Aurora's Secret

E I G H T E E N

Ashton suddenly dived over to me and snatched the phone from me and hung it up before the call went though. "Wait! What are you doing?!"

"C-calling my dad?" His reaction had actually scared me. After everything happening today I was honestly really fragile.

Realisation hit him and he stepped back in shock at himself. "Rori... I'm sorry. It's just, that number could be anyone's." He gestured with the phone in his hands. "Or you could be hacked or tracked."

"I know but what harm could a minute do?" I so badly wanted to just snatch the phone back. I just had the feeling calling him would answer most of questions I had.

Ashton sighed and pushed his hand through his locks as a distant look took hold of his eyes. "A lot."

"Please, Ashton! Let me talk to my dad!" I cried.

He shook his head and apologised quietly. Turning to his father he said "Dad, what should we do?"

His dad stepped into the room from the doorway, previously not wanting to interfere with our conversation. He asked Ashton to hand over the phone and I sobbed louder thinking they were going to destroy it. "Ashton and I know all there is to know about staying hidden. Obviously not enough to stop your parents finding us but I suspect they're in something a lot deeper then you realise." As he was talking, he had pulled the phone apart gently and was inspecting and then tampering with the insides. I stopped panicking so much because what he looked like he was doing wasn't... destroying it.

"What do you mean?" I asked, sniffling.

"Now, I'm not too sure but you don't just rock up on the doorstep of where your escaped hostage daughter is just hours after getting here. They've either tracked you somehow, which wouldn't make sense because of how long you've been gone, or they've got people every where and you were spotted and followed." He explained, he began to put the phone carefully back together. "Either way I'm not comfortable with what's happening and I'm still quite confused. The only way to solve this is with answers."

"What answers?" I raised my eyebrows.

"The ones your dad is going to give you." He held out the phone to me back in it's visibly original arrangement. "It's safe now, there was already a bug in it, I presume your dad put there, that would stopped any hackers, tracers, so on and so on. Except they weren't careful enough and they missed a couple wires. It's all fixed now, go ahead."

"This means we can't cut into the call with our machines either though. Also don't put it on speaker, they'll be able to know and then they'll be suspicious." Ashton added.

I nodded and shakily took the phone and redialled the number properly this time, letting it go through to the other line. Holding the phone to my ear, I fell back onto the sofa behind me, the one I had fallen asleep on last night, and laid back so I didn't have to worry about my knees giving up on me again. I silently waited for him to answer.

"Aurora?" His voice rang through.

I swallowed all my emotion and tried to reply. "D-dad?"

"Oh my word. It's you. It's actually you." His voice was laced with a relief. "Your mother made it then. Where is she?"

I gulped trying to think of all the things I needed to say but then having the only thing come out of my mouth be "Gone."

"What do you mean gone! Where?!"

"I don't know, she threw the phone at me and left!" I began choking over the emotion lodged in my throat.

"What? But she was so excited to see you... I was going to go but she said she wanted to and I didn't want to...." He sounded panicked and confused as he trailed off, his breathing picked up a bit.

To be honest I was just as confused. Mum never liked me, why would she have been excited? I thought back to when she first came to the front door. She had actually been gentle, it was only when I flipped out that she changed.

"Look it's fine, you're the priority now. Where are you? Are you still at that Orchard Ville house?" His tone changed. How on earth did he know where I was?

I waited before answering him. Right now Ashton was sat beside me with his ear to the phone listening to everything. I looked at him before replying. He nodded once. I took in a deep breath. "Yes."

"I'm sorry I had to track you like that, but you must forgive me when you've been kidnapped for five years."

"Yeah, why aren't you here?" Finally. I had managed to get out a question. I half chocked on a sob but still.

He paused for a moment. "I wanted your mother to go, she was closer to you." I scoffed at that "At least we're talking now though." He added.

"Yeah on some brick phone. For all I know you're in China." I scoffed and Ashton gently wiped away a stray tear on my cheek. 

He gave me a halfhearted laugh. "Well I can't be close for certain reasons but I'm not that far away either."

"Dad." I decided to change the subject he kept being mysterious and I had a feeling he wouldn't answer any questions I had about that stuff. "What happens now? I keep asking people and nobody knows. I've been locked away for five years and I lost the little I had left of my childhood. I don't know what to do next."

"Well only one person really knows."

I frowned. "You?"

He laughed. "No. You."

"Me?"

"Yes. I wanted to talk to you to explain everything. Once you know it all, you'll know what you want to do next."

"What do you mean everything?" I asked. He was being really mysterious now.

"I mean exactly that. Everything. I know more than you thought and now you'll know it all too."

I took in a breath. "Okay."

"Ready?"

"Go for it."