Negative Space (Calum Hood A.U.)

Chapter 30 - Long Lost Sisters

Calum's POV

"I didn't want to lie to her but her mother didn't come looking for her and I'm not just letting child services take her. I didn't know how to contact Ellie." Uncle Frank explained.

Although what he did was not the ethical thing to do, he only did it because he cared for a little girl who he watched grow up, so I'm not blaming him for anything.

Look how June turned out. He was a good father and still the best for June.

"Didn't you worry that June's going to remember someday?" Luke asked.

"I didn't until you," he pointed at me, "told me that she's remembering things and especially since she's remembering Elliot, I knew I couldn't keep it anymore so I decided to come clean once you guys get home."

"How close were you with the twins?" Luke asked, again.

"Just teacher-student close. Elliot never let me stay in their house other than tutoring them. Ethan and Cassie were the ones that were close to them. I couldn't even distinguish them from each other."

Wait, so does that mean that-

"I didn't know who June was from the twins."

"It was in the news, they said Malia survived. So didn't that make her Maya?" Luke stated the fact.

"I didn't have the time to watch the news because I spent the whole week looking for her in the house." Makes sense. A week after the incident, everybody already forgot about it. That's how fast people forget and move on.

"What was the book she was holding when she first came to you? Can we see it?" I asked, remembering what he said when he told the story.

I have so many questions but I didn't want to throw everything on Uncle Frank in one go. I can tell he's already stressed as it is.

"It was a programming textbook. Like for computers and stuff." So that's how June learned about those things. That's how she wrote that cryptic message in that picture. But she mentioned that she used it before to converse with someone.

"You teach her programming?"

"No. She was a kid. She got interested in that and someone lent that book to her."

"Who?"

Uncle Frank only shrugged as if saying he didn't. Well shit. Who was it?

"We found a picture." I started. "From June's photo album, it was hidden in the back. It was a picture of-"

"Cassie and a twin. In the museum. I took that photo. It was torn in half." I nodded and he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

I sighed and continued, "There was something written behind the picture. And we found the other half."

I explained to him how we got the other half of the picture from Ethan and spoke of the meaning of the cryptic message. "Who was she sending the message to?"

"Oh my God. I don't know. I uh I have no idea I-"

"Cal I think I just realized who." Ashton suddenly spoke. Both Uncle Frank and I turned our attention to him and he continued, "I think it was for their mother."

"Ash she wasn't even-"

"I remember Malia mentioning that Ellie is a Computer Systems Analyst." Well, that changes things. "Do you think that's just a coincidence?"

Uncle Frank shook his head and spoke, "I don't think so. That book, she was holding. It contains a lot of pictures from her childhood, and all of them have numbers on the back, I thought they were just scribbles."