Aurora's Secret

S E V E N T E E N

Now we were all stood still like statues. Ashton was the first to move closer when the door sounded again. "Don't answer it." He mouthed and he slowly tried to move me away from the door.

"Aurora! Open this door!" The voice outside cried as they thumped on the door again. Their voice was hoarse but feminine and it rung a sense of familiarity.

My mouth uttered the name before I could even process the thought. "Mum?"

Ashton quickly clapped his hand round my mouth. "Please!" He mouthed again. "Not. A. Sound." He then carried on trying to pull me away again. We ended up in the living room doorway which was still visible to the front door when his dad quickly put one hand on the gun in his back pocket and another on the front door as he unlocked and opened it.

My poor and fragile looking mothers face came into sight and she began sobbing hard when she saw me. "Oh my goodness." She uttered, her shaking hands flew to her face as she refused to look away from me. I did sympathise, even if she was a monster. I was the daughter she hadn't seen in years... I must've looked so different.

I couldn't say the same for her though. While I had gone from thirteen to eighteen, she had only gone from thirty five to forty and at first glance she hadn't aged a day. Plastic surgery though was evident and made her look very youthful and yet I still noticed the deep bags under her eyes that she had badly tried to conceal.

I shook my head and tuned back into the situation.

"Aurora, it's your dad. He..." My mothers voice was hysterical. She tried to step through the threshold but Ashton's dad ever so slightly got in her way. "Please, this is important!" She thrashed around but she was nothing to the cop.

"What is it?! Just tell me!" I yelled over her wails. I couldn't tell if she was being serious or just putting on the caring mother act in front of Ashton and his dad. She went still for a moment and her eyes were widened, it was her scary mum face and I was exactly that. Scared. Less so than I would've been as a thirteen year old but still pretty darn afraid. I remembered I was in Ashton's tight grip and I relaxed a little.

"He called. He wants to hear your voice." Her voice was so soft all of a sudden.

"He's alive?"

She nodded.

I felt weak in my knees. All this time and he was alive. Living. I thought he was dead when he didn't come back for years... Then I was taken and he lost his chance to ever come back.

Ashton's hand suddenly came into view and he wiped at my cheek softly. I must've started crying.

"Oh my darling." My mother uttered softly and she started to try and come over to me, Ashton's dad not realising what she was really like, let her.

So I screamed for her to get away and his dad pulled her back again.

"I don't want to see you anymore." I spat. "Just tell me where dad is."

She shook her head. "I don't know."

I scoffed and felt a crazed look fall onto my face. "What do you mean?"

"He just called me out of the blue and told me he knew where you were. Believe me I would not be here otherwise."

Ashton butted in now. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"You really want to know?" She dared him to let her go on with her eyebrows. "I disowned this brat a long time ago. I'm only here because I love her dad." She sneered at him.

I scoffed again. "You don't love him!"

"What would you know about love? You've been locked away from normal civilisation somewhere for years."

Ashton's dad began to manhandle her back out of the door as he said "That's enough of that."

I felt my face become wet with more tears but also red with fury at how insensitive she was being. "I hate I you!"

She shrugged, now back outside being pelted in rain, as she went into her pocket and threw whatever the small object was at me. "Call him on that and then destroy it." She mumbled in a monotone like she had been told to say it and then she walked away leaving only the phone as proof of her previous presence.

The weakness in my knees had become too much to bear and I collapsed, only to be held up by Ashton. I buried my face into his shoulder and sobbed when he turned me around. This was all too surreal. I had moved here for peace, tranquillity, a new life. Now everyone from my old life was showing up one by one and I wanted it to stop.

But now I had been given the chance to at least talk with my father, the man that left when I was five and I hadn't heard from him since. I almost wondered whether my mum was lying but what she said was true- she wouldn't have been on my door step if she could've helped it. And so she either still really did love my dad... or he had something over her head.

"Are you okay?" Ashton's soft voice broke my thoughts. I nodded and pulled away, getting some strength back and his worried face came into view. I smiled for extra reassurance.

I looked down to the little phone on the floor and bent down to pick it up. It was an ancient looking thing, similar to a Nokia but not that brand. I flipped up the screen and it's old designed wallpaper flashes up to me. The date was horrendously wrong and I had horrible signal.

Nevertheless I went searching around on it and quickly found just one number in the contacts. It was just a set of numbers making a phone number- no name or anything. So cold.

I wondered what on earth my dad, possibly my mum too considering what happened earlier, have gotten involved in. It would explain everything aside from me being kidnapped. All I knew was this was not how you treated the daughter who escaped a hostage prison of five years and the most they had done was offer harassment on my doorstep and a heartless phone call.

Stepping into the living room I hit call on the number and held my breath.

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