The Tree That Stood Alone

Chapter 16

"Why doesn't he recognize you?" I say to Aria and Aedan and they just look sad. They look as if they have lost all hope. "Why doesn't he recognize you?!" I yell at them. Aedan sighs and scratches the back of his head.

"Because, well, his step-mother has a way of manipulating minds. She'll take a strong manly lad like Ethan and twist up his mind and tear away his memories." His strong Irish voice cracked as he was speaking. I was watching a huge strong man fall to pieces right in front of me. Aria put her hand on his shoulder, trying to keep him strong.

"How does she do that? This isn't a fairy tale, so she doesn't have magic. There's no way." Aria shrugs when I say that. 

"Taylor, we honestly have no clue. If you were to spend 5 minutes with her she'd probably have you convinced that you aren't worth it or something like that." She sighs. "She did something once, something we never speak about." Aedan looks at her, almost like a glare. Whatever happened, neither of them wanted me to know about. All of a sudden, Ethan starts to struggle again. He begins trying to fight out of Aedan's grip again. 

"Ethan. Stop." I say sternly. He just looks at me, wanting so desperately to escape. "Ethan, these people are safe. They're your parents and they care about you." He glares at Aedan and Aria, not trusting them at all.

"My step-mother warned me about people like these people. They pretend like they care about you but actually they just want to take advantage of you and take everything you have." As he spoke, you could feel the hate in his words. They weren't his words though. Those words had to be from the step-mother, who ever she is.

"But they aren't like that. They've been searching the country to find you and to bring you home." I say, desperately trying to get him to trust his parents. But he just continues to be angry, continues to hate his parents.

"They aren't worth my love or care. They can't be my parents anyways. My mom abandoned me and left me for dead. My dad took care of me for a while until he married my step-mother, the only person who's ever cared about me, then he drank himself to death." A sick smile spread across his face, a smile that I've never seen from a sane person before. "I'm happy my parents left me, because if they hadn't left me I would've never had met you." I felt sick, my stomach was churning and swirling. I felt like my stomach contents were trying to climb up my throat and I was worried I was going to throw up right there. For someone as evil as how he's acting right now to admit he loves me, and admit that he's happy his parents weren't part of his life. I didn't even want to look at him. I look at Aria and she looks just as sick as me, never expecting to hear her son say something as sick as that. Aedan then has enough of Ethan's evil talk and knocks him out. 

"Aria, get in the truck. We're going home." Aedan looks over at me, and I'm worried about what he's going to do. I'm either going to be left behind to die. Or he could just kill me right now.