The Piper's Call

Chapter 19

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Chapter 19- Falling into Place

Nina P.O.V.

 There was only one place I could go. I had to settle this once and for all. And I could only go to one person, the only person that I could trust now. I couldn't risk Charlie, he would be on Helen Homewrecker's side. Huh. I had never thought about how appropriate that nickname had been after all. Consumed by all the hurt, I bumped straight into the person I needed to see. 

"Nina?" Thomas sounded incredulous.

"Who else?"

"You were missing, Helen hasn't seen you and- wait, why are you all wet?" He took in my soaked clothes and my straggly, limp hair from the lake incident. Somehow that mysterious woman seemed even more chilling than the freezing lake water. 

"I...made a mistake. I wasn't thinking right." Realization registered in his eyes so I continued quickly before he could interject with something distracting and unfocused- asking how I was feeling, for example. "You wanted to help those kids, well, now is the time. I have all the evidence I can take, and I want answers."

"B-but..."

"Don't you want to help those kids?" I replied sharply. I didn't have time for this. He shifted on his crutches uneasily, before hobbling off in the other direction.

"Helen's been here, looking for you," he called out over his shoulder. "She's worried out of her mind."

I sighed at the reply. Helen had a right to worry. She probably thought I was going to go to the police. But this case was bigger than that, leading to something huge. Why should some idiot officers get the glory? It was my purpose to discover what this was all about.  "Where are you going?" I diverted my attention away from my current train of thought to address how fast he was making his way down the corridor and by the way he kept looking over at me, it became apparent he expected me to do the same. I started to trudge along the hall behind him. 

"We're going to use the phone in the office, Helen made me promise to let her know if you came back."

"I'm not going back to her! She betrayed me, and hurt so many. Why would I go back to her?"

He scoffed, keeping his back to me. "Huh. You're so lucky and you don't even know it."

Lucky? Maybe the painkillers for his leg were causing him to be delusional. I'd lost Dad, I'd never known my mother and the one person I thought was on my side turned out to betray me. I cared. That had been my fatal flaw. I trusted her. In hindsight, it made sense. A mysterious kidnapper with connections- my step sister comes out of silence, new in town and with a strange contact on her phone. All the facts were there, and I had let emotions blind me. Viewing the scowl I was shooting him, he sighed heavily. 

"You're lucky but you can't appreciate the family you have. How does it feel to have people who give half a damn about you?"

I started to argue but was cut off by his voice which was harsh from bitterness. "Helen cares about you, Nina. You can see it in her eyes. You've never had to hide from her, you've never been afraid of her. Not all siblings are quite so lucky. So we're calling her. End of."  He continued to hobble off towards the office and all I could do was follow behind, dumbstruck by the sudden outburst. He rapped on the mahogany door as I was still trying to puzzle things out. We were met by Rachel's tear stained face. Mrs Prism kept her back to us, breathing heavily, presumably from anger. Rachel gave a weak attempt at a smile, and patted my head.