Flames And Blades

Chapter Thirty: Wake Up And Moving On

Maybe this was the beginning. Maybe this was the end. I'll never know.

-Mine, truly, Indomitus Duff. 

The car ride was long enough for me to finish the whole journal in one sitting. Oddly enough, after finishing it, my first thought goes to the only picture of my biological mother I have. She was about seventeen, and it was a strange polaroid with 'Too tall for you' written on the bottom. I only ever looked at it once before shoving it in an old copy of Harry Potter and hiding it away from me.

"Well was it good, Miss. Duff?" Mr. Williamson asks, making me jump and a picture falling out of the journal. Oliver has fallen into a deep sleep and is of no help to me given the situation. But he did look really adorable and boyish. My jaw dropped when I see the photo, and I went into a small bit of shock. My blood ran thin and any and all hopes at appearing put together go out the already rolled up and tainted window as my mind blanks and ears ring.

I had thought to have Duff as a last name would have been a coincidence. But the picture, signed with her name, was the one of my biological mother. The journal was my mothers' journal. I have a mother, a father too, possibly who not only abandoned me but took the opportunity to make that factor known.

"What, I, I don't understand." I stamper, Mr. Williamson does the aggravating smirk of a thing that brings me fewer answers than I had before, Oliver snores on, his chest inhaling and exhaling the same way an infant would. The rise and heaviness of both my chest and head made it feel almost impossible for someone to be able to sleep so easily, let alone not be startled by the amount of noise it took to rip open the otherwise sleek car door. Either Oliver was the heaviest sleeper that I will ever have come into contact with, or he was slightly drugged at some point or another.

"She always has had a thing for dramatics and flare." Is all he responds with. Stopping the car for a woman to enter the passenger side. When the door opens, I realize that it is long past the time I should have been back at the shelter given the field trip, and even farther past its curfew, given the rising sun just past the woman's midsection in my view. I also realize that we are in no way, shape or form, near anything of familiarity to me. Now not only do am I technically being abducted, but am out of ways to escape given the lack of strength and quick thinking I don't have.

The woman, looking no more than twenty years older than me continues onto the car. Taking her working cap off to reveal her hair, the same kind as mine, she smiles and kisses the driver on the cheek. "Hey babe." she said, sweetly, calmly, as if unphased by the two abducted children in her backseat.

His response kicks me, right between the ribs, "how was work, Inferno?"

"Great. Hey Charlotte, did you like my journal? I thought it was a cool personal touch. Wait 'till you see what's next." She smirks at me devilishly. This woman, this whole situation, in fact, has been freaking the Hell out of me, more and more as the minutes' pass, but a complete stranger knowing my name is pretty bloody well freak enough to top it all.

"What's going on. What are you doing here?" my voice becomes really quiet, in need of being steady. Her eyes go from twinkly flirt to anger and flaming blood red. Terrifying enough to make me flinch, but adrenaline rising enough for me to get into survival mode; no fear shown, sit tall and plan the Hell out of an exit plan. Hopefully, Oliver gets out of whatever state he's in soon. In the same flash that made her eyes go red, she blinks and they turn back into this, awkward shade. Like contacts were put in and failing at their purpose of disguising something.

"Taking back my planet. The Demetrain never said they would be doing all of this. Just as I never said what I would do if they backstabbed me." Her tone is deadly serious, yet motherly and nurturing too.