A/N: I've finally finished the story! But slight editing to this chapter and the next for consistency's sake in the latter chapters were needed. You can just skip all the way down to when she meets her Mom for the minor changes.
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I was on a plane en route to London.
And apparently, in first class.
"Penny, you didn't have to get us first class tickets," I said worriedly thinking about how to pay her back if my parents cut me off for the stunt I was about to pull. It was the first time I found myself worrying about money and I had to admit, it was a foreign feeling.
Penny's nose wrinkled to mark her distaste. "And be in coach for five hours? Why?"
A pair of couple who overheard Penny's bourgeoisie comment gave her dirty looks as they waddled past us to the economy class seats. If Penny saw their disgruntlement, she made no show of it.
"Look, we are on summer vacation. Let's just enjoy this, okay?"
I refrained myself from whacking Penny back to her senses. "I am most definitely not going on vacation, Penny. This is a real life and death situation right now." To say I was not slightly annoyed at my friend would have been a lie. But another thought invaded my mind.
"Hey, it's summer vacation now?"
"Ari, it's been summer vacation for the past 3 months. School is starting two weeks from now." She muttered darkly before scoffing again. "Ugh."
I had been so out of touch with the world that I had completely forgotten normal things like schools and the holidays. When your school was scheduled next door to your home and classes were scheduled every day of the week, the concept of weekends and holidays lost their meaning. But there was something else that irked me.
"But I swear I've seen Tristan going to school the last month." My perplexed mind tried to figure out this new puzzle.
Penny looked at me confusedly before a look of understanding dawned on her face. She shrugged. "His school runs on a different calendar," was her explanation with a blasé tone.
My confused expression prompted her to continue. "He goes to a private military school of sorts," her nose scrunched up in thought as she figured out how to explain Tristan's education. "I don't really know what they do exactly but they run stuff in their own bubble. I think their holidays are way shorter than ours." She said in after thought and then shrugged. "Sucks to be him."
Huh.
I did not know that about him. In fact, there really was not much I knew about him. My stomach clenched guiltily as I thought about the pathetic note I left as a goodbye. Even if we weren't exactly close and met only out of bizarre circumstances, nobody deserved a goodbye on a piece of a post-it note.
I squashed my guilt away by willing myself to sleep. But it seemed like even in oblivion, my guilt had followed me for I ended up dreaming of obsidian eyes and raven locks, and they stayed on until I finally felt a rough lurch. I woke up sleepily, and there was Terminal 3 of Heathrow Airport greeting me welcome.
~**~
"You can keep the change," Penny dropped two £50 note into the cab driver's hand and gestured for the concierge to grab our banks from trunk.
We had finally arrived at Four Falls, the only hotel in London which met my parents' standards as far as hotels could go. I looked at Penny, who smiled at me encouragingly.
"Let's go," she said, as she linked her arms with mine and proceeded to pull both of us into the hotel.
This is it.
But here was the thing about going into a half-baked plan: There were things that were probably going to be obvious in hindsight but would still be missed due to the lack of contingencies. For example, it was probably obvious that the hotel would not have freely disclosed my parents' room number to me, even if I claimed myself to be their daughter. Nor would they do so even if Penny offered to take up and paid for the finest suite they had.
And that was how both of us ended up sitting at opposite ends of the lobby, me across the elevators and Penny in front of the main door to keep a lookout for my parents. I had no clue as to where they were or what their schedules were like and so three hours passed and the only intel I managed to get was that if I sat in one position for more than 30 minutes, my butt would cramp up.
But alas, the proverb of 'good things come to those who wait' did finally ring true and at Penny's mad waving to my direction from all across the other side of the lobby, I spotted my Mom making her way to the entrance of the hotel. I shot up from my seat. The clacking of her heels in the silent lobby reverberated throughout but when her eyes settled on mine and recognition began to dawn into her eyes, her footsteps drew to a close abruptly.
"Mom," I breathed out as I took her in. Her face had aged since I last saw her yet she was still as beautiful as ever, with her blonde hair tied into a tight bun and sapphire blue cocktail dress.
"Arianna?" She stared at me with a mixture of shock and disbelief.
"Mom!" I repeated with a smile and then ran to her and threw myself into her arms.
It took a while before she responded, she was probably still internalising the implausibility of the scenario, but eventually I felt her slender arms wrapped around me. "Honey... What are you doing here?" she hugged me tightly and kissed my forehead before pulling away and looked to my face. "Is everything okay? Where's Hunter?" Her face was filled with worry as she gripped the sides of my head and inspected my face for any bruise and cuts.
I shook my head. "Hunter's not here," I bit my lip as I watched her expression shift from worry to a frown of disapproval. "Mom," my hands gripped hers as I looked at her with as much seriousness I could muster to show her that I was not kidding. "Is there more to the story about Connor you have never told me?"
I heard my Mom's breath hitch and that was enough to answer my question.
"Mom," I felt my eyes watering up. "You need to tell me. I don't want to live like this anymore," I whispered pleadingly.
"Arianna, you shouldn't be here. Your father is going to be so livid when he finds out," she sighed as she retracted her hands from my face. Her eyes travelled to Penny and then back to me. "Let's go upstairs." She snapped her fingers and pointed to Penny's luggage and immediately one of the hotel attendants rushed forward and took her bulky luggage away.
Both Penny and I followed my Mom across the marbled lobby towards the elevator. "Where's Dad?" I asked her. I knew for a fact that my Mom was the more level-headed half of the Vuillet-Alcott pair and therefore I was rather dreading the inevitable meeting with my Dad.
Perhaps sensing my dread, my Mother gave me a half smile. "He's not here. Yet."
Lord, give me strength.
We continued to follow her to the top most floor and entered her room.
"Sit," my Mom ordered as we entered her lavish suite. Both Penny and I obeyed and plopped ourselves down onto the cream sofa of the living room. "Tea?" She looked at both of us and I swallowed my small disappointment. "I prefer coffee now," I said. If we lived together you would know that.
My Mom called room service to get us some tea time snacks and when she put the phone down, she sat across us and stared contemplatively at me. The mood had turned serious.
"Do you guys want me to leave?" Penny broke us out of our mini-staring contest. "Cuz, you know, I can go and do some souvenir shopping and come back later." Penny's eyes darted between us, discomfort obvious in her body language as she shifted on her seat. I apologised quietly to her while my Mother nodded once to give her permission to excuse herself.
I forgot how much my parents scared other people. While they always doted on me when I was small, they never were warm towards other people. Penny left faster than I could say goodbye.
After a few more seconds of silence, I spoke up. "Mom, Connor knows where I am."
My Mom sighed in response. "Baby, that's why you need to stay hidden. You can't be flying across continents and walking in broad daylight," she chastised me before her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "How did you manage to fly into London? We should have been alerted the moment you passed immigration." I could see a vein popping on her forehead, something which happened when she was becoming irritated.
Unlike my Dad, my Mom got irritated at very few things, inefficiency being one of them. She was probably thinking of whose ass she was going to fire in the next two minutes.
"That doesn't matter. Connor has been watching me this entire time, every time you moved me since...," I paused before crinkling my nose. "Since always. Even when you moved me around, he had been watching this whole time. He always knew where I was," I watched my Mom who had turned quiet and paled slightly.
My Mom shook her head. "Yes, he always somehow managed to find you. But for those periods of times we moved you around, he was not watching and you were safe. Honey, we've always been extra careful with your security. There is absolutely no way that's possible," my Mom denied.
"Mom," I stood up and sat in front of her on the floor, taking her hands in mine. "Then why does he have pictures of me since I was a baby and for every moment of my life - even during the times I was supposedly 'safe'?" I tried to keep my accusing tone at bay but some of its venom may have slipped out. "There's more to the story about Connor stalking me, is there? It's not just the accident that caused him to start all this... Right?" My voice grew weaker as it turned into a plea for her to answer.
"How do you know all this?" Confusion and frustration began to mar her face - I could tell she was trying hard to keep her voice level.
I bit my lip. "He told me." My answer made my Mom's jaw tense. "And also, I've been doing some digging up," I admitted. "At first I was just trying to solve some stuff that had happened and I was trying to take care of it myself because, well... I didn't want you to move me again. I was tired of uprooting. But then I found out things along the way, directly and indirectly from him. And I was told that I don't have the full story," I looked at her in her eyes. "And that you do."
My Mom, who by now had gone completely pale, leaned against the side of the cushion and rubbed her temple with one hand. "How much do you know?" My heart sunk a little at her admission of the secret I was yet to be privy.
"I know he's waiting for me to turn 18," I gauged her reaction - she stilled in her seat - "But I don't know why."
My Mom sat up straight and glimpsed over at the grandfather clock behind me. "Let's wait for your Father."
"No." My Mother's eyebrows shot up in surprise at my defiance.
I, too, was honestly surprised. But I knew that if I waited for my Father, I might go home without answers. He may be a great Dad to me but I knew he was not as good of a person, in general. He was stubborn as a bull and never backed down from a decision, even if he was the one in the wrong.
"Fine," my Mom sighed after a long moment of consideration. "But, Arianna, before I tell you anything else, I need you to know that we did what we did because that was the only choice that we had. And if we could turn back the time, we'd probably have done the same thing."
I kept silent to let her continue.
"When we signed the contract with Connor the first time to have you, your Father and I had agreed that he had a degree of ownership of you."
"Ownership?" The word stood out like a sore thumb to my ear.
"You were an experiment we signed up for. Part of the agreement was he was to have an equal right over you as both of us did. You don't remember this but he used to come visit even before the accident happened. I think you were too young to really remember him but he had always been around since you were born," she kept quiet before continuing. "Arianna, he was your original Godfather."
As if lightning had struck me, I froze on the floor and struggled to coherently express my train of thoughts.
"Experiment...? So like, genetically engineered? You engineered me?" I frowned. "Isn't that illegal?"
"I had no choice. I could not get pregnant and at that time it was a death sentence for any woman in your father's family. You know how that's like. God, if you think your Grand'Mere is horrifying now, you can't imagine what she was like before I had you. We were desperate for a child."
A little part of me was was hurt. Here she was, confessing to me so easily that she only wanted me from the pressure of my Dad's family. Not because she wanted me.
Was that why it was so easy for them to leave me every time?
She then continued. "But we started to see that he was not very stable so we kept his visitations very brief and few in between - and it was fine at first because part of the agreement was that you would live with us and we overpowered him in terms of parts of ownership," she flinched a little, as if she finally realised what word she had used about my existence. But I kept my stony face on so she would continue. "And all was fine at first. But then that accident happened."
My mind flashed back to the incident where I had drove the pink car into the gutter.
After a long period of keeping mum, I finally broke my silence. "I don't understand. What does that small accident have anything to do with anything?"
My Mom smiled softly at me before gently stroking my head. I used to long for her to do this all the time but at that moment I had to summon all of my willpower to refrain from pulling away from her touch."That accident was bigger than you remember. You almost died."
"What? No, I am pretty sure I remember it was just a small accident that got blown out of proportion by the press," I insisted. I remembered that clearly.
"No. You remember what we fed you to remember. And the reason the news kept harping on the fact that we gave a 5 year old a car was because we made them harp on it in order to hide the actual thing that was happening. We were trying to harvest illegal organs to replace the ones you damaged."
What?
"I-I don't follow you," my head swirled in a mess of information overload.
"You had fallen off a cliff, Arianna. The fact that you were alive when they got you out was even a miracle. You punctured your lungs, both your kidneys were badly damaged, your skin was burnt, among other things. And there was no way we could get you donors so fast. No amount of money could get you your organs - believe us, we tried everything. Legally, at least," she remarked the last part bitterly.
I awaited with bated breath for what was to come.
"We had no choice but to turn to Connor again. He already was purchasing organs illegally for his experiments and he was even already cultivating organs from stem cells - organs that were perfect matches with you."
I swallowed thickly. "But?" I probed for her to continue.
"But in exchange he wanted to keep you all for himself. He was angry at us for limiting his visitation rights over you."
"And you said yes?" I asked, horrified.
"You were dying, sweetheart," she tried to justify. "And we tried to negotiate his terms. That was why we promised him that we would..." my Mom stopped talking and looked away. I swore I saw water welling up in her eyes but when she turned back to me, her face was once again composed. "That was why we promised him that we would give you to him when you turned 18."
My heart felt like it was dropping down at a rate faster than jet streams.
"So you really did give gave me away?" My voice was quiet.
My Mom frowned. "No," her voice was steely. "We were buying time to save you and get you out of this mess." Her voice was enough indication to me that she wholeheartedly believe that she did the right thing.
Maybe she did. Maybe I would have died had the bargain was not struck. I would not been be here if it weren't for that deal.
But Connor was... Connor.
Was that really the only way?
"Arianna, trust us, keeping you hidden is the only way. We even..." she paused as if hesitating to continue at first. "We even hired hit men to go after him. But he's uploaded all evidence of our involvement on some sort of complex cloud linked to his body and all that will be released the moment he dies - You know that genetically engineering babies alone is a horrible crime. Illegal organ harvesting is just a different level completely - We'd both be put away for a long time. Our family would be in ruins."
I felt so... dirty. Who's organs did I have in my body that got taken away against their own volition.
"You don't want us to go to jail, right, baby?" She pleaded softly as she kneeled in front of me.
I shook my head in reply furiously. "Of course, no," I breathed out and quickly wiped the tear.
But it just wasn't fair.
"Oh, sweetie, I know it's not ideal. But we love you so much and we'll go to the ends of the world to keep you safe," she caressed my face gently. "We just need you to trust us, okay?"
"OK?" She asked again when I didn't answer.
"Okay," I nodded compliantly, because I knew she wouldn't relent until she heard what she wanted.
"Good girl," she ruffled my hair. "Come on, chin up, bunny, where's that gorgeous smile? You don't have anything to worry about so why the long face?"
I had my whole life to worry about but with my brain still too befuddled to protest, I summoned a small smile to humor her.
She chuckled. "There it is," she booped my nose before standing up again and turning her attention to her phone. "Let's get you back now before your dad gets here - I'll handle him so you don't worry about him."
I clenched my teeth. She always did this. I forgot how good she was at coaxing me to agree to things. I was such an idiot.
"No." The world left my mouth before I even processed it.
My mom's gaze zeroed on me steely. "Pardon me?"
I knew she heard me well the first time round. She just knew that her steely 'pardon me' always worked in dissolving any of my defiance against her.
But that was before.
"Mom, what happens if I don't go to him after 18? What then?" I asked her, half afraid to know the answer to this question.
Her silence was enough to make me put two and two together.
"So, that's it? If you don't find a way to get rid of him without having him incriminating you, I should just go willingly to him, then?"
"Arianna." She shushed me. "We're not going to let that happen. Your father and I have been pumping in so much money to make sure this doesn't happen – we won't let it come to that."
I laughed in exasperation before standing up. "My birthday is in less than two weeks. Do you really think you can pull a miracle now when nothing was possible before this?"
Not a lot of things stumped my mother – I wished this was not one of them.
"I need to process all this," I stood up and started running to the door before she could call security.
"Wait, Arianna, you can't just go out by yourself -" But she was too late as I was already out of the room and rushing towards the elevator.
"Arianna!" My Mom's shrill voice reverberated across the hallway.
I stormed out of the hotel and just started walking along the road in a random direction I picked, trying to not bump into people, which was hard, considering I was slightly blinded by rage, turmoil, and confusion. And in typical England fashion, of course it was drizzling.
I cursed the skies in my head and shoved my hands in my pocket. My flats were beginning to soak in the water from the pavement and my toes almost curled at the feeling of wet socks against my skin.
I wasn't sure at what point I realized that I was barely comprehending my bearings until I realised I had ended up at Hyde Park. The rain had started to pick up and began to pour harder. All around me people were rushing about with their lives and trying to get on with their day while there I stood - A tired girl looking completely lost in the rain. I walked to the closest bench and stared at the tree across and stared blankly ahead.
My head was empty. For brief seconds I wondered if I even existed. Lord knew how long I sat on that bench with a blank mind. All I felt was the beating of the rain on my skin and my hair and clothes getting completely soaked.
Until I didn't.
My head snapped upward and a clear plastic umbrella was shielding me from the rain. Surprised, I turned to my left to meet a pair of obsidian eyes.
"Thank you for everything? Maybe next time we can meet under better circumstances?" His deep voice was laced with incredulity as he quoted my words from the post-it note I left on the bedside table.
I stared at the dark haired boy next to me who was getting soaked by the rain.
"Tristan," I sobbed out.
I hugged him.