"Good moooooorning," Annabel walked into the compound with far too much pep in her step, Diego trailing along after her, still amused by the exuberance she had maintained since he picked her up.
"Where you been?" Marcel asked, sitting with a few nightwalkers on the couch she was approaching.
"Well, funny story, actually." Marcel sighed, knowing that when she started with 'funny story' the story usually involved retelling some poor life decisions or stories of near-death. "I had a lovely encounter with my long lost sister and grandmother."
"You saw Jamani?" he looked angrier than she would have hoped.
"Yeah...?" she said, confused with his reaction. "And my sister, who I'm kinda pissed you never told me about."
"Jamani kicked your mom out when she was pregnant with your sister," Marcel said. "All because of her friendship with me. When she was pregnant, she was so sick, she was about to die. So when she got kicked out, she moved in here. Gave birth to Alex, then to you. Then Zach was born, she had to go, for your safety, and as soon as she left, Jamani and Alex's dad came in here claiming legal custody. By the time Malika came back to visit, Alex had already grown so accustomed to pack life, she had forgotten about the Quarter, your mom didn't want to take her away from it."
Annabel took a second to process it, and then asked, "Does Alex even know? Does she know what kind of person she's living with?"
He shook his head, "I don't think so, no."
"I'm gonna go take a nap," she told him, ending the conversation halfway through. Marcel watched her go, hurrying up the stairs and not looking back once as she walked into her mother's room and closed the door.
⋆⋆⋆
When Peter passed Annabel's room, he saw her sitting at her mother's workbench, where all the sketches were laid out just as messily as the day Malika died. One of her legs was pulled up onto the wooden chair while she examined a particular drawing. And while her posture showed comfort and calm, her leg was just barely shaking, bouncing up and down as it always did when she was trying to hold it together. "Can I help you with something?" she asked, her voice reflecting her calm posture, hiding her distress freakishly well.
"Uh, sorry, no," he replied, picking up his walking pace down the hall.
Annabel sighed and looked back down at the drawing she had found after a short while of going through all of them. It was Alex, with Zach on her lap. He was just a baby, maybe a month or two old. Annabel didn't have this memory, she wasn't there for the moment depicted in this drawing, but she knew that it was likely one of the few Alex had ever gotten with their brother.
She didn't question Marcel's words. She didn't wonder whether they were true, whether her grandmother was truly that awful to take Alex away from her siblings. She trusted Marcel more than anyone alive, herself included. And by the heartbreak in his eyes as he told her the story, she knew just how real it was for him. She could see how much it hurt. And seeing him in pain made her heart ache. The more she sat there, staring at her mother's sketch of her siblings, the more her hatred grew. It grew and grew and grew until she was shaking.
⋆⋆⋆
"Is Marcel around?" Peter asked when he walked into the parlor.
"He just left, didn't tell me where he was going," Thierry reported. "Why?"
"Bella, she- uh, she doesn't look too good."
Thierry stood up and sped over, but her room was empty. She was gone. "Damn it," he said. He pulled out his phone, calling her.
YOU ARE READING
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Fanfic[book two] It had been just over ten years since Annabel called New Orleans home. Back then, her naivety kept her safe, clueless as to all the violence going on around her. But things had changed since then. She had changed. After graduation, Annabe...
