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My brother’s hands came to my shoulders. “We’ll figure this out.”
We would figure this out.
That was if I didn’t faint first.
We waited for a little bit longer and by then, I’d been given some hospital scrubs. I still smelled like gas, hair thick and matted with sweat. I tried not to cry when I saw myself in the mirror, face bruised and with so much weight to my limbs. I was physically holding the weight of all the thoughts circulating in my mind. Who was I?
And who were those people downstairs who thought they knew who I was?
A doctor came in to look at me too at one point. No serious injuries besides my bruised hip, shoulder, and face. I was holding a can of Coke that’d gone warm by the time Lucas returned to the hospital room. Staff had given it to me, but I hadn’t drunk it.
I got up with the assistance of my brother, my hip still warm from my fall on hard concrete. I’d been surrounded by fire then, gas…
The click of a cane came behind Lucas, an older man and my brother’s guardian. Callum always sported a suit, but his tie was absent today, the top buttons undone and his jacket gone. He appeared exhausted, a tension around his eyes, and I wondered how long he’d been awake.
“Sloane.” A large breath escaped him, one that rose his large shoulders. His cane tapped the floor as he ventured over to me. “You’re okay?”
As okay as I could be considering the situation. My throat constricted again. “What’s going on?” No one was giving us answers, not security or even the news at this point. Eventually, my brother and I had turned it back on, but they just kept repeating the same stuff we’d seen. “Why is the news saying what it’s saying about me?”
“And who told them all that?” My brother had his jacket off, his Adam’s apple flicking. “They got the world down there thinking that Sloane is some face on a milk carton. She has parents. We have parents. Well, we had…”
His speech croaked, and I couldn’t help myself when I placed my arm around him. All this was fucked up, our parents and that situation.
“They’re calling them kidnappers.” Bru’s expression pinched, mouth tight, words squeezed tighter. “Now, I know what Dad did was fucked when he took you, but he’s had mental issues.”
“It goes beyond that, Bruno.” Callum gestured to Lucas, and in the next second, his head of security was leaving the room. Bru and I found out he was in charge of the fleet outside the room.
Lucas shut the door, and with his absence, things got so quiet. Callum advised my brother and me to take a seat, and though I took one, Bru chose to stand.
Bru’s hand locked on my shoulder, tight, and I reached back for it. It was as if I was bracing myself as much as comforting him.
“I’m afraid what the news is saying is true.” Callum had taken his own seat, an easy chair in this luxurious hospital room. The place looked more like a hotel than an actual room to tend to patients. Callum’s hand rubbed the top of his cane. “I know because I’m the one who told them.”
Bru shifted behind me. His hands catching my scrubs in a way that made me think he was attempting to keep himself on two legs.
“What are you talking about?” he started, and I blinked.
“I’m saying I’m the one who leaked the information to the press.” He tucked the cane against his chair. “At the time, we didn’t know exactly where Sloane was. We were able to track her via GPS since Godfrey had taken Bru’s vehicle, but he abandoned the car a fair distance out from where we ended up finding her. Lucas combed the area visually for long enough where it made us all nervous. For all we knew, Godfrey could have hopped a train with her or changed out cars even. I hoped by telling the press what was going on would help toward the quick capture of Godfrey.”
“But why all that other stuff?” Bru came around the couch. “That stuff about Sloane being a missing kid and all that—”
I clung to Bruno’s arm.
Mostly because of Callum’s expression.
Tension thinned his lips, the skin at his eyes taut and rigid. His mouth parted. “Because it’s true.”
Bruno tucked in beside me.
And I wasn’t breathing. I gripped his leg. “What do you mean it’s true?”
Callum’s hands came together. “I mean you are a missing person,” he stated, then glanced at my brother. “And she’s not your sister. At least, not biologically.”
Bru started to speak but I got up. “What are you talking about, Callum?” I asked. “Why are you saying this?”
“I’m saying it because it’s true, Sloane.” Callum rubbed his hands. “And though it pains me to say, though I wish that wasn’t the case, it is, and now that I know the truth, I’m giving it to you. It’s something I suspected for quite some time, but until I had solid proof, I couldn’t present this information to you. I have it now, and Godfrey trying to destroy the evidence of such, of what he’d done, only corroborates just what my team and I have discovered. Him taking you and trying to get rid of you only validates that he and his wife did indeed take you. They took you from here, Maywood Heights, and raised you as their own.”
My lips moved, twitching. “How do you know?”
