baby // m.c

2

"Tori!" Calum exclaims as he gets out of his car,  running over to my hunched over body. He drops down next to me, his knees giving an audible thump on the pavement. Normally I would cringe at that, but today I just don't care. "Tori Bug, talk to me." he whispers, visibly getting nervous over the fact I'm silent now. No crying, no speaking, barely breath at this point. "Sweet Bean, what happened?" the nickname makes me flinch, and I automatically hope he doesn't see it.

But he does.

I hear a sharp intake of breath from my side and I can only wonder what's going to come out of his mouth. "Someone from the States called, didn't they?" he says softly and I nod, to tired from my cries to say anything. "Tori Bug, what happened?" he tries one more time and I finally find my voice. "Kelsey Finati is dead. They found her in some rich dude's sewage drains." My voice cracks on the last few words but I don't have anymore tears for my stinging eyes to cry.

I hear one more sharp sigh before I feel a tighter grip on my body. "It's okay, Toria. Do you...do you want to tell me how you're feeling?" he asks quietly and I just shrug. "I don't know how to feel, honestly. She's the one that killed Leflair, she's the one that put me through hell on Earth, but she's also the reason I'm here, with you guys." I say, grimacing at the thought of my little brother. I think about him everyday, but every time I talk about him out loud, it reminds me of what happened to him, how brutal his death was.

"Toria Finati to the guidance office please, Toria Finati. Guidance." the intercom blares over the loud and unruly classroom full of 14 and 15 year olds. "Miss Finati, you heard the intercom, get out." Mr. Henderson says, glaring at me the whole way to the classroom door. Man, high school is harsh in Brooklyn. 

"Hello, darling girl!" Mrs. Allen exclaims to me, excited to see me. I'm in here a lot more than the average student, but not for me getting in trouble. Most of the time it's getting taken out of class to speak with the police and sometimes the occasional Social Worker, but like I said;

High school is harsh in Brooklyn.

"Well, doll, you can go right back into Mrs. Cole's office." she says, and even though it's not directed at Mrs. Allen, I roll my eyes. I wonder what my Ma has done this time, I think. I step into Mrs. Cole's office and see police officers speaking to her. Great. I clear my throat and the officers turn to face me. "Officers, this is Toria Finati, Leflair's sister." I hear the little shake in her voice and my head whips to her. They never bring up Leflair, just Ma. "Mrs. Cole, what happened to Leflair? Did he get in trouble with the cops?" I say, my heart beating fast. God, please, Leflair is only 9, don't let him have done something stupid. "No, Sweet Bean, actually, something else has happened that these nice officers are going to explain to you." She says and for the first time that day, a vision of my little brother, dead and cold, goes through my mind.

Jesus, I wish I could've gone a few more minutes without the image haunting me for the rest of my life.

"Well, Miss Finati, there's no easy way to say this except-" "Just spit it out!" I yell, startling Mrs. Cole, but not the officers. The first officer, who's name I now know is Officer Brooks, takes a deep  breath "Leflair Finati was murdered this morning at your current home address of 1078 West..." he drones on he details like a robot but I've heard all I needed to hear.

Leflair is dead.

Here's the details I managed to absorb some time later when Mrs. Cole explained it all to me: Leflair had been pulled out of school by my mother - her client had really liked little boys - and he was taken back to the client's apartment. Leflair was raped by the lot of them in a "consensual orgy" and the shock from being raped pulled him into unconsciousness. The man thought my brother was dead, so after my Ma left to go the shop for more condoms, her client started de-limbing him, until he woke up halfway through the left arm screaming bloody murder.

So he stabbed my brother to keep him quiet.

My mother came back, high as a kite with pockets full of condoms, and didn't notice my brother until after they had sex and she went to go home. She called the police, running out to the street covered in blood and they found the body. He was arrested, and she had an alibi so she just went home.

I was sent home to see my mother, sprawled out on the couch with a needle on her lap, and I just sighed and went to my room, silently crying the whole way there. I kept going to school like the "good little girl" I was, and my life was miserable until Mrs. Cole called me down once again a year later.

She had told me about an international studies program; I could study abroad in England, Australia, Ireland, almost anywhere in the world. She told me that as long as I could manage a signature out of Kelsey that it would be approved and I would go through to one of the countries we learned about in our classes.

I went home, asked my mother if I could go live somewhere else. Her reply was to grab her a drink of Jack Daniels from the cabinet and I decided then and there that I was going to forge her signature and get the hell out before grabbing her the whole damn bottle. The school called her about 2 weeks later and asked her to come in  for a meeting to see if she was completely sure about studying abroad, she told them as long as they sent her another little pretty maid that she didn't give a shit where I went.

Less than a month later I was in Australia.

It was always the best decision I think I've ever made, forging her signature. It put me in a loving foster family in Sydney: The Hood family. There's Joy and David, the parents. Then there was their oldest child, Mali Koa. She was 21 when I moved in, and one of the biggest music junkies I've ever met. The only bigger music junkie then her was Calum.

Calum Hood is one of the most sweetest men I've ever met in my life. He always knew when to give me space and when to leave me alone. He was the youngest of the Hood family, and he was the one it took me the most time to get comfortable with.

Calum is fun-loving, crazy haired man with huge muscles and a height towering almost a foot over my 5'3 stature. He and his current boyfriend, Luke, have been flirty since I moved in, and on the day I was officially adopted, Calum gained some balls and finally kissed him, his chipped nail polish glinting in the pictures we all managed to snap of the kiss. We have the same birthday, so anytime that anybody asks, he would say we're twin brother and sister.

I think that why is took me so long to get used to him. I had a brother and it gave me chest pains just to think about him. I guess I felt like Calum was trying to replace Leflair, but after I explained everything that happened with my baby brother, Calum gave me a hug and let me cry on his shoulder, telling me he'd never ever try to replace Leflair, and instead be a twin to me and an older brother to Leflair, no matter his living or dead status. Ever since then, Calum has been my best friend.

Which is why sitting on the ground, with one of my most bestest friends in the world on one side and my twin on the other side, I break again, letting my chest heave in heavy sobs in the safe arms of my 2 favorite men.