ARABELLA'S POV
"Mom—" I whispered out, completely stunned, as I stared at my not-so-dead mother.
Seeing her sitting in front of me elicited a wide range of emotions, the majority of which I couldn't even pinpoint.
Shock was however the most dominant of them all, it was as if I had been struck by a thunderbolt, giving me a shock of a probable lifetime.
I could see exhaustion, somewhat mixed with annoyance but the emotion I wanted to see on her face was regret, which I clearly couldn't decipher.
My whole body was rigid because of the state of shock my brain had put me into. At this moment, everything else faded away and the only focus I had was on the lady who had tormented me for years.
I had always wanted her to accept me and to stop calling me an 'ungrateful brat'.
But it never worked because no matter what I did or how I behaved, it never was good enough for her. I've spent my entire life trying to gain her acceptance and love.
But looking at her today, I felt nothing.
No want for her approval.
No love.
No respect.
No hatred.
I wasn't sad, nor was I happy to see her.
I wasn't even angry or scared.
At this point, I was feeling completely drained out of energy.
I had given her more power over myself than she ever truly deserved. I gave her the power to control and dictate my life and direct my future.
What I had forgotten to acknowledge was that truly it was never really up to her, it was, still is, and will always only be up to me.
And seeing her today didn't make me want to win her affection, which I had always yearned for.
"So I see you're still alive huh—" She said bitterly, as her eyes stared right back into me.
"I think I should be the one to ask that question." I replied, causing her to let out an unamused chuckle.
"Why? Aren't you happy to see me?" She asked more like taunted me while I just stared back at her blankly.
When she realised I wasn't going to respond, she let out a sigh and her expression softened to one of hope.
"Can you please help me in getting out of these?" She while shifting her gaze back and forth between the chains that wrapped her and me.
"How are you still alive?" I asked, not moving from my place as my gaze bore into her.
Instead of answering she again looked at her chains and then back at me, but I remained rooted to my place, not having an ounce of willingness inside my heart to help her, at least not until I knew the answer.
"How did you end up here like this? Why are you even tied up?" I asked some more questions, but I got no reply to any of them, instead, she just gave me a blankly.
I heard footsteps and the sounds of chains rattling as I turned to look towards the source, only to see my friends being unchained by Lucca and the ones who had been freed were helping the others.
Forgetting about my mother for now, I quickly rushed towards them as I engulfed them, engulfing them in my arms one by one.
My eyes welled up with tears seeing them suffer like this. Their hold on me was just as strong as mine on them.
We were all scared, and holding onto one another gave us us with some much-needed comfort, even if it was only for a short time.
As I pulled Charlotte into my arms, we held onto each other tightly. I could tell she was scared because she wasn't the one to hold back, and I knew the bruise on her cheek was the result of that.
"I'm so sorry." I whispered in her ear and her hold got tighter.
"When did they kidnap you?" Lucca asked all of a sudden but before anyone could respond, we were interrupted by the sound of a continuous clicking of the tongue.
I turned to face my mother, who was staring at us with a bored and disapproving expression on her face.
I made my way to stand in front of her, still maintaining a safe distance between us as my friends came to stand behind me while Lucca stood by my side.
"Ah I see another weakling of the King family is also here." Mother said, tauntingly, looking at Lucca who was glaring back at her coldly.
"I am not weak you bitch—" Lucca gritted out, causing my Mother to laugh loudly yet painful, which ended her leaving in a coughing fit.
"You Sure? I mean if you weren't, they wouldn't have kidnapped you. Just accept that you are the weakest of them all, always in need of protection from you older brothers, much like this damsel in distress. I guess that makes you a small pathetic girl just like her, isn't that right?" She said with a smirk.
I knew what she was doing, she was purposely riling Lucca up, and I was also aware of how it was affecting him. Everyone has a thing that they are most insecure about and this was Lucca's.
He himself thought he was the weakest among the rest of our brothers and she was just feeding into his insecurities like she always did, the same way she had always done with me.
I'm not even sure if she really knows about how Lucca feels about this or if she was just shooting aimlessly, but either way it was working because I can feel Lucca tense up beside me.
And if I had noticed, there was no doubt that she did too.
"Sure, he might be a weakling but at least he's not a heartless bitch who's so pathetic that she goes around beating a god damn kid. I'll take being a weakling over being absolutely fucking pathetic any damn day. You are not even a human, you are a disgusting monster." Aaron said from behind me, causing me to look at him, who was busy glaring at my Mother with the rest of my friends.
My gaze was drawn to Lucca, who had his jaw clenched and was staring down at the floor.
My hands automatically moved to hold his fist causing him to snap out of his trance as he raised his head to look right at my mother, his hands unclenched to take my hand.
I heard angry yelp and my eyes immediately turned to look at my struggling mother, and this time I could see the rage of hatred light up in her eyes, something very familiar, something I've seen for years.
"She deserved it, every single thing, every single beating. She deserved it all, and I did this bitch a fucking favour by giving it to her." She yelled out angrily, glaring right at me with tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Did you hear me? You deserved it." She yelled again, but this time she sobbed as she repeated the same words over and over in between her sobs.
And before any of my friends or Lucca could intervene I raised my hand to signal to them to stop. My feet inadvertently moved forward, taking slow and deliberate steps towards her as I stopped inches away from her.
She hasn't stopped mumbling yet.
Just looking at her made me realise that she was stuck in a daze, by now her voice almost sounding desperate, as if she was convincing herself of this.
"Tell me why? Why did I deserve it? What did I do to make you hate me? What is it about me that made you hate me so much? Just Why? Tell me, please—" I asked, extremely frustrated at this point.
She looked at me again, but this time looked extremely helpless. Her jaw was clenched tightly as she gulped in difficulty while trying to ease her sobbing.
I craved answers that I had been denied for years, I was desperate to know them, and no matter how much I tell myself that I don't care anymore or that it's better not to know, but there's always this one part of me that can't help but wonder and yearns to know the truth, the reason behind why I wasn't good enough for her.
"Because you are the cause of everything that has gone wrong in my life. You weren't even supposed to be born, at all, you're a mistake. You took everything away from me. You took away my happiness, so you deserved to have taken away yours as well." She answered while her cold expressions returned.
"What did I do? What is it that I have done to make everything wrong happen in your life?" I asked instantly because I eagerly wanted to know the answers to these questions.
"You ruined my life, you took away my family. I had to leave my sons behind. I had to leave everything behind because of you. You are the reason John came into my life. You are the reason I am here now, being beaten and raped by his men almost every day. Everything is your fault. You should have died, and I should have killed you just when I killed her." Mother replied vaguely, but my face turned pale as soon as she finished.
"Who did you kill?" I asked almost in a whisper, afraid but curious to find out the answer.
"You know she took everything away from me just like you did. Do you know what it's like to grow up in someone's shadow, always being told that you weren't good enough, always being compared to the other perfect child while you were just called a failure, a disgrace was all you were to them. She was always the perfect child, she couldn't do anything wrong, but I, on the other hand, was always wrong for them. They neglected me so that their precious princess would always be looked after. But I didn't complain because I wanted love, but instead they threw me out, leaving me to fend for myself. And when I finally found some happiness, she returned to ruin it all over again, so I killed her like how I should have killed you too." My mother continued as I stood there listening to everything she was saying, and she wasn't done as she continued—
"I hate you Arabella, I hate you with every fibre in my body, and trust me when I say, you deserved everything that happened to you." She said as she stared at me.
No words were further said by her after that, and my brain was still comprehending everything she had just said.
"I pity you—" It was all that came out of my mouth as her eyes turned wide in shock.
"I pity you because you let your hatred take over you. You forget how to become a human when you let yourself fall in the never ending abyss of darkness and hostility. You could have saved yourself but you were a damn coward and chose the easy way out. Whatever you had gone through, you made it much worse for me. I get it you might not have had the best childhood but who gave you the right to avenge it out on the others? You claimed that I took you away from your family, but I didn't, you did. You took me away from them. I didn't deserve anything that you gave me, none of it. I didn't ask to be born. I didn't do anything to you, but you ruined mine as well as your own life. And you know what, I'm done. I don't know what happens to me next, but I am done with you. I'm done with crying over you and I don't need you, or your love, because to be honest you aren't really capable of loving. You don't even love yourself, so how can you possibly love anybody else." I said not holding back as my emotions poured out with each word that came out of my mouth.
But I wasn't done–
"I didn't do anything wrong to you so I'm done questioning why you hate me, because now I know you just wanted a reason to vent the hatred that pumped in your heart on somebody, and you did that to me. I could never forgive you for what you did to me. So you know what Cora, Fuck you." I finished and by now my face was only a few inches away from hers.
The moment I called her off, her eyes flinched, as if she had never expected me to ever say these words out loud. Even I didn't expect that, but honestly I felt a lot better, like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
I turned l around and made my way back to the rest of my friends, who looked at me with small and proud smiles while Lucca quickly patted my back giving me a big grin.
"We are kidnapped, Lucca." I said, reminding him but his grin didn't flatter.
"Still proud of you." He said, which made me laugh.
"You are right—" I heard my mother's voice and I looked at her while she was staring down at the floor.
"You're right Arabella but guess what, I wasn't always the monster that you made me out to be. I was just a little girl like you, who wanted love and affection. I never got it and I didn't think you deserved it either. I wanted revenge but I couldn't take it on people who wronged me so I took it out on the next person. I could never understand why you still haven't given up on this innocent act of yours. But one day you will because this world will rip apart the innocence out of you and when it's ripped out, you'll be a far worse monster than I ever was because that's what happens to innocent people. They are ripped to shreds in order for them to become some heartless monsters." She said, boring her eyes right into mine showing the sincerity behind her words.
The truthfulness that she believed.
I didn't say anything for a while. I just stared back at her trying to understand this woman with whom I had spent the majority of my life. Up until today I was never able to make out the puzzle that she was, but now I was able to understand her a little bit.
By no means I grasped her actions or her desire for revenge but I'm beginning to understand why she's so bitter. She had given up on happiness and allowed the darkness of her thoughts to consume her, much like mine that had been waiting to devour me.
"You need help mom, you really need help." I said my eyes softened looking at the dejected look on her face.
But just like that her expressions m changed to cold and angry as she glared at me. Her eyebrows were furrowed together and her jaw was clenched tightly.
She looked like she was about to explode and she then did.
"HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO NOT CALL ME THAT. I AM NOT YOUR FUCKING MOTHER—" She yelled at me causing to sigh softly being used to her yelling this at me.
She had never allowed me to call her mother.
She said I wasn't and that I'd never be her daughter. I hadn't given it much thought until now. My eyes widened as I remembered her constant reluctance to be addressed as my mother.
"Who did you kill?" I asked all of a sudden, eagerly and desperately wanting to disprove the nonsense theory my brain was cooking inside my head.
"My Si—"
Before she could finish, I let out a terrified scream as I stared at my now lifeless mother.
A bullet was lodged right in the middle of her eyes as her now wide opened eyes stared right back at me, causing my brain to take pictures of the scene in front of me to torment me with nightmares that had already signed the contract to reside in my sleep.
My eyes couldn't stare away from the lifeless body in front of me until I heard a voice that drained every colour out of my face, leaving me terrified.
"Such a nice reunion—"
✏️ Word Count: 2764
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