Secrets? Never.

19. Innocence Died Screaming

"I can explain" she spluttered, quite taken aback by this sudden revelation. "That's what I'm banking on; seeing as I've asked you to do just that - explain." Daniel reiterated slowly and with a sort of misplaced sense of calm. "You see, I'm a little bit confused. I'm just wondering who the hell I've shared a bed with for the last- I don't know how many years, I can't even think I'm so mad right now! You see, I'm not sure who I fell for all those years ago, I'm not sure who spilled her drink on my jacket. Was it Emily Thorne, heiress and sad little orphan, or was it this girl? Amanda Clarke? The girl who should've had it all, until my family screwed her over?!" At this point, Daniel was really getting angrier and angrier, his face turning to a crimson hue as he ran slowly out of air, using the last of his breath on his accusations. "What have you been hiding from me?!" he roared at her. He exhaled loudly, dropping the files onto the nearest table, running all ten fingers through his hair, and looking to Emily, with sad and glassy eyes "Was any of it real, Em? Did you ever really love me, or was it all and act to get some kind of sick payback for what my family did to you?"

All this time, Emily had stood, frozen. Having neither the courage to speak or move, or any idea of what to do with herself, having suddenly found herself feeling like an unwelcome guest in her own home; but it was upon Daniel's last two questions, that she was overcome with the vision of what to say next. "Don't you ever say that. Don't you ever reduce what we have to such petty things. Do you really think I'd have stayed with you all this time, if I didn't love you? If I wasn't one hundred percent positive that you were the one human being on this earth with whom I wanted to share my life? Do you even realise how much that hurts? When you're the one. You're the one I love. You're the one I chose, over everyone else. You're the only one who ever made me stop and reevaluate all of the things I was doing here. You're the one I married. You're the one with whom I got up in front of everyone I care about, to say, 'yes, this is the guy I choose'. You're the one I had kids with. You're the one I want to grow old with. You're the one I want to meet up with, when we've both left this earth, and have moved on, to be the infinite beings who watch over us. You're the one who taught me to love again when all I'd been taught for years was to hate, and lie, and manipulate to get ahead. So don't tell me this isn't real, because it's been the only real thing in my life since I was nine years old."

With that, she stormed out of the house, towards the beach, crying. Her blonde hair blowing behind her in the cool, salty air.

Daniel sat down on the couch, wondering whether or not to run after her. He then caught a glimpse of the file marked 'Amanda Clarke', and he stared long and hard at the photo of the scared looking little girl, and noticed how much she had retained the same look in her eye, even to that day. Which was when it dawned on Daniel just how scared she must be at that moment, ,that she'd have the same facial expression as she did almost the day after her father had been taken from her. He bolted out the door the next second, and sprinted to the beach, calling her name at the top of his lungs. She was sitting amongst the dunes and the marram grass. "Em?" his voice grew quieter as the neared her side. She stared blankly at her feet, in an effort to stuff the emotions she'd let loose back into their little box. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it to come out like that. I am just in such a state of shock. You've got to imagine what goes through someone's mind when they find out something even close to what I just did. It just hurt me to think that you'd kept it from me all these years." They sat in silence for a few minutes, that seemed to almost stretch into hours, before he whispered ever so quietly "I'll ask you one thing before we table this for tonight; were you ever going to tell me, or were you just going to leave me oblivious?" Emily's blank stare turned to a pensive one as she looked him dead in the eyes and half smiled a little sadly, "I honestly don't know."

A few hundred metres away, Aiden heard shouting, and saw a silhouette sprinting onto the sand, looking around, and, evidently finding what they were looking for, sitting in amongst the grass, out of sight. A few minutes of watching and waiting passed, and the figure emerged accompanied by a second figure, who was unmistakably Emily Thorne. He then surmised that the other must be Daniel. Perfect, he thought. He squeezed the trigger ever so gently.

Bang

A distant figure hit the ground with a resounding thud.

© Sarah Egan 2014 - 2015. All rights reserved. This story is subject to copyright and may not be copied or reproduced without the express permission of the author.