Burning Ties

Chapter Twenty-Two

Iris POV

Exercise was created as a way to punish me. I don't know how the inventor of it knew that I'd hate it so much, but it was created with the intention of punishing. My entire body hurts, and it's been this way for so long that I don't remember what it's like to move without my body protesting.

I've been training with my brothers for about two months so far, and they say that I've improved significantly, but I don't really care about that, all I care about is getting it all over and done with so that I never have to exercise ever again.

The past two have been blissfully peaceful - despite the pain I feel whenever I move - but ever since I woke up this morning, my stomach has been twisting with what I can only identify as anxiety. There's tension in the air, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why.

It seems to me that my brothers feel the same way, because the house is abnormally quiet, and for once, I'm alone in my room. Both those things are incredibly strange, because they do not ever happen. These boys are too clingy, and too loud.

A sudden knock on my door has me jumping up from where I'm laying on my bed.

"Come in!" I call, furrowing my eyebrows when my mother walks into my room. Well, that's an unexpected turn of events.

"Hi, Iris..." She greets awkwardly, only making the situation more weird. Since when is she even the slightest bit awkward?

"Uh, hi, mama? Is there something that you needed?" I question, looking at her like she has two heads. Yes, I know how I'm looking at her is probably rude, but she's been a horrible mother lately so I don't even bother to hide how strange I find this interaction.

"I really ruined our relationship, didn't I?" She sighs, pursing her lips. "I wanted to see if maybe you wanted to go to the mall or somewhere with me? I was thinking that maybe we could try this whole mother-daughter thing again."

"Mama, I... I don't really know how to respond."

"Iris, please. I know that I messed up, but I need you to let me fix it, please." She begs, looking the most sincere that I've seen in years.

"Fine." I sigh, my brain screaming at me to not accept what she's saying. "Let's go shopping, I guess."

"Great then! Put some shoes on and we can get out of here." Mama smiles, and the sight of it makes my stomach clench. I don't know what's happening, but I have a bad, bad feeling about it.

"Okay." I sigh, getting off my bed and heading to my closet to get a pair of shoes. I also shoot a quick message to Leandro to warn him that I've left the house with my mama before following her into the garage where she chooses a car and drives off.

"Are we not taking any guards?" I frown, looking behind us and wondering why there's nobody following us.

"They'll catch up with us later." She says, driving out of the estate. I find it strange, so I click the emergency setting that Aleksander has installed on my phone to alert them that there is in fact something wrong.

"Your phone won't help you, Iris." Mama smiles, her eyes focused on the road.

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't think I didn't notice you trying to warn your brothers that there's something wrong, Iris. I know everything. And your phone is useless in this car, I already enabled the signal blocker, so nothing will reach your brothers." She laughs, but it's a hollow sound that escapes her.

"Why?" I ask, "Why are you doing this?"

"Because, you silly girl, you were never supposed to be in my life!" She screeches. "I never wanted a girl, I've only ever wanted boys, and when you were born, I tried to love you, I really did but I hated you from the second you were born. I knew that I couldn't give you away without your father growing suspicious, but I tried as hard as I could to let you wander off and get lost, but it never worked."

She pauses, pursing her lips before taking a deep breath. "Eventually, I managed to get in contact with Antoine, and he promised that he'd take you away, but he needed to take me away for at least a couple weeks so your father wouldn't get suspicious. Only, he didn't stick to his end of the bargain and let me go, because he realised that just taking you probably wouldn't torture your father enough. So he kept the both of us. I knew that eventually, your father would find us, so I pretended to love you even though all I wanted was for you to fucking die. But you never did. I hoped that after we came back, you'd at least die from your injuries, but noooo, Leandro just had to swoop in and save you. I can't stand that you're happy, so I'm going to take it all away from you, and nobody is ever going to know that it's me who did it." She rants, and while a part of me feels some sort of pain at the fact that my mother never really existed, I honestly don't care. She stopped existing to me a long time ago, and at least now I have some sort of closure on it.

"So this whole time, everything has been a lie? You hurt everyone so badly because you couldn't stand me? What kind of a mother are you toward your other kids? No wonder your first husband cheated, sheesh." I reply, staring at her weirdly.

"Shut your fucking mouth, Iris. Don't forget that your life is in my hands right now."

"Okay, and? I don't really have all that much to live for, lady. You kind of took that away from me... I only have my brothers, and like, I can leave them behind because they'll have each other anyway, so I kind of fail to see your point here..."

Suddenly, she backhand me, but I don't even move my head at the impact of it, and a part of me rejoices in it. Do I actually want to die? Hell no, but I'm not about to let this psychopath know that she has any sort of power over me.

All I can do is hope that Leandro at least sees the message I sent him before leaving the house, and hope that they find me before this absolute terror of a mother kills me...

───────────── .°୭̥ ❁ ˎˊ˗

Whew, okay, where do I start? Number one, hiiiii, it's been a while. I'm sorry, I was writing my exams and my motivation died less than halfway through.

Actually, I think I wrote the first paper and then gave up on life. Wtf is the point of exams anyway, to give me depression?

Also, it's been FOREVER, AND LIAM PAYNE DIED???? LIKE OMG???
CRAZY.

Like I found out the day he died, obviously, but I haven't updated since then so like....

Yeah, anyway, this was not the direction that I had this book planned for 💀

It's not even like the sixth direction, this is like the twentieth and I still don't know wtf I'm doing.

Anyway, let me know if there's any plot holes here 😭

Love y'all lotssss
See yaaaa
If I get like three comments asking for it, I could possibly, maybe, potentially do another update this week.

Byeeeee