On The Border - Marry Him Or Die

2.17

Lucas’s POV

After Mathew confirmed that the men will be casing the place until go time, I left the living room and headed towards the guest bedroom.

Without knocking, I opened the door and closed it quietly behind me to find a scene that brought my heart into a broken rhythm.

Angelina was asleep, shivering and whimpering as if she was in pain, tightly holding into my mother who was holding her to her chest and trying to soothe her, while tears filled both their faces.

When my mom spotted me, she gave me a hard look, telling me that she doesn’t want me going anywhere near Angelina, but I ignored her look and walked over towards the edge of the bed anyways.

“She still has a fever?” I asked in a strained low voice.

Reluctantly, my mom answered dryly “It comes and goes, every once in a while”

“Has she spoken any word, did she wake up at all?” I asked curiously.

Before she could answer, Angelina’s whimpers grew more intense, began struggling against my mom, and she started murmuring in a begging tone “No! Please! Mooom! Please, pleaaase! Let me go to her please! Mom please! Help me!”

She thrashed against my mom, fighting to get to her own mother whom she was hallucinating, while my mom held her tighter to her chest and spoke in an immense calmness that didn’t match the utter agony going through her “Shhh dear, I’m here, I’m right here. Mom is not going anywhere I swear to you. You’re safe sweety”

Just at the sound of mom’s soothing voice, Angelina’s whole body relaxed and her whimpers grew weaker as she whispered “Don’t leave me, I can’t live without you”

“I’m not going anywhere” mom said half calmly before her tone broke at the last word which came out strangled with heavy emotion as her tears descended down her face.

A huge lump got lodged in my throat at that heart breaking scene.

She looked at me and said steadily as an answer to my earlier question “She’s been like this since the beginning. Reliving the same moments every once in a while”

I blinked back my own tears, trying to get the huge lump past my throat but failing miserably.

Mom noticed my struggle and her eyes softened a bit as she realized that I wasn’t as emotionless towards Angelina as I appeared to be when I spoke about her harshly in her presence.

“She was crying for her mother when she was in the bathroom” mom said confidently.

Yeah, losing a parent would definitely elicit that kind of mental, emotional break down, I could totally relate.

I nodded my head in agreement but refrained from saying anything.

I didn’t want to make any guesses as to how, why, and when she lost her mom, until I get information about her apartment.

“If you’re tired, I can replace you” I said in a small voice.

“I don’t think that’s wise, Lucas. If I get tired, I’ll call for Sara” she said softly.

I scratched the back of my head as disappointment went through me, a feeling totally foreign to me and for the life of me, I didn’t know why I even wanted to be in my mom’s place right now, soothing and taking her pain away while hugging her to my chest, giving her all the safety she appeared to have lost with her mom’s death.

While her condition pained me, as it would pain any person with any shred of human decency in them, I still didn’t need to feel so disappointed at being forbidden and denied from comforting her.

Mom was right, it’s not wise because I was the last person she would want any sort of soothing from, and the very last person she would feel safe in his arms.

“I’ll come by later to check on her again” I said stiffly and turned around, heading back again to my room, to drive myself crazy some more, thinking about this mysterious girl who walked into my heart like a missing piece and settled herself inside my cracks, refusing to leave and refusing to get out of my head.

We all have a silent dinner while Sara stays next to Angelina, in case she meltes down again.

Thankfully, mom said that after I left them, she hasn’t had any more episodes similar to what I witnessed and that her fever looked to have disappeared.

I was thrilled to hear that, as I felt like that girl had suffered enough heartache in the past two days, to last her a life time. It was about time she got a little break. Even though something told me that wasn’t going to be the last time she breaks down like this.

We all gathered around in our living room like we usually do every night. Our family time in the past month was mostly filled with forced talk, depressing silence, or one of us; mostly me, bailing on it and retreating to my room or going outside for any distraction.

We were sitting silently, each of us drowning in his own world, when my phone rang.

It was Dan, one of the guys in Seattle.

I picked up the phone and put it on speaker for everyone to hear because first, they should all be aware of everything as we don’t have secrets between us, and second, because I hate repeating events multiple times to multiple people. It’s enough that I will need to relay what I discover to Alex and Jenny later.

We were all sitting there me, mom, April, David, and Mathew. Sara was still with Angelina upstairs.

“Talk to me, did you get inside?” I said in a strained voice, not bothering with any sort of greeting.

Dan got right down to business without wasting my time nor pressing on my nerves, probably noticing how much on edge I already was to get my hands on whatever he discovered as he spoke firmly “We just left the house now. It’s a small two bedroom house with minimal furnishings, it’s owners don’t seem to have a lot of money. Everything was in its place and in order except for the girl’s bedroom. There was a huge pool of dried blood on her carpet, but no body anywhere in the house and no sign of struggle at all. All the photos around the house prove that only two people live there. The missing woman and her daughter, the one I assume you have. Stewart snapped pictures of them as well as their IDs which we found after digging through their stuff. We also have their phones, but they’re both turned off due to dead batteries. No sign or pictures of any man in their lives. But we found her birth certificate and got the father’s name from there. His name is Ben Collins. Do you want us to locate him?”

“Yes, get on that right away but don’t make a move until I tell you to and don’t expose yourselves to him. Send me those pictures asap and keep their IDs with you, don’t lose them” I ordered before hanging up the phone.

I looked around me and saw grim faces all around, already figuring out some of the obvious things like I did.

They killed her mom in her room, probably made her watch, then kidnapped her from her home. God knows what they did with the body.

Multiple pings to my phone indicated that I received the pictures they were referring to.

Everyone gathered around me to take a look as I flipped through them.

There were pictures of the two of them plastered all around their refrigerator. Extremely happy, joyful pictures of them where they were smiling and grinning from ear to ear. Both old and new photos held the same kind of warmth and blissfulness to them. Angelina’s smile was charming and contagious in every single one, you’d never guess this girl could have ever went through any dark phase in her life until now. There were no hints of trauma, grief, nor criminality indicating any relation to Zade at all in those pictures.

The next picture was of her bedroom as it showed the large blood stain Dan mentioned in the middle of her small room.

A picture of her white desk followed next giving me a clue that she was into fashion design as it was literally covered with many beautifully, and professionally drawn designs of dresses, skirts, pants, and shirts. Her coloring pens scattered all around those papers as well.

Another picture of her ID and much to my surprise, a college ID as well, indicating that she was a freshman majoring in fashion design. It was surprising because her ID indicated that she barely just turned eighteen like a week ago and she was already in college.

Her birth certificate followed after that. Her name stated to be Angelina Collins, born in Seattle to a father named Ben Collins and mother…. Hope Collins.

Now the name on the necklace made total sense.

Now the very slight, almost unnoticeable, flinch I caught every time I called her Hope, and the tears that always sprang to her eyes at the mention of that name made total sense.

Now the unbearable condition she was left in made total fucking sense.

Because you’d be pretty blind to look at all those pictures of them and not conclude that what these two had was much more deeper than just a mother/daughter relationship.

These two were living for each other.

They were each other’s halves.

And without her in her life anymore, all her hope was lost when her other half, her… Hope died in front of her eyes.