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“Why then-” I pause and force myself to calm down. I’ve learnt that anger never gets results, but silence will kill for answers. So, I walk back around to my chair, my eyes never leaving his face, and choose a quiet, barely audible voice to ask the question that I have been dying to ask ever since I found out. “Why then, have you kept my mother all these years when you only needed me?” I stop, making sure he digests my question. “You know,” I whisper, “I thought my mother was dead,” I don’t even say the last word audibly, but I know it still hits him just as hard.
He covers it well, but he flinches at my unanticipated tone. Something about it almost hints at remorse, but I seriously doubt that. That man has probably never felt remorse in his entire life.
“You see, Emerson, we kept her in case you came back for her. She was our bait for you to come back to us.” He answers. He lies. He isn’t looking at me directly and his hands are fidgeting aimlessly with his pens on his desk. Just like Jasper seems to do when he is nervous. Like father, like son.
“That’s a lie,” I tell him. I am surprised by how calm I feel, how I am able to keep my voice so quiet and steady while talking. I can tell that Albert and Travis are taken aback by it too, their wary glances towards me telling me everything I need to know.
“When I was a kid, and Mum left that day, Dad said I couldn’t go and look for her, and he would go out himself, but I insisted on coming too.” I train my eyes on Albert, making sure that I have his complete attention.
“We went to the convenience store and saw Jerry lying on the ground. His wife, Angela, was next to him. I bet you didn’t even know their names,” I spit. “We left and were searching for her for hours and hours. Till hours became days and days became weeks and weeks became months and we knew, we knew that she was gone, but we allowed ourselves to hope. Hope drove Dad insane, and, while I eventually quit looking for my mum and realised she was dead, he never did. Then just like her, one day he was gone.”
I finish and take a deep breath, observing the room. Travis looks mortified, although he is trying his best not to show it. Albert is expressionless, like always.
“Okay, I want you to listen to me,” he says, his voice full of harsh authority. “I am going to tell you the truth, and you might not believe me, but you need to. Do you want the truth?” I know it doesn’t matter if I want the truth or not. It has never mattered what I wanted. It has only ever been what he wants to tell me.
“What is it?” I implore.
“I never wanted your mother,” he says, “I wanted you. I didn’t know where you were, and your parents had done a magnificent job hiding you from the public eye. No records, no birth certificates, no nothing; you were unfindable. It is just like Ophelia, to make you impossible to find,” Mr. Cunningham rambles. “We took her in the hopes that you would come looking for her. When we had you, we were going to return her-”
“Wait a minute.” I interrupt. “You used to know my mum?”
“Yes. Many years ago, we were friends. We were as close as siblings until-” He stops talking and shakes his head. “After explaining to her my intentions, she eventually told us when and where we could find you. She told us that you still went to school, but under a fake name. She said the easiest way to find you would be to trap you there.” He mumbles as if he is hardly paying attention to what he is saying, but for me, these words are a lifeline. Heartbeats of answers to the questions that had kept me awake at night.
“So, she told you to kill those school children?” I accuse. She couldn’t, my mother would never. Then again, I never thought my mother would tell a murderer where to find me and yet here we are.
“She did not tell me specifically how to get you, no.”
“Did you torture her into telling you where I was?” I ask bluntly.
“Trust me, Emerson, she was my best friend. I would not harm her,” he speaks.
“But you would harm all those innocent children?”
“Emerson!” he throws his hands in the air. “There are worse forces in the world than me. I am doing you a favour right now by taking you in and tolerating your outbursts and tantrums. There are other people out there who would torture you for the information you have, but I’m not doing that.”
“But you did when I was younger,” I snap at him.
“When you were younger, I did a lot of things, but I will let you know that you have not yet tried my patience to the point where torture is necessary just yet.” He exclaims coldly.
“Yet?”
“I will also have you know that you should remember who you are talking to. When I chose to tell you the truth, do not take that lightly. That is me putting my trust in you, so hopefully you will do the same to me.” I stay silent, not knowing exactly how to answer. “I promise that I am telling you the truth when I say that I would never hurt your mother, she was my closest friend.”
I take a moment to process this. My mum was friends with him? Who in this world could be worse than him? Why did he want to keep me safe? Haven’t I spent my whole life running away from him? I don’t even know what to believe anymore. Him, telling me that he would do anything in his power to keep me safe - or my mum, telling me that he is a cruel man without a heart.
I have always been taught to believe my parents, but right now I don’t know if I can. Mr. Cunningham is telling me things that I never thought that I would ever get to know, secrets that Mum would have never shared with me. If he trusts me, why shouldn’t I do the same and trust him?
“Why- Why are you telling me this? I don’t understand.” I sit down in my chair, ready for answers.
He sits down and says slowly, “you have the right to know.” He sighs as if a big weight is coming off of his chest. “Emerson, I-” a figure bursts through the door before he can continue.
“SIR!” The man looks about 6 foot 1. He has broad shoulders and a bulky figure which compliments his strong jawline. He looks older than me, perhaps 19 or so, and extremely dignified in a well pressed suit. His dark black hair is chopped short, and his cold blue eyes are blazing with ice. Just like everyone else in this building, he looks extremely familiar.
“HUGO!? What are you doing here? Are you alright?” Travis hesitates as he hurries over to embrace the boy named Hugo.
Hugo Jones. He is the boy that destroyed my chances of escaping this place by tasering me and handing me back to Rebecca Hunter. Travis’s eldest child. Travis had a daughter too. Her name was Luna Jones. It’s still coming back to me, but I remember that Luna and I were friends when I was here. She would sneak into my room to see me even though she wasn’t allowed to. She was just like Travis, I remember. Hugo, I recall, had all of his father’s looks and none of his goodness.
“I’m fine, Dad,” he pushes his father off and keeps walking towards Albert stiffly. He glances at me for a second, and I glare at him. I want him to know full out, that I know his dirty little secret and, if we were ever friends, that we are absolutely NOT friends now. His face is emotionless as he looks over to me. I wonder how his Luna reacted when finding out what he did to me.
