Alex
"Where is she?"
"I don't know"
"That's not what I want to hear Doctor Brendon" low and flat, vacant of impatience and anger my voice echoes the walls, the empty cellar twists the hostile utterance into something more toxic. More dire.
"I-I don't know Thomas. I swear I don't know" the fear in Dr. Brendon's eyes was so intense and delightful that it almost made the anger in me flourish, rise so high that It taunted the control I had.
And the hold in my control was the only thing that Doctor Brendon should pray for.
"Why? Are you afraid now?" I pulled back my arm, the fist vice. But stopped from punching the brute until blood smeared across the mouth that he used to lie with.
His startled eyes looks at my deranged state. He must have seen the boy, hurt and broken, cold and sharp, ready to pounce on him if it wasn't for the promise he had made to a girl. As his features goes soft, I know what he was about to say next- and I wasn't prepared to hear that.
"I am sorry"
Just not yet.
"I had no choice Thomas"
This was not the answer.
"Keira Whi-"
"Not. Her. Filthy. Name" a finger raises in warning, the nerve pulsates against my neck as I keep my rage from pouring out. He shuts up, follows my command religiously as he looks down at his feet.
Ashamed. Defeated. Seized.
"Say that woman's name again, I'll make sure you are ruined in ways more fancy than you already are" I seethe as I feel a hand grip my shoulder. I don't turn to acknowledge who it was, it has always been Ian. Balancing the situation. The role of a custodian.
"The officials are here. Let the professional do their job" A sudden humorless chuckle escapes my lips as I shift to look at him, then turn to throw a wary, mocking glance at the traitor medic.
"Like they have been doing all this time?" I frown at the passive look Ian had. "Elzina has been missing since twenty four hours and all they did was sit behind a computer screen and track a glitching navigation that they are sure is a hoax." This time I don't hold back. Ian barely flinches at the tone of my voice. I let it spill, flood the pain in me out. I was losing it. I was going insane.
For a moment there was an understanding silence that dominated us.
"Leonard turned himself in. his confession might help find some clue Thomas. Don't lose hope"
I tear my gaze from his. The hesitation with which he watched me as if I'd burst into a mush of complicated tantrums made me aware of just how weak I was now.
Weak, vulnerable and lost.
So lost without her. So dead.
"We'll find her Thomas. She'll be okay" he said everything I wanted to hear. Everything I was desperate to happen. But the what if- the question what if- lingers at the tip of my tongue. I couldn't even bring myself to say it as he engulfed me in a hug. I buried my nose in the tall man's shoulder.
Sinking in the fatherly warmth that my sorry excuse of a parent failed.
Leonard Michael white.
A ruthless man with hunger for status. He consumed his own son's happiness, his trust and his aspirations. Stomped upon them in order to keep himself a top the pedestal.
A liar.
Such an effortless liar.
His confession meant nothing to me. Leonard white's recitation of guilt this morning- twelve hours after Elzina disappeared, taken by people I would do anything to see in state worse than death. The way I feel every passing hour.
His truth, I was primed. Ready to face it. But keira's?
"Why us Ian?" hoarse and feeble is ask. In response I felt his hand grip the back of my neck in more firm embrace.
My chest becomes heavier at the sympathetic gesture. It was almost as if he wall losing hope too. Like he was holding me from crumbling. I couldn't have that.
I cannot believe that.
Before I knew what I was doing, I had stepped away from him. on it's accord my stride ascended until I pushed through the door. The humid air from the basement sucks behind me, I felt the fresh gust of wind upon my skin. Zipping the jacket up to my neck I ignore the group of men and women who walked in the direction I came from.
The corridor shrinks smaller and smaller with them in. but it was useless.
The doctor they were about to confront had nothing.
The White's mansion that I had not been in since years was still the same. But so different.
Once a family resided here. A mother, a father, a boy whose fear of being hurt and punished still seem to haunt the shadows and walls. Even after he grew up, he still was alone. I was alone.
Contrary to my old apprehension. I wasn't even scared of death.
It was the even the thought of living when something could go wrong terrified me.
What if something-?"
What if she-
My hands balls into fist stiffly as I refused from thinking the end of those what if's. Increasing the speed I weave my path through the dotted authorized people, who stopped to glance at me with looks so stoic and professional.
I steal my gaze away from the devastated Mrs. Stuart who sat on the living room across with Mike by her side. He was still in tuxedo from yesterday night's graduation bash.
Yesterday.
She was still with me.
It seem so long ago.
When I was by the tall entrance door I torture myself with one last glance through my shoulder.
Chaos. I see chaos. Turmoil. Forlorn.
My family did this to them. To her.
It became hard to breath as i stared ahead. I drag my body to my car, once inside my hand coils by the steering wheel as I sat with the red and blue lights from the cop's vehicle that casts dim and bright luminous upon the seats.
It's all I did.
Sat. staring at nothing.
For how long?
I don't know. But when I felt the day crashing and tumbling down on me, it constricted my chest in a manner that the only way to let it out was to let it go.
I was tired of being strong. I was tired of being the boy who thought he could handle it all.
The first stream of tear trailed, then more. My eyes burned with raw lack of sleep. My head pounded. My heart ached. My mask crumbled.
I kept wiping it with the heels of my palm, I gave up after few trails. Leaning my head at the headrest, slowly cradling to right I saw the empty seat. It still lingered with her faint scent.
"I am sorry" I whisper with a lazy blink. "I failed you baby. I am so sorry"
My eyes drooped close for a moment, fatigue seeping in. But a knock brought me back to senses. I frowned when I saw a boy in hoodie with raised knuckle for another dap.
I rolled the glass lower as Noah stood by the window. His head ducked low and back pack flung across his shoulder.
"Noah?"
"M-may i-?"
Sniffing, I clear my throat. I unlocked the door for him. Composing my stature I wait for him as he slides in the vacant seat. An idle look on his face.
"What are you doing here?" I question. Not bothering to explain the situation as it was all over the news. I could still spot the crackle and lights by the far large iron gate as journalists and reporters camped outside. Hungry to shred even a morsel of information with little to no consideration towards how we felt. All for power, for money. May be some promotion?.
It were people like them who makes me hate the world in general.
"Found s-s-something?" though it was a normalcy for Noah to stutter, I detected the curdle in them. Elzina was his only friend. That for some reason he still called her Elaine. I remember from the many times she had wondered if she had scared Noah with all that had happened since he rarely kept in contact with her even after she returned from New York.
"No. Nothing so far" he watches me with a look that I can't decipher. His features still morphing into adult hood, like someone in his kid days with the worry of an independent life. If I was a mess then he appeared no better.
For a while he just stared at me. The lights flashing in swirls. He opens his mouth, but says nothing. The way his orbs wavered as if he was fighting about something within his own mind caused a sudden alertness within me.
"What is it? Do you know something that we don't?" I shift, my voice desperate as I gave him the entire attention.
It repeats. The uncertainty in him. But this wise I was sure that he was hiding something crucial.
"Tell me" I pressed. My voice lower, my eyes fixated on him like vulture. "This is not the time to think. Tell me what you know. Elzina needs our help"
That did the job.
Seconds flew. But I saw his rigid posture melt. Like he was ready to give in. but I was not ready to hear it.
"I think it's Nathan"
I narrow my eyes as he gulps.
"What?" I ask, my lips twisting with a confused frown.
Hesitant he tugs at his sleeve, embracing his back pack to his chest he nods.
"He had always liked Elaine. s-since the day he saw her. Would kept humoring and jo-joking around calling her h-his future girl friend or wife a-a-and stuff. But then he left for stuart. T-t-two years later he was back, but this time he barely hinted h-hi-his feelings, I was assured that he was over with infatuation and at th-th-that time you and Elaine were dating as well. He started calling her his best friend" my body went cold with the path this was going, though it perplexed me to the juncture. The look on Noah face was enough to warn me that he had only scratched clear the surface for me.
"I-I was wrong" he pauses, inhaling a mouthful of air "He had other plans. I wo-would always find h-h-him spending crazy stash of money on things. He never answered me when I had enquired him about it. You know Alex? i was always compared to Nathan and h-h-his abilities. But I was never envious of him. Because I saw wh-what other's didn't. He was manipulative and devious"
He grits his teeth, the knuckles pale as he held his wrist in a death grip.
I don't interrupt him despite the thunder of rumbling things I wanted him to reveal.
"I know it's your a-a-aunt behind all this. I have no fair clue as to what and why. But I k-know." his body upheaved as he took a sharp breath "but what you don't know is N-n-nathan worked for her. He worked for keira white"
Everything inched up. Heightens to the point I start feeling numb.
When-
The words kept crawling in more.
-Will this end
Further more
Why us?
More louder
When?
"How do you know? why were you quiet till now?" my eyes snaps to his with a sudden vile call.
Licking his lips he unzips his bag "I swear I found out t-this just yesterday. After Elaine-" he picks up a metal box and flips it open "After Elaine went missing I fi-fished Nathans room to see if he was involved. And this was what I found in h-his wardrobe"
Roughly I grab it from his clutch, they were bills and transaction slips. Cheques and receipt. All from one source. All embossed with one. sinful. name.
Keira White.
Crushing them into a ball, I let it fall.
The only sound was of sirens that filled the space.
"When I heard about who Elaine was, I d-dreaded to call her by w-w-who she is. Nathan has a tattoo, in-inches below his collar bone" he begins, sounding desolate and lost "Elzina. That's what he has inked. It's b-been there for two years now. All t-this time I thought of h-her as someone else, i-it was my best friend"
My stomach churned with disgust.
I want her to be okay. Oh god, I just want this to get over.
As for Nathan.
That fucker, I swear if he laid a finger on her I am going to kill him. I will kill him.
Shuffle and clinks distracted me as I turned to look at Noah. He had a bunch of keys upon his out stretched palm.
"The keys to o-o-our family's hill house is missing" his holds my gaze, now firm and stiff. "Take the route back yard. T-these are the spare keys"
Grabbing them I slip them inside the pocket. He steps out but waits by the door.
"A-Alex-" He starts as I touch the ignition green. Bringing the car to life. I look over him, my senses swirling with overwhelming emotions that I sparsely could understand what I wanted to or was doing. I just wanted to reach the destination soon. "-A-alex listen"
I do.
But not the liberal way he wanted me to. My expression must have been that of accusation as his lips twitched reticently.
"I-i know he is not worthy o-of forgiveness" his hand grazes his jaw, a motion of nervousness. "But He _ he is my brother Alex"
His petition.
It does nothing to cure the rage.
My lack of response was an answer more clear than word could express.
He gives a defeated nod taking a step back as i rolled the windows up.
There was no holding back this time.
No hurting anymore.
No. More.
***