Originally Published in 2012
Okay so picture: Xavier Samuel as Ridge. Doesn't he just have look? Oh song: Alyssa Reid's alone again.
Enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 8
I really, really, really should have known/ guessed that we wouldn't be able to get back into the castle without someone catching us, and sadly that someone just had to be non other then Prince Taiven. He didn't look as charming and nice like last night when I tried to escape. Now, he looked mad and irritated; so the big question was; who was in more trouble? Breena or me? I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say me.
"Brother" Breena said to him, as she grabbed my arm and attempted to swim me pass him, trying to act as if everything was perfectly normal.
But no luck there; Taiven got a hold of my tail as I swam by, and yanked me back. I will admit, it hurt, like a lot. I let out a small yelp, and the merprince immediately let go, obviously realising what he had just done.
"Taiven!" Breena snapped, immediately inspecting my tail to see if anything happened to it. When it was obvious that it was okay, she turned her attention back to her brother. "What's wrong with you!?"
"I do not need to answer to you." He replied to his sister, clearly not caring. "However, you do need to answer to me. Why were you above the castle walls so late?"
Breena was about to answer, before I cut in. "She followed me." I quickly said. "I went up to walk around and she came to bring me back down before I did anything stupid." I patiently waited for Taiven's reaction.
I was aware of Breena starring at be, clearly wondering why I stood up for her. The reason was easy; she in a way helped me. Sure, she pretty much just gave me words of wisdom that a eighty-five year old widow could a done; but I guess that coming from a two hundred and something year old mermaid, the advise just made more sense.
"Tara..." Breena whined.
"Breena go to your chambers, I will come visit you shortly." Taiven ordered his sister.
"No, Brother, you need to know that—" His sister tried to say.
"This is not negotiable." He snapped. "I said go to your chambers, and this is the last I want to hear of it!"
His loud tone of voice made me flinch. Usually, when my dad spoke that way to me, it usually meant that he was about to hit me or something; so I that moment I was really scarred that Taiven might actually hit Breena. But of course he didn't. I was just being paranoid.
Without another word, the princess gave one last angry glare at her brother, before dramatically swimming off; leaving me and Taiven alone. Great, just great; my night was just getting worse and worse by the minute.
Taiven didn't waste time. "Why did you lie for her?" He asked me emotionless.
"What are you talking about!?" I bluffed putting on a poker face doing my best to sound convincing. "I didn't lie for—"
"Oh please" He interrupted me. "I could tell by my sister's reaction that you were lying; what I would like to know is why."
Does anything get passed this guy? I mean seriously, he seems to know everything about everyone, for any reason, at any time. Maybe he was psychic? No, that would be crazy. Merpeople weren't psychic, right? Oh wait, if Taiven is psychic, he might be reading my thoughts right now. I think I better shut up then.
"Tarabelle" The prince said, bringing me back to our conversation. "I demand you answer me."
He demands? I was seriously resisting the urge to punch him. "Do you wanna know something Taiven?" I saw him flinch when I said his name, but I didn't really care at the moment because I was mad. "I went up there, because I wanted to say goodbye to my brother. Yes, I have a brother, and do you wanna know where he is right now? In prison. Why? Because he has this delusion that my dad might have done something to me and now he thinks I'm missing or maybe even dead." I took a big shaky breath, before continuing "Breena just happened to be there, and do you what? If she hadn't, I think that I might have attempted to kill myself again. So, you should cut her some slack, because one day she might not be there for you anymore, and then you'll be filled with regret and guilt because all you've ever done was treat her like crap!" I didn't realise that I was crying until I saw sparkly bubble float away from my eyes. Mermaids had tears and could actually cry in water; go figure.
I might have just woken the whole castle up, but Taiven remained indifferent. No wait, something changed, I think he looked a little sadder. Yes, he was definitely frowning.
Finally he spoke. "My mother died almost nine month ago" He practically whispered, awkwardly changing the subject a little bit too much. "My father is forcing me into marriage—which is really the last thing on my mind if you wish to know—, both of my sisters are rebelling, the kingdom is terrified that over night they might fall and now, I've got you to deal with."
Does he seriously think he has more problems then me? Well, he needs to be taught a lesson. "My mom died when I was nine, my dad's been physically and sexually abusing be since then, my brother ran away from home when he was sixteen and left me alone with my father, I dropped out of school when I was fifteen, I worked for almost for years at a crappy restaurant and barely got a pay check, people around town usually thought I was a freak because I was Goth, I cut myself to feel better, I OD about three times in the pass five years, and now I'm here." I paused, and starred Taiven straight in the eyes. "I wanted to die Taiven, and I was set on it until your sister saved me. I would have rather drowned, but apparently, that wasn't my choice to make. So, I really don't give a damn if you had a hard nine month, because I've had a hard nine years!" I paused to see if I was getting through to him, and happily noticed I was. "So just tell me if you want me gone, and I'll swim off right now." God, I was being dramatic. But I was tired, irritated, exasperated, sad, mad, and over all just awful. If Taiven wants me gone, I will seriously leave, like he said before; I was a problem in the first place. And I didn't want to make his nine month any suckish that apparently they already were.
His silence felt so long; probably because he was also falling asleep. But he did eventually start speaking again. "Today was your first session with Danicio." He said in a sudden change in subject that caught me slightly off guard, again. "How did that go?"
"It was long." I responded being honest. "Why?"
"Tara, how would you feel if I were the one to take up teacher you our ways?" Woah! Where did that come from! Wait, why was I thinking it?
"Where did that come from!?" I spoke my thoughts.
"I think I would like to get to know you better." He admitted. "This is the second time that we must speak together in the castle in the middle of the night; so I suggest that as I teach you our ways, and get to know you all at once, it would be more favourable." What the hell was I supposed to say to that? "I suggest you respond yes to my proposition." Mind reader! I immediately thought.
"Yeah sure of course" I immediately said, still a little confused.
"Good, now I recommend you get some rest because our day shall start early tomorrow." He pointed out.
I nodded and started swimming away, but turned around because I just needed to ask him the question. "Taiven, can you read minds?" I was smiling like an idiot because even I knew the question was stupid, but I really just couldn't help myself from asking it.
"Tarabelle, merpeople don't read minds." He responded, matching my smile.
"Not even princes?" I asked playfully.
"Not even princes." He confirmed with a nod. "Goodnight Tara." He said swimming in the opposite direction.
"Night Taiven" I responded. "Sleep tight; don't let the sea fish bite." Okay, that was pretty well thought of though.
For a moment, I forgot about the enormous pain of sadness and guilt that was torturing me on the inside. I was rather exited about tomorrow. But all of that disappeared when I entered my chambers, and realised how lonely it felt. But I guessed that in a way that's what I was, alone.
Ridge
He didn't sleep all night. For one thing, the blankets of his cheap prison bed were itchy, there was always this constant beeping coming from god knows where in the station, the phone had kept ringing every damn fifteen minutes—nowadays there was a lot of criminal activity in the town— and there was this leek in his cell and the water dropping annoyed the hell out of him. So yes, sleep had been close to impossible. But he still pretended to be, because stupid as the officers were, they talked around his cell and he overheard what was supposed to be "top secret conversations".
This morning it was Ethan talking to some deputy on his cell phone. "Yeah, he's still here." He paused as he let the other person talk on the other end of the line. "Nah, he's not much of a danger; but he can be unpredictable. Just when you think he's okay, he does something stupid again. Damn kid's messed up."
You're no better then me Ridgemont. You're in and out of prison, you can't keep a job, and you clam that you want to help Tarabelle? Please, you don't give a damn about her. The words of his father rang back into his mind, bringing back his anger, sadness and frustration.
"Really?" Ethan said into his phone, sounding rather surprised. "Yeah, I saw the report thisa few minutes ago." What in the world was going on? "Yeah, alright I'll talk to the kid, keep me posted if anything new intel comes in." And he hung up.
Ethan bagged the bars loudly with his stick, to "wake him up". Ridge moaned and slowly sat up, and stretched, doing his best to look tired. "What do you want?" He asked meanly to the officer—that he didn't to fake.
"You father got drunk last night. He came clean to one of my officers about everything that's been going on for almost ten years." Ethan replied rather annoyed. "But like I said, he was drunk, so we did a small investigation at his house and..."
"And I was right." Ridge finished for the policeman, happily savouring his victory.
"I wouldn't start celebrating now Ridgemont" The officer said gravely. "You still almost killed Kyle."
"Yeah, but I had a reason! And he's not dead, so everything should be fine." He tried to explain. "Besides, I've seen you guys let fucking serial killers outta here, and you're telling me that I can't leave because I pointed a gun—which by the way wasn't even loaded— at my dad and knocked him out? Please, I'm one of the guys that cause the lease trouble around this town." Apparently that had been the right thing to say, because Ethan was looking at him with a thoughtful gaze.
"You attacked your father because you think that he had something to do with your sister's "disappearance", right?" Ethan asked. Ridge noticed the way the officer said the word disappearance; as if he didn't believe it, but Ridge nodded just the same. "Wait here."
"No problem" He responded. Where else was he supposed to go, he thought with a small laugh. God, the policemen in this town where stupid, he thought.
Ethan eventually came back with an envelope, that he gave to Ridge through the bars. "Open in it, but brace yourself."
That really, really, really, could not mean anything good. He hesitated to open the envelope, he was scared of what it contained, something bad obviously. But, he sucked it up and did it anyway. He dug his hand into the envelope, and took out a picture. It was a rather blurry and purplish, but Ridge still recognized his little sister smoking on the bridge. The numbers at the bottom of the picture indicated that it was taken almost three days ago. Apparently there were secret cameras on the bridge. Huh. Maybe they weren't so stupid after all. He pulled out another picture and it showed Tara climbing over the rail, then there was one of her looking down at the water, obviously hesitating. The before last one was of his sister pushing herself off the rail; his heart tightened. There was only one picture left in the envelope, he of course didn't want to look at it, but forced himself because he had to see it to believe it. He pulled the final picture out, and of course there was nothing but the railing. Because the girl that had been there, was now drowning herself in the ocean; gone, dead. The proof was right in front of him, clear and real; but he still had problems believing it. Tara killed herself?
"I'll...I'll get your release papers ready." Ethan said before leaving him alone in his cell with the pictures.
He seriously couldn't look at them, so instead of putting them back into the envelop like he was supposed to do; he ripped them, shrivelled them and threw everything that was left of them across the room. He watched as the papers seemed to float down from the air, and landed on the floor without a sound. Maybe that was what happened to Tara? She'd floated in the air, and landed without a sound, maybe not even a splash.
Guess what??? Next chapter I'm putting in 4 POV'S! What will happen? *** dramatic music and voice** Will Ridge give up his search for Tara and go back to his druggy ways? Will Taiven finally fall for Tara? Will she ever come face-to-face with her father?
Wow, this story really is a soap opera. But you like it, right?
Vote and comment.
- NocteLamia101
Enjoying my work so far? I encourage you to check out my other stories such as The Way to Neverland: A Peter Pan Story and The Walkers Saga! Available on my profile!