Unfound

18

My breath stopped, voice caught in my throat. I tried to grasp onto the memory that played in my head of the little boy, his face melting into Seth's. "Why?" my voice squeaked. My eyes desperately searched his for answers, but it just sent him into another fit of laughter.

"That's right, Kara! And do you remember my name?"

I shook my head, "I don't. I didn't recognize you then, but your face. It had scars all over it as if you had been... as if you had been in a serious accident." I was putting it together. "I'd seen you everywhere since then. That face always in the background." My mind scanned images on me participating in camps or going on trips, he was always there. Far enough that I wouldn't care but close enough that I would notice. His face was always there.

He threw his head back in delight, blond strands of hair flowing over his face, "Yes, Kara! That's it! Good girl. Now say my name!"

"Seth..." I protested, tears beginning to spill from my eyes.

"No! My real name, Kara!" He growled. He was going to make me say it.

"Braden," I sobbed, "You're Braden. You're the son of the man who kidnapped me. You're Roman's son."

He looked at me with confusion. "You said his name." I couldn't acknowledge him in any way. The tears were flowing from my face so freely that I couldn't even see him clearly, "You've refused to say his name for years. What was your reason again?" He was toying with me, playing with me, he wanted to use it to hurt me, "That's right, you didn't want to give him that power. His own name. You tried to strip that from him too."

"That's not it." I didn't recognize my own voice. It sounded more like a guttural grown than anything human. It startled myself and Seth enough that he got off of me.

He stood his ground, standing over me. He was studying me. Finally, his face softened. "Yes, Roman is my father. He deserves to be in prison, but not for what he did to you, but what he did to me."

What he did to him? "What did he do to you?" He smiled, satisfied with himself. "How are you his son?"

His eyebrow rose, "How? Interesting, isn't it, how no one in a small town can seem to tell the truth. How I didn't die in the car crash as everyone had said, hoped. I was the one who survived long enough to make it to the ICU, not my mother," His eyes dropped, remembering her. That's who's hair he was stroking when he went into that trance the other night, not a girl he loved, but his mother. He was with her when she died, when his brother died. He looked back up at me, "I barely survived, Will and my mother were fortunate enough to be killed instantly. I, however, ended up with hideous scars on my face, unrecognizable. My father came to pick me up, but once he's seen what an ugly monster I had become, he decided he didn't want me. He left me in the hospital, abandoning me. I thought he'd come back for me. Take me home. I thought he left something in the car, but he never came back. No, he wanted William or my mother, but not me.

"I also wanted any of the other two to survive over me. I sure as hell didn't want to live anymore. I was as good as dead. A new orphan. No one in the orphanage wanted such a hideous boy, so I left. That was when I wandered the streets, finding whatever shelter and food I could. I just so happened to stumble upon you, Kara. On the day you were so called 'saved'," he spit the words out at me, "He didn't want me, his own son. he could have taken me from the hospital and taken me home. He could have had one of his children back, but he didn't want me. He wanted you." He looked at me, the same hate in his eyes that I saw then.

"I'm so sorry, Braden, I..." I didn't get to finish, he was on me in an instant. He slapped me across the face, splitting open my lip. I tasted the blood as I looked to face him again.