33. | my tortured heart

"I don't want you to come." Ethan says for a second time. I love him, but I ignore him as I hurriedly grab my coat from the hanger. "Hey, look at me." He softly grabs me by the shoulders, making me face him.

"There's no fucking way I'm letting you near those two lunatics on your own." I say. "If you think I'd do that, you haven't met the real me yet. We're going to do this together, whether you like it or not."

He scans my eyes as I say that, clearly contemplating what to do. A sad expression forms on his face, but he doesn't insist anymore. "Okay." He gives in. "We're doing this together."

Quickly putting on our coats and grabbing my phone, we kiss both Sara and Lizzie goodbye. They do seem to realize the phone call wasn't a usual one, but they don't try to hold us back. As Sara let's go of her son and wraps her arms around me, she whispers. "Please look after my son." I bite my lip at her words. I will.

Within five minutes, we've managed to decide we're going together, we've called a cab, said our quick goodbyes and are stepping into the cab. Ethan gives the address and asks for an estimated time. "Twenty minutes." The man says and starts driving. Good.

As we're on the highway, rain starts pouring from the sky, heavy clouds causing a grey shade to fall upon the city. I used to believe the rain washed away the sins of people, the things they do on earth. How could it? A worldwide flood wouldn't be enough to save us from ourselves.

"Here, take this." Ethan whispers closely into my ear, shoving a pocketknife into my hand. My heartrate accelerates. "Put it somewhere close to your body. Don't let them take it and don't hesitate to use it." I nod at his instructions and take a deep breath. But what about you? Why don't you have a pocketknife, Ethan?

The driver looks at us through his rearview mirror, seeming to be confused at our secrecy as Ethan tries to block his view. I take the spare hair tie from my wrist and tie the knife to the inside of my pants, shoving it near the inside of my right thigh. It's uncomfortable, but they won't find it this way.

The drive feels like it's taking merely a few minutes, but an eternity at the same time. As we get closer to our unknown destination, I glance out of the window. I have no idea where we are. Ethan lays his hand on my thigh, rubbing the same spot repeatedly. By the trembling of his fingers, I can tell it's not only his way of calming me down, he's trying to calm himself down too. I lay my hand on top of his and place my head on his shoulder. We're together, at last. We'll get out of this.

My phone starts buzzing in my pocket, causing me to get startled. I take it out and see it's Cole. Ethan follows my every movement as I do so.

"Tell him." He says, earning a confused look from me. I mean, it makes sense, but our instructions were clear. Only us, or we lose Lexi. "Tell him to wander around the place but not show up, for our safety." Instead of telling Cole myself, I hand the phone over to Ethan. I feel my chest tightening at our reality. We're walking straight into the lion's den.

I try to control my breathing, not letting go of Ethan's other hand. He talks to Cole, telling him quickly about the phone call and instructing him to not let the police know. Not until he starts getting suspicious because it's taking us too long. Cole insists he should call the police right away, but Ethan manages to convince him to lay that off, for now.

More goodbyes, be careful's and see you soon's are exchanged. They end the phone call and we arrive at the given location. The cab leaves and we're alone, both immediately reaching for each other's hand. Ethan doesn't hesitate to wrap his arms around me, making me face him again by pulling my face up by my chin. "Listen Brooklyn, we go in, we listen to what they want to say. We try to not piss them off, I know that's going to be hard for the both of us, but it's for the better. I have your phone inside my jeans, I'm putting it on record before we enter. I've put Cole as an emergency number, so if I hold the home button for long, it'll automatically call him. You know what will happen then." He speaks. The police will be called.

"Listen good to me now." His tone becomes pleading. "If you and Lexi find any moment to escape, you both run out. Run towards that way, it's just a mile to that highway we were just on. You don't even have to get into a car, just go stand next to the road, in a clear view, and people will be able to see you. They won't touch you there. Cole will get into the building for me and the police will arrive soon after."

"What about you Ethan? If we leave, it's just you and them before Cole and the police arrives." My voice trembles.

"I'll be fine, I'll run after you two as soon as I get the chance." He traces his thumb over my lower lip. "I need you to say you promise you will try to escape as soon as you and Lexi get the chance. You won't wait for me, you'll bring yourself to safety first. Promise me."

Seeing his pleading eyes, I mumble. "I promise." I don't. A lie. This is my first promise to Ethan that I would do anything to break. I want to get all three of us out of there as soon as possible, after getting the final answers. I would be an idiot to leave him there, in their hands. The same people that tried to lock him away forever. The same people that are behind rape and behind my mom's murder.

Ethan places his lips on my forehead in a swift move and let's go immediately after. There are two empty cars in front of us and I recognize one of them as Ryan's car. We walk towards the light grey building, flakes of paint have fallen from the walls onto the floor. It seems to be an abandoned pharmacy, a rather big one. There are no other cars or people around here, no houses, no other stores. The cars from the highway nearby can be heard and I try to hold onto that thought. We're not completely away from the world, the world that continues to move on.

Ethan squeezes my hand as we both hold our breaths and step inside the dusty entrance. The second we do so, we glance around. "Hello?" He calls out, his voice echoing through the empty room. There seem to be more rooms because his echo goes way back there. My breath hitches as I'm suddenly grabbed from behind, a dark bag pulled over my face. I'm ripped away from Ethan, our fingers losing each other's comfort.

"Don't touch her, I swear to God I will kill both of you!" I hear Ethan yell from not too far away. My cold hands are being tied together behind my back as I continue to see nothing other than the darkness the bag is causing.

"Yeah yeah, not yet. Jesus, calm down Romeo." The male voice from earlier laughs, seeming to be closer to Ethan than me. It makes me wonder who hindered my sight, tied my hands and is now dragging me through the room. I bump into several things, unknown objects I cannot see, hurting myself along the way. Finally, I am put onto a chair, the bag still covering my eyes. I try to control my breathing, but the bag is not helping at all.

"Brooklyn?" I hear Ethan's desperate whisper to my right. He seems to be calling my name into a different direction, indicating he can't see either.

"I'm here." I mumble back, glad we're at least in the same room. Did we really expect them to have a proper humane conversation with us? This was a dumb idea, but we didn't really have another choice. They would be one step ahead of us and I cannot lose Lexi.

After a few minutes of Ethan and I listening to each other's breathing and their indistinctive murmurs, the bag is lifted from my face by someone behind us, someone I can't turn around to see. I squint and immediately glance to my right, finding Ethan's eyes. We're both tied to our chairs in what I assume is one of the rooms in the back of the pharmacy.

It's empty of furniture besides a few chairs, rather dark with a bit of natural light falling from one window. The walls have been decorated with teenager's graffiti and the floors have cigarettes, dust and waste all over them. I can't see a door, so it makes sense that there's only one door to this room, the one behind us. There's a bothering smell, but I try to not think much of it. Lexi isn't in this room, and panic starts swallowing me. Are we too late?

In front of us, a few feet away, stands Ryan, switching glares between Ethan and me. The two people that tied us to these chairs and lifted the bags from our eyes, must have left the room from behind.

"We held onto our end of the deal, we're here. The both of us, alone." I begin, trying to control my breathing and anger. "Where's Lexi?"

Ryan doesn't respond, instead, he pulls one of the chairs, scraping its feet unpleasantly across the damaged floor. He sits in front of us, a sick smile forming on his face. "Don't even worry about her." He waves the question away, uninterested, unbothered.

"You heard her, where's Lexi?" Ethan speaks rather calmly. Still no response. Ryan takes a few deep breaths. "Neither of you speaks, until I allow you to, understood? You two are giving me a headache and it hasn't even been a fucking minute." He spits out his words, rubbing his temples. "Don't worry about it, I said. Stop convincing me to give you something to worry about by annoying the fuck out of me."

"Fine." Ethan answers before I do and glances back at me, a sad smile forming on his lips. Let's listen, he mouths. I let out a breath I've been holding and give in. I'll listen. I'll listen as long as he starts giving some answers. If we get out of here somehow, we'll have a recording of it all. It'll be Ethan's miracle to get out of a life sentence, and Ryan's ticket into one. Justice will be served.

"I'm going to tell you what really happened and then I will move into the final stage of my plan, the plan I have been preparing for too many years now." Ryan begins, confusing me to say the least. I don't speak, I don't want to piss him off. If he speaks, as long as he spills, I'm okay. We'll be okay. We'll get evidence, time will pass, Ethan will try to find a way to make that emergency call and the police will arrest him and the other people involved.

"Your mom," Ryan begins, staring into my eyes. "I liked her, sure, but I never loved her. Not when we were high school sweethearts, not when we continued dating after high school. When we broke up, I was relieved because I could be with my one true love, after all. I tried getting Sara to fall in love with me too, but she was with Daniel. Even after I got Sara pregnant, she and Daniel stayed together for some reason. Before he left, that is. Two years later, Diana had started dating some other guy from her college named Kane and got pregnant with you when she was 20."

So, that's my actual father's name. Kane. Kane. I wonder if I have ever seen him.

"No, you don't know him." He blows out the questioning light from my eyes as he speaks. "When she was pregnant with you for about seven months, they got into a car accident. He died on the spot; your mother nearly died with you in her stomach. But she fell into a month-long coma and survived. They took you out by C-section and managed to save you too. You were small, so they kept both of you in the hospital, together. Diana's family was in Europe, and for some reason she hadn't changed her emergency contact number. The hospital called me. I don't know why, but I stayed with her. The doctors told me that if she ever woke up, she would have severe amnesia. She wouldn't remember the few months prior to the accident, but she would remember everything before that. She didn't remember Kane, she didn't remember our break-up—"

"She thought you were my father." I complete his sentence, this bit making sense. That's why she never told me he wasn't my biological father, she didn't remember.

"We got married when you were little and raised you like our child." He says, tracing his foot over some waste next to his chair. "But I didn't love her, I never had and I never would. My heart was still with Sara. My mind was with the child that she gave up for adoption years ago." His eyes shift to Ethan for a mere second, hatred bubbling in them. "Her heart was with that good-for-nothing drunk Daniel, for some fucking reason."

"So what? You fucking raped her, you moron. Did you really think she would love you for that?" Ethan snaps at him. "Look at me, you fucking rapist. Answer me." He continues to push, his voice trembling with anger.

"I made love to her." Ryan pushes out through his teeth.

"While she was drinking and missing my father? You drugged her and took advantage of her."

"Shut the fuck up—" Ryan hisses, startling me by taking out a gun. My breath hitches as I desperately try to make Ethan stop talking by asking Ryan a question.

"But why did you think that would make her fall in love with you, Ryan? Sure, she gave birth to it, but didn't even remember who the father of the child was. She gave him up for adoption, surely you found out?" Ethan remains silent as I speak, breathing hard in the chair near me.

"I was going to bring our family back together. It just all became messy when Sara gave him away. She gave birth to Ethan a few months prior to Diana and Kane's car accident, and your birth, Brooklyn. Two more children were involved and years had passed, but I wanted my son and Sara, nothing else." He vaguely answers before his eyes shift to the door behind our backs.

He stops his story, he stops answering the questions  we have. "There he is. Get over here Noah."

Noah.

I've heard that name before. I hear more than one person's footsteps, one of them walking to stand in front of us, the other still standing behind our backs. As soon as my eyes fall upon him, I recognize him.

"You were the guy we ran into at campus, you, you dated Lexi." I state, I don't ask. I've seen him that day when we bumped into each other. Poor Lexi, she thought he was truly into her. She must have not known, I don't blame her. His blonde hair and slightly darker brows resemble Ethan's, but I cannot find any other similarity between them. I see it though, somehow, I see bits and pieces of Sara in him, but I also see huge pieces of Ryan in him.

"You attacked and stabbed me at the bus station the other day." Ethan murmurs, his voice gruff with emotion. It's his half-brother, his mother's first child. Maybe in another life they would have been great brothers. My stomach twists.

"Yeah yeah, that was all me. But I have to give someone else the credit though. I would have never been one step ahead of you if it wasn't for someone telling me where you were. I must say, I could have taken you out of the picture right then and there, only if you had arrived a few minutes earlier. We also wouldn't have both of you here right now, if it wasn't for her." He purses his lips and nods his head towards the person behind us.

I stop breathing when I see her slowly scuff in front of us, every step feeling like another jab at my tortured heart. She comes to stand in between Ryan and Noah, arm's crossed.

No, no, no.

"Lexi?" I choke out, disgust laced in my tone.

My ears ring, my sight becomes blurry as Cole's previous words echo through my hollow mind. We should expect traitors left and right. Even the ones closest to us.

Even the ones closest to us.

"Fucking hell." I hear Ethan speak, moving angrily in his chair. "I should have fucking seen it coming."

This isn't happening, this isn't real.

There must be a misunderstanding.

Betrayal pierces me, yet again, right through my chest. She doesn't bother, she looks down at her feet, Noah's arm draped around her shoulders as Ryan shakes his head in laughter.

I wasn't mistaken when I said everything in my life was a lie earlier. I even doubted my own name, that would not have surprised me. But Lexi, my Lexi. Never would I have seen this coming, but she was a lie. Everything was a lie.

In that moment, I think to myself, whether I die or not today; they've already won, I lose.

▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

A/N; yeah, that just happened. have we focussed on wrong villains all this while?

still more questions left, but they will all be answered in chapter 34 my loves.

thanks for reading, i hope you enjoyed.

please don't forget to vote & comment, i really enjoy reading every single one of them.

— lyra b.