"Wait, how do you even know about her? I don’t remember her ever mentioning you, though.” Zia gulped nervously at his sharp question. "It's...uhh," she uttered, hoping to find an escape sooner before the situation gets any worse. And just then, a eureka sparked in her mind. "You told me stories about her~" she said, all the while swaying her small body from left to right in an attempt to appear cute and innocent to him. "I did?" he asked with bemusement flitting across his features. "Yes~" she responded enthusiastically, beaming up a smile. "At the school! Where you first met me!" "Ohh," he gasped. "Right, I remember now. I first met you at the school where I work." "Yes! Yes!" she responded ardently. "You told me stories of an angel!" she added. "The one with sapphire eyes and golden hair~" "Yes," he agreed. Then, he softly chuckled. "I did say that. You remembered so clearly." “Because I’m a bright kid,” she replied. “That’s what you said I was.” “Indeed.” He reached his han
“Why is her phone in your bag, Sophia? Why do you have it?” said Edward Bartlett as his eyes swiveled between the little girls and Zia’s phone he found in the pink sling bag. “I-i-i-i,” stuttered Zia as the orbs in her eyes were shaking, and her trembling lips had dried up. She could feel cold beads of sweat dripping down her forehead. Her little chubby hands had gone sweaty from all the tension and nervousness she was feeling. “Sophia?” he called him. She looked at him full of anxiousness. “E-e-ed…” And just then, a thought struck her. “Why don’t I just tell him?” she thought to herself. “He will surely believe me the same way Gray did, right? He will accept me, right?” She was faced with a predicament. However, in that situation, she could only use one option; to come clean with him. “E-ed,” she uttered, her voice still shaking against her will. “T-the…the t-truth i-is—” “What’s going on? Why are you guys being all weird and tense?” Edward and Zia both had their attention shif
“Gray!” beckoned Zia Scott; however, Gray didn’t do as much as look back at her. “Gray!” Zia ran toward her and pulled on her hand until she stopped walking. Gray looked down at her with half open eyes. “What?” “What do you mean ‘what’?!” ranted Zia. “Go get Edward, he went to the dumpster because of your stupid excuse!” Gray shot a glance at the clock on the wall above the TV. “In the middle of the night?” she said as she yawned. “It’s your fault anyway,” noted Zia. “You’re the one who messed up in the first place, though,” countered Gray along with another yawn. “We can’t keep arguing about what’s already happened.” Zia started pulling her hand toward the door. “Just go make something up and take him back here.” “Just pointing out a fact,” said Gray as she used her other free hand to push herself from the door, refusing to go out. Zia strenuously opened the door and pushed her out. “Just go,” she said and closed the door shut. With Zia alone in the apartment, she could not
With Gray Stewart gone to her bedroom, only Zia and Edward are left standing in the hall. She shot a glance at him who still had bemusement plastered on his face. He then looked at her which utterly surprised her, but it was already too late for her to look away. She took a deep sigh. “Aunt Gray calls me Zee the same way she calls Aunt Zia because she said I look like Zia when she was little so I reminded Gray of her,” she said in a fast-paced manner. Then she looked back without checking his reaction. “Good night, Edward.” She waved her hand above her head and made her way toward Gray’s bedroom. When she entered the bedroom and locked the door behind her, she saw Gray sitting on the side of the bed, staring down at her phone. “You really just left me after you made that mistake,” bellyached Zia as she stood by the door. “Why didn’t you help me clear it up?” Gray shot her a cold, uninterested glance and stared back at her phone. “You said my excuse was stupid,” she said lethargic
“You lied,” uttered Edward Bartlett as he looked at Zia with repugnance planted in his eyes. The two were separated by an unfamiliar rectangular table, sitting across from each other. They were enclosed in a room full of mirrors as walls. She could see his antagonistic expression from every angle. “B-but,” she stuttered, taken aback by the shocking expression the man she loves had shown her. “I-i…I was j-just—” A slam on the table made her flinch. “Just, what, Zia?” he asked. “You just don’t trust me enough.” He stood up. “Do you?” “N-no,” she denied as she struggled to hop down from her seat with her tiny body. “I-i do, I do trust you.” He slightly walked away from the table and faced the mirror walls and looked at her through her reflection. “Then, why?” He turned to look at her directly. “Why will you not tell me?” Her eyes started to well up. “B-be-becau…se…” “I don’t even know you anymore,” he interrupted as he walked towards the table again. “Just who are you anyway?” The
BANG! BANG! BANG!The children held captive together with Zia Scott had started throwing a fuss to the series of gunfire heard from beyond the tunnel.“You stay here. Guard the kids,” said a man with a strange mohawk hairstyle and went away.“What is happening outside?” thought Zia to herself.“Nooooo! So noisyyyyy! Mommyyyyy!” cried a little boy behind her.“I’m scaaaaared! Dadddddyyyyy!” bawled another one.“Shut the fuck up!” roared the guard seated on his chair with the gun on his hand, resting on his lap.Zia anxiously glanced at him who seemed to have tightened his grip on the gun. She looked behind her.“Everyoneee~” she uttered, beckoning their attention; however, their cries were deafening on top of the ceaseless gunfire outside. She slightly tilted her head in disappointment, then she started to sing. “Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream,” she commenced, but nobody seemed to have heard her. The children were too overwhelmed to even hear anything now aside from eac
Gray Stewart woke up to the alarm on her phone atop the nightstand that resounded throughout the room. With her eyelids still weighing down her eyes, she groped the furniture for her phone and turned it off with a swipe. Taking the phone into her hand, she turned to the other side of the bed and noticed Zia gone. With her bedroom fully enclosed without any windows, night and day wouldn’t differ at all inside; therefore, it was impossible to ascertain the time. Tapping on the screen of her phone, it lit up. She checked the time; however, her eyes found the unread messages from Sarah on the notifications of her lock screen. And before she could think of anything, her finger tapped on the notification and opened the messaging app. Seeing her inbox, only Sarah’s name was in bold with 8 unread messages. As she tapped on her name, it revealed the messages she had yet to read. And the latest message caught her attention first as it was the longest. ‘I don’t know if you’re blaming yourself
“Justin!” Gray Stewart shifted her eyes to the woman shouting who was standing by the brown door. It was Colleen in a short red silk dress. When Colleen presented herself in her head, the statement that Police officer Gladd released about her rewound itself. “The police car that was bringing Colleen was ambushed resulting in two of our officers severely injured from the attack. We believe it’s the organization’s doing. She might be an important person they couldn’t afford to lose.” “She got away,” whispered Gray to herself, still staring at her ceiling. “And Ronald…” She took a deep sigh. “And Justin.” As she thought of the other two men involved appeared in her head, the flashback resumed itself as if the commercial break was over. When She saw Colleen call Justin for the first time, the name stuck in her head. Then the answer finally came to her. It was the name Colleen said was her brother. “Coco!” shouted the blonde man who Colleen just referred to as Justin. “What took you