapter while watching rain fall?