LEXIS ✔︎

♚3. REVELATION

"Hey, pumpkin!" My dad greeted.

    That was my dad. When times were tough he tried his hardest to make everything feel like the norm. He's done that for me through every step of my life. Without him, I don't think I would ever have known what happiness meant.

I smile. "Hey dad," I say softly.

      I couldn't help but reconnect my eye contact with him. Lexis was staring right at me. His cold icy eyes trying to see through my emotions. His stare burned. The intensity sending waves down my whole body. It looked as if a tsunami occurring in a deep blue ocean was taking place in his eyes. There was something going on in them and though I only looked into them for a few seconds...it felt like hours.

"People say she's like a mini me. Always been a daddy's girl." My dad says attempting to joke around causing a few of the guards to give him a mixture of bewildered and awkward expressions.

I raise my eyebrows at my father's gaffe statement instantly feeling the discomfort in the air.

My eyes immediately found Lexis again and I felt my body become subjected to his subconscious pull.

"Jordyn? Are you alright?" My dad questions sensing something was wrong.

I snap out of my trance and fixate my eyes on my dad. "Yeah, dad. What's up?"

"So you know that each family of the chosen girls gets a certain amount of money in rewards each month?"

I squint my eyes. "Yes?"

"Well, we decided to let you choose where you wanted the money to go. I mean, your mother and I could put it in a fund for you-"

"Talia," I blurt out causing my father to widen his eyes.

And as planned my mother got down the stairs just in time to hear my short proclamation. "Talia?" My mother questions.

   As if his eyes were magnets, I glanced at him again. Lexis' eyes weren't as intense. They softened. It was a look of slight disbelief.

"The loyalist who tipped you off?" The guard with the thick eyebrows questions in shock.

My mother snaps at him in frustration. "Listen, she didn't tip anybody off. We never made a plan to relocate our daughter."

The guard smirks not daring to trigger my mother any further.

My mother turns back to me with her face filled with concern. "Oh no honey, Talia? This isn't because—cause you know that's not your fault right?"

I nodded my head but the guilt in my heart grew and diffused throughout my subconscious.

    "Y-yeah, of course." I answer while images of the past raced through my mind "I—I'm making this choice for me. I don't want leave with all bridges burned to the ground. Talia and I might not ever be the same again after this...but at least I know I tried and one day I hope she remembers how good I was to her. Her family needs the money and they are indeed struggling, while we already have so much compared to many. I hope it pains her when she sees those paychecks. I hope it follows her."

The mocha skinned guard writes something on a sheet of paper. "Then it's confirmed." He says.

My dad grins at me as the guard hands him the copy of the confirmation. "Karen, we did a good job." He comments making my mother wrap her arms around me.

She chuckles. "We did."

"Alright," A guard with dark green eyes says. He had tattoos all over his neck, most were symbols of allegiance to The Union. "We gotta go if we are going to make it to the pack house in time."