Lost in their Past

Chapter 39:- He Must've Known

Alain had refused to tell them the location of the unown. "You're still not in the clear," he said, "I'll tell you when I trust you."

Upon Charlus's request, they'd to travel back to the hotel because the cold was giving him frostbite. Alain and Grace had shrugged, saying that cold never bothered the Van Blacks, unless the Van Black was Serena in whose case it bothered her very much.

By the time they traveled back, the sun was rising. Its rays touched their faces but didn't provide any heat.

"I'll meet you in the restaurant," Alain said as he went out of the door without giving them a second thought.

Grace sighed as she aggressively took off her winter clothes. She kicked her boots across the room and laid back on the bed with a thump.

"What did I do... what did I do... what did I do..." she muttered while constantly rubbing her face.

Charlus silently bit his lip, there was nothing he could do to make her pain disappear. Condolences did nothing but make the situation worse. He'd learned it the hard way.

He sighed and went to the bathroom, leaving Grace to herself. By the time he came out, she was all read in her signature black turtleneck, blue jeans along with a very thin jacket which Charlus feared might've been a kimono. 

"Aren't you going to wear something for the cold?" He asked.

"What cold?" She flipped her knife and put it in her ankle holster.

"The minus ten degrees?!"

Grace shrugged, "It never once bothered me."

The two of them made their way towards the restaurant in complete silence. Grace sensed that Charlus was itching to talk to her about what went down at the abandoned factory between her and her nephew.

She was still recovering from the shocking news. Alain had joined the Academy shortly after she had, at first, her brother had warned Alain to stay away from his aunt. But the boy had idealized his aunt very much, he followed her around like a lost puppy, socialized with her friends and their friends.

James had liked him very much and so did Delia, Joanne kept saying how handsome he was and Charlus was friends with anyone James was.

But then things changed towards the end of the war, the way her brother had acted when she told him their parents had died... she could never forget those hurtful words. Alain was forbidden from contacting her, he was sent away to some professors lab to study under. Grace had tried contacting him when she was in distress but he'd always dodged her calls.

And then the news reached her ears... Alain had joined Team Flare. She didn't know the details but the name was enough to burn her alive from inside out, after all, it was Lysander who'd killed her parents.

Then she saw him on the television, fighting alongside that boy Ash and her daughter... her sweet, precious little daughter.

After the battle of Kalos when Serena had gone off to Hoenn, he stood at her doorstep. A pleading expression on her face. He'd apologized to her, said he fell in with the wrong crowd that he had to stay for his own sake and that his father threatened to kill him if he ever contacted his aunt in any way.

But Grace didn't hear a word of it, they were all baseless excuses. To her, the world had always been black and white. James, Delia, Joanne were all white but she, just like her name, was black. She was evil and monstrous. She'd failed as a daughter, as a girlfriend, as a mother, as a friend, and as an aunt.

She'd failed her parents, her brother, Mark, Serena, and Alain.

The thought of Mark made her want to throw up. He was the nicest person she'd ever met, so charming and happy. But Grace had ruined him with her awfulness. She'd destroyed his life.