Larkspur [COMPLETE]

Change of Plans

It was late morning when Eileen arrived in San Francisco, by the time she walked away from the crowded docs and caught a ride on a streetcar it was around ten. By now she and Tom would've eaten breakfast and be window shopping. Well, she would've dragged him into window shopping. A smile tugged at her lips as she thought back to those days.

But now wasn't the time for reminiscing; she had a mission, one she should've solved years ago. As the car bumped along the road, her thought drifted back to how her day had started...

~ ~ ~

Eileen's eyes opened slowly, lids unusually heavy, which usually meant she had dropped off to sleep the night before like a stone into the sea. She sat up to see she was in bed, wearing her favorite over-sized pink t-shirt with her white with blue spots shorts. As she raked her hair from her eyes, the events of the night before slowly came back to her, like memories from a dream. As she looked around the room, her gaze landed on the dress she had worn. Hanging on the back of the chair.

"So it wasn't a dream." Her thoughts instantly replayed all that had happened; those three words and the man who said them, making her cheeks flush and her heart race. She still couldn't process the way he looked at her, that fire burning in those bewitching frost blue eyes. She didn't want to admit it to herself, and hated to admit it to anyone else, but she feared she was-

"No!" She practically leaped from the bed. "I can't be falling for him, anyone but him! If anyone found out..." 'They don't have to.' Darn it now she was starting to hear his voice in her head. She sat back down with a sigh, noticing out the corner of her eye the sun was about to rise.

Love. Yes, she had considered it before, and now that she was out of V.I.L.E the possibility of actually experiencing it seemed a little more likely, but was it? Did she deserve the chance to love and be loved by someone who wasn't related to her by blood? More precisely, could she ask for his love, his attention outside the bedroom, something that went beyond worshiping each other's bodies?

When she stopped to think about it there were other non-sex related things about him that she liked; his voice was the rich, smooth type that most women weren't known to resist, his eyes sharp like a hawk's, quick to cut down those who dared to oppose him. He was protective of her, which she had unconsciously grown to like, and he was brave in a villains way; silent yet deadly.

Her thoughts drifted back to Carmen's theory about how their relationship worked. Indeed, she never knew her father, nor wished to find him, to her he was a shadow that drifted through her life, a memory growing fainter, a light growing dimmer.

But for the first time, she wanted to know where he was, why he had never been there, why mom never talked about him.

"Some mysteries are best left unanswered," Eileen whispered under her breath, that's what her mother said the last time she asked about her father. She was eleven and she hadn't asked since.      

~ ~ ~

As she later discovered upon entering the main room, Carmen had been doing some digging of her own, into Eileen's past. According to her building theory, Eileen's father had been someone who worked for the law, a policeman perhaps. After she was done explaining and everyone finished eating, Eileen declared she was taking a detour in a voice that opposed any objection. The twins kept their heads down, and Carmen silently wired enough funds for a speedy passage into San Francisco. 

And here she was: back in her hometown after not all that long a time and heading for home with enough determination to take on an army. Has it really been less than a month since I was here last? Eileen thought as she paid the driver and hopped off, pausing at the edge of her block to gaze upon the houses beyond. "It feels like it was only yesterday." Before she began walking. 

Halfway down, she began to feel something wasn't right, as if an earthquake was on the verge of happening and she was the only one who knew it. Picking up the pace, she watched the houses move faster past her line of vision until she was running and the world became a blur on either side. She skidded to a halt before her home before sprinting up the steps and to the door. She was fiddling with her keys when she noticed something that made her freeze solid. 

The door was unlocked. Via lock-picker by the looks of it. Body temperature suddenly twenty degrees colder, she placed a palm on it and pushed. Legs shaking, she slowly walked in, then froze again. If she was holding anything she would've dropped it.

The house was a wreck; all the 50s memorabilia had been ripped off the walls and shredded into speckles that littered the floor, the table was turned, the kitchen knife set had fallen to the floor, small streaks of red here and there no thicker than her pinkie. It looked like a tornado had come through. 

"I wish I could say that and believe it." She whispered. That's when she heard it, something only a master criminal would've heard; breathing. Carefully, she crept to and up the stairs, hardly daring to breathe herself as she edged her way down the halls, past her room, towards the storage closet in the very back. Her trembling fingers reached out, curled back, then reached again and grabbed the knob. Before she had a chance to overthink it, she turned it and ripped the door open to find-

"Tom?!" She caught only a glimpse of his face before he practically barreled her over in a hug that threatened to crush her ribs. She was about to pry him off, but that's when she felt the dampness, and when he looked up she saw his tears.

"E-Eileen," Her eyes widened, his voice only trembled when he was really scared. "It-it was h-h-horrible! Th-they came and-" He broke down then, burying his face in her cleavage and practically screaming tears. She patted his back and sat down against the wall, waiting patiently until he was able to talk. 

"I-I was in the storage closet, you know h-how I set up my v-v-visual base in there..." (he paused to sniffle) "m-mom had just come back from g-grocery shopping and I didn't want her to know I was w-watching. That's when..." (he sucked in a trembling breath) "that's when...they came in." "They who? Who came?" "I don't know!" He was on the verge of really screaming now. "The-their faces were covered, they w-were all in black and they-they-they" By now, despite her best efforts, Eileen's patience was wearing thin; she grabbed her younger brother's shoulders and jerked him around so that he was facing her, shaking him. "They what Tom? What happened?" He looked only mildly stunned by her burst of anger, his lower lips trembling as he spoke in a frightened whisper:

"They-they took her, they beat her up, and took her away...they've got mom Eileen," His voice jumped to a scream. "THEY'VE GOT MOM!!!"      

End Part 1