Kory came out shortly after beating the shit out of Travis, and his buddy I think, and she was carrying our food. She sat in the car, and handed us our food.
"Chicken, waffles, pancakes, and bacon. On the house, apparently." Kory explains.
"Fuck yeah!" I exclaim.
"Well I know one thing about you." Rachel says.
"Total badass." We say at the same time.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
We make it to a large building, probably St. Pauls; the place Kory said we needed to go to. We get out of the car and walk up to the door, and Kory rings the doorbell. After a few seconds, a nun opens the door for us.
"Hello there, can I help-" The nun cuts herself off and looks Kory up and down. "You're back."
"My lord, it can't be." The nun looks to Rachel. "Is this her? Oh! Look how big you've gown. It's been such a long time, my child."
She lets us inside and has us take a seat at a table, then gets me and Rachel drinks. I wasn't very thirsty, so I only had a few sips.
"You don't remember anything?" Sister Catherine asks Kory.
"Not a thing. Only that I was looking for..."
"Her." Sister Catherine jumps in.
"Mmm-hmm." Kory hums. "Did I say why?"
"You came here a year ago and said only that she was in danger. That they'd found her." Sister Catherine says.
"Who had found her?"
"You only said you just had to find her. And you did. And you brought her back to us, right as rain and as beautiful as ever." Sister said. "You came to us just a baby. You and your mother, Melissa. You stayed with us for a while."
"You knew my mother?" Rachel asked.
"Yes. How is she?"
Rachel just stayed quiet and looked away from the nun. Sister Catherine took the hint and put on a saddened face.
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"What were they doing here?" Kory asked.
"Your mother was worried about you. She was trying to protect you." Sister Catherine said.
"Protect me from what?"
"I cannot say." She paused. "You don't remember anything about being here, child?"
I just zoned out of the conversation after that, looking down at my cup and playing with the ring on my finger, the ring that was given to me by Dick. Dick. God I missed him, I don't care how much of an asshole he was; I want to hug him right now.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
"Your old bedroom is at the end of the hall, dear." Sister Catherine says.
Rachel and I hold hands as we walk to her old room. Many thoughts ran through my mind and a mixture of emotions came into my heart. Rachel noticed and squeezed my hand, letting me know I'm safe. I squeezed it back, giving her the same gesture.
Sister Catherine opened the door to the bedroom and we looked around, still holding hands. It was a cute room, perfect for a child to rest in.
"Truth be told, we haven't had much call for this room of late. It's a bit neglected, I'm sorry to say." Sister Catherine tells Rachel.
Rachel and I walk up to a shelf and she grabs a doll that was on top of it, letting go of my hand in the process. She had a look of joy on her face, as if she remembered the doll.
"Welcome home, Rachel." Sister Catherine said.
Rachel looked up from the doll and gave the nun a smile and a chuckle, and the two of us continued looking through the room at all of the baby stuff. We were goofing around a little bit and just having a lot of fun.
"I have a bad feeling about Sister Catherine. I don't know what it is, but I just don't trust her." I tell Rachel.
"What do you mean?" She asks.
"I- I don't know, I feel like she wants to do something bad I just don't kno-"
Rachel cuts me off. "Look, don't ruin this for me please. This is how I'm gonna get answers about me and my family, I can't pass this up." She says. "But I promise you that I will be careful, if that puts you at ease."
"A bit, thank you Rach." I say, grabbing her hand.
"You're welcome, Em." She smiles.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
Kory decided to bring us to a roller rink, and I was beyond excited. I loved to roller skate, ever since I was little; I haven't done it for years, though.
Rachel and I were sat at a booth eating food. I was beside her munching on fries, as was she. Kory walked back over to us after doing whatever the fuck it was she needed to do.
"You should try some." Rachel tells her.
"Pass. You guys gonna be long with those?" Kory asks, looking around.
"We ordered burgers, too." Rachel said, eating a fry.
Kory sighed and sat on the other side of the booth, quietly looking at the both of us and twiddling her fingers. She finally decided to speak up.
"That cop you told me about in Detroit..."
"Yeah, Dick. What about him?" Rachel asked.
"He's not your girls' father, is he?" She asks.
I choke on my drink at this. "Oh god, no. He's my brother." I tell her.
"Yeah, no. He was just a cop who was trying... It doesn't matter. He didn't really wanna help us, anyway." Rachel tells her.
"Do you know anything about your real father?" Kory asked Rachel.
"Not much, my mom... Melissa, she never talked about him. I mean, like, not ever." She told her.
Kory looks around, pushing her lips together. Her gaze locks onto the music speakers and she sighs.
"I'm gonna change this music before my head explodes." Kory said.
"Well, we need change for the arcade." I tell her.
Rachel puts her hand out and Kory reaches into her purse, pulling out some money and placing it into her hand.
"Really?"
"All I got." Kory shrugs.
"C'mon, let's go." I say, pulling on Rachel's hand.
"Okay, okay." She laughs, getting up from her seat.
We walk over to an arcade machine and Rachel starts to play, I just stand on her right and watch her; making jokes here and there.
I see a boy with green hair and a cool jacket walk up to Rachel's left and watch her play the game. I smirk and step back a bit, wanting to see how awkward this gets.
"Hitchhiker Lane. Nice." He says. "Um, go for the Camera Sinkhole."
"I'm Gar." The green haired boy says.
"I'm Rachel." She says right after him.
"I like your hair." She says at the same time Gar says, "Your hair is cool."
I cover my face and sigh, trying to keep a laugh in. I don't wanna ruin her chance at getting to know this cute guy. I mean, he came up to her so he obviously had an interest in her.
"Look out." He points to the game.
"Multiball." They both say.
"God, they're geeks." I whisper.
I see Dick walk in and go up to Kory. I groan and nudge Rachel, she looks over at where I'm looking. He starts walking towards us and I cross my arms.
'Why did I miss him, again?'
"Hey, come on. We're going." He says.
"What are you doing here?" Rachel questions.
"Now is not the time, okay?"
"Why are you here?" I say louder.
"Can we talk about this somewhere else? Let's go." He walks away and Kory follows after him.
"Fucking asshole." I say, watching him walk out.
Me and Rachel look back at Gar, I send him a sympathetic look, and we start following after the two of them. As I am walking, I keep my arms crossed and my head forward. I sort of regret missing Dick, I forgot how much of a dick he is; guess his name fits.
"Rachel, Emily, we gotta get you somewhere safe." Dick says.
"Do you know who sent that weird family after them?" Kory asks.
"Who the hell are you?" Dick, rudely, asks Kory.
"I don't know." She tells him, honestly. "But somehow Rachel's the key to me figuring me out."
"Is that why you kidnapped them?" He asks.
"She didn't kidnap us. She saved us." Rachel tells Dick.
"How's Dawn? Is she..." Rachel asked Dick.
"Rachel..."
"We read what happened online. Is she gonna be okay?"
"Who's Dawn." Kory asked.
"I really can't talk about this right now, okay?" Dick tells us. "The cops are looking for you. They think you killed your mom."
"That's bullshit! Rachel wouldn't do that." I exclaim.
"That's news." Kory scoffed.
"I may have failed to mention-"
"And they're looking for you, too." Dick looks at Kory. "Assault on multiple officers. Arson. Not to mention kidnapping."
"Like Rachel said, she didn't kidnap us. She saved us." I say.
"When you didn't." Rachel adds.
"Well, that's technically true... Dick." Kory tells him.
"Gee, that's a new one." He sarcastically says.
"I'm not going without her." Rachel says.
"Me neither." I say.
"What they said." Kory says.
"Can you please tell me what the hell is going on?"
"You left us." Rachel said.
"No, I didn't." Dick responded.
"You might as well have." I shot back.
"You were going to." Rachel adds in.
"Rachel, Emily, I wasn't." Dick tells us.
"We read the note." Rachel says.
"Look-"
"You were just gonna leave us with them?" Rachel cuts him off.
"I just needed time to figure things out." He tries to reason.
"Stop." I tell him.
"Emil-"
"Stop lying!" A dark voice comes out of Rachel's mouth.
All the windows on the cars, in the parking lot, break and fly everywhere, I grab Rachel's hand to calm her down and she snaps out of it right away; as if I'm her saving grace.
"I need to go back to the sisters." She says.
"Okay. Come on, let's go" Dick calmly-ish responds.
We all walk over to the Dicks car, Rachel dragging me behind her as she walks fast. I try my best to catch up to her, and I do. We walk fast side-by-side, panicking a little bit. I hop in the car fast and we speed off, to St. Paul's.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
I'm sitting beside Rachel as she reads a book, our arms hooked together. We're sat in silence and Dick is a few seats away, but I'm lost in my own thoughts.
I was worried for Rachel, really worried. I wasn't sure what was happening or what was inside of her, but I knew the thing wasn't good. But the one thing I knew for sure was Rachel was good and she has been fighting this all her life.
"They'll just make promises. But in the end they'll fail." I tune back in when Rachel said that.
I look up from my hands and see Dick a seat or two in front of us, but I didn't care; I turned to look at Rachel as she keeps talking.
"They'll all leave..." She says. "Just like you."
"I won't. You know I won't." I grab her hand.
"Do I?" Rachel asks.
"Yes, of course you fucking do! We've laughed together, we've cried together. We even got kidnapped together, for fucks sake." I raise my voice. "If I wanted to leave, I would have already." I say quieter.
"I'm sorry. I know you won't leave, I shouldn't have said that." She puts her head down.
"Yeah, you're right." Dick says.
"What?" Rachel looks up.
"You're on your own. No one can help you. Not really." He tells her.
"Dick!" I exclaim.
"I was just like you once. I thought if I leaned on someone, if I trusted them, all the pain would go away. But I was wrong. Anyone that tells you any differently is lying." He pauses.
"The loss is here for good now. There's no getting over it. But you can control it. You can channel it. No one else can do that for you. Just you." Dick finishes.
"I think I need to stay here awhile, okay?" Rachel asks.
"Yeah, sure." Dick nods, walking off.
Rachel turns her head to me. "I need to be alone, sorry."
I just looked at her and smiled. I gave her hand a little squeeze and told her it was alright, and walked off the way Dick went. I saw him talking with Sister Catherine until he looked in the direction of a car engine revving, then he followed it.
'This can't be good.' I sigh and followed after him.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
"Hey!" Dick exclaimed once we found Kory. "You stole my car. I like my car."
Kory started walking towards us. "How did you find me?"
"There's an app for that." He responded. "This place yours?"
"Think so." Kory told him.
Dick looks behind Kory, so I copy the same motion and stare at what he sees. It was a bunch of pictures of Rachel, blueprints, strange lettering, and more pictures of other people and birds.
"How long have you been looking for Rachel?" Dick asks.
"A few months, I thought." Kory says.
"Seems longer than a few months."
"A lot longer." I add in.
"You think?" She asks, rhetorically.
Dick starts walking around the storage unit, touching notes and staring at the pictures on the walls. Kory was holding a flashlight, aiming it at where Dick was looking. He took out his phone and started taking pictures.
"This yours, too?" Dick points to the weird letters. "What's that writing?"
Kory spoke some fucking demon language and I took a little step back from her, because you never know if she summoned fucking Satan or not.
"What does that mean?" Dick asked.
"I have no idea." Kory responded.
"So you could have just brought the devil here without knowing it?! Very comforting." I sarcastically tell her.
"What she said." Dick points at me. "And, where did you say you were from again?"
"I didn't." She hesitated a bit.
We just stood in an awkward and uncomfortable silence while I looked around and Dick continued to click his stupid camera on his stupid phone. Yes, I'm still pissed at him.
All of the sudden I got a chill down my spine, and a bad gut feeling. I wasn't sure what it was and I ignored it, tuning into Dick and Kory's conversation.
"Raven is the first species of bird to be mentioned in the Torah." I hear Kory say.
"A man came after Rachel. He had a raven tattoo on his back." Dick said.
"Wait, was that the dead body I saw in the paper?" I question. "Did she kill him?"
"Yeah." Dick said, answering both of my questions.
"Rachel's birthday... The mortality rate spikes every year on that day." She said after flipping through some paper.
The feeling in my gut keeps growing and I'm getting more and more worried by the second. I start to zone out and chew on one of my nails, debating whether or not I should go check on Rachel.
"Fuck it." I mutter.
I run off back to the church and see a part of it explode, bits of the building flying everywhere. As I'm running over there I also see Rachel run out of the back door, going into the woods. I follow after her because I want to make sure that she was alright.
"RACHEL!" I yell.
That catches her attention and she starts running faster, but so do I. I run and finally catch up to her right as she makes it into the forest. I grab onto her and hold her in a hug, not letting go
"Let go of me, let go!" She yells, struggling to get out of my grip.
"I don't wanna hurt you." She whispers.
"It's okay, it's alright. You won't hurt me, I'll be okay." I reassure.
She brakes down after this, crying in my arms and hanging onto my clothes. I just rub her back and continue to tell her it'll be okay.
After she had calmed down, we walk into the forest more; like we were compelled to. There was a calm silence between us, the sound of dirt underneath our feet crunching is all that we hear.
"Why did you come back for me?" She questioned.
"I told you I wasn't going to leave you, didn't I?" I ask back.
"I guess you did." Rachel laughs.
A sound cuts us off, a loud sound. It was the roar of a tiger, I think. But why in hell would a tiger be out here, in the woods, behind a church?
·•°·•°·•°·•°•·
Oh my fucking god, this chapter is over 2700 words...
I can't 💀
*EDITED*