Through The Ascension Room***Book One COMPLETE***

CHAPTER THIRTY ~PART FOUR~

The car ride back to the hotel room consists of Aubri driving, she insisted, Cynthia in the passenger seat giving directions and trying to connect with Aubri, make her feel more comfortable knowing she's not the only girl here.

Tristis and I sit quietly in the back. He fiddles with something in his hand. Expanding it. Then reassembling it; all while he stares off through the car door at the passing trees and road signs.

"What's that for?" I whisper searching for some sort of conversation at this point.

The madness in my head is magnified when there is nothing to occupy my thoughts from it. I've found that talking really calms down the chaos that has been built up in my mind.

Tristis grips the item in his hand and without peeling his gaze from the passing scene and says, "this is how we saved your life...again," He gives a slight lift to the object as he tells me this.

He's mad at me, and I don't blame him. I don't know what it is about me that makes me want to do everything on my own. Maybe it's the years I spent having no one and having to do everything all on my own. No help. No friends. Nothing.

"For what it's worth, I really am sorry Tris," I say hoping my words sound as sincere as they truly are.

He doesn't move his gaze.

"It's just really hard ya know?" I wait for a response. "Sometimes I just ca—,"

"It's hard on us all Alex," Tristis turns to look me in the eyes. "but unless we learn to work together, it will just continue to get harder and harder. I've got parents too ya know, somewhere..." He pauses.

A sadness slides across his face and he echoes a few more times quietly to himself, "Somewhere..." as he turns to look out the window again.

I hadn't really taken the time to think about the lives that they had before joining the Sumus Exitium. I just figured they had been there their whole lives. For all I knew when I got there they had been there all along. I see now that was unreasonable to assume. They were just like me. Orphaned for one reason or another. From experience I know you never really get over the sting of abandonment. It follows you wherever you go. Never fully letting you commit to the things you want to in your life.

"What were they like?" I ask hoping that I haven't crossed the personal question line and can amend our present tension.

He continues to look out the window as if tranced by the passing objects.

"I don't remember much. They left me when I was only eight. It was at a park for God's sake. They brought me there to play. Then, well, then they just disappeared," he says moving his stare from the window down to the floor with a slight non-humorous chuckle.

I feel helpless watching Tristis become tormented by the reliving of his tragic childhood. I glance up front, where Aubri and Cynthia are engaged in some muffled conversation oblivious to the event unfolding in the back of the car.

I search for the words to comfort. To cheer up. To relate.

"Who found you?" I ask trying to get his mind off of the initial leaving.

"After I spent most of the day at the park looking around, searching for where they had gone. I just sat on a bench crying. I cried for what seemed like hours. Bawled my eyes out man. No one cared to help me. No one," his eyes haze over with fresh tears. They bombarded his strength to hold them back.

"Some lady finally called the Child Protective Services and they came to pick me up. They couldn't answer me where my parents went. They couldn't even figure out who my parents were," he says as his brows furrow in a confused, concerned way.