"What do you mean he's not my biological father?" I choke out, sitting on the tip of my chair and hanging onto every word Daniel, Ethan's father, is speaking.

I am exhausted. I am exhausted of not being the narrator of my own life. No one really is, I am aware of that. But at least most people know what the fuck they're dealing with.

I don't know what I am doing, I don't even know who I am at this point. Is there truly nothing I know that has been correct from the beginning? Maybe even my name is a fucking lie. Everything is a lie, it seems like, so why would I be surprised if that was the case?

"I'm sorry, it wasn't my place to tell you." He leans back a little, seeming a little distraught.

"I don't care about you being the one to tell me, I need to know how you know all this. Who told you this? Who's my biological father then?" I start bringing up questions, Ethan remaining silently by my side. He appears to be just as confused.

Daniel rubs the stubble on his chin, a familiar frown forming between his brows. "I wouldn't be able to tell you who that would be, I wasn't close with your parents. We just knew each other from high school, that's all. I'm sorry, I would like to help but I can just say you two do most definitely not share a half-brother. The kid was Ethan's older half-brother, not yours. Your father is someone else, I just wish I could tell you who but I'm afraid that's something only your mother and Ryan know."

Is it true? Is Ryan not my biological father? I mean, I guess I should be somewhat relieved. I'm not attached to him because he's a loving father, obviously. But I'm confused, I can't seem to find and grasp onto a reason why I wasn't told this before. Why did no one ever tell me this? If he's not my father, then who is? Is he alive? Is he a loving person? Does he know he has a living breathing adult of a daughter wandering around to find her mother's murderer? Who was my mother to him?

More importantly, did my mother know? It seems almost impossible for her to not know, we've been living as a family, me as their only child, or so I thought, for so many years. But then again, Sara doesn't know the real father of her first child either. Is it possible, in some wicked way, for both of our mothers to be sharing parts of the same sick fate? I wouldn't wish that upon either of them.

"Is my—" I inhale sharply, trying to find proper words to form this next sentence that makes me sick to my stomach. I know what I want the answer to be, I'm afraid of the answer I don't want to hear, but might. Everything's shit. "Is my mother my real mother? Or am I, am I adopted or something?"

Daniel quickly nods, making me wonder which question he's nodding an answer to until he explains. "Yes, she is. You're walking around looking exactly like how she looked when she was a teen. I remember hearing she gave birth to you, I can tell you that."

I'm not convinced, but I'll take it for now. I think anyone in this situation would become totally paranoid. I need to see more childhood photo's, videos and hell, even my birth certificate, to be sure at least that is true.

"Brooklyn." Ethan rubs his thumb over my lower arm. "Hey, you're going to be okay. I'm with you, we're going to get through this." I sigh at his sweet, yet hopeless attempt of reassuring words.

Will we, though?

I have to get it together. This isn't just about my mother, not anymore. A lot of people and a lot of people are hurt, now is not the time for me to fall apart.

"Fucking hell." Ethan rubs his forehead and stares at his father. His father stares at the wall behind me, still clearly distraught. I look down at my hands, feeling sick to my stomach. Ryan is not only directly or indirectly a murderer, but also a fucking rapist. A fucking pig. If I don't get this man behind bars, I will murder him with my own bare hands, I swear it on my mother's grave. I'll do anything.

Quickly after, we finish our first meeting with Daniel since he had no more information to share with us. With a disgusted feeling in my gut, Ethan and I called a cab to pick us up and are waiting outside. After the call, I noticed two missed calls from Lexi, but decided she can wait.

"He'll be here in ten minutes, are you sure you want to wait outside though?" Ethan murmurs, adjusting and rewrapping the loose scarf around my neck and shoulders. I nod and stand closer to him, putting my arms underneath his opened coat and wrapping them around his waist. I look up, my heart strings being pulled at the sight of him.

He looks hurt, angry, confused, in so much pain, all at the same time. How could he not? His mother, his dearest, has been through more than he thought she already had been, as if it wasn't already enough for one woman to endure.

He places his lips on my forehead, his warm breath fanning my face as he places swift kisses, repeatedly. I don't ask him if he's okay. He's not, and that would be an idiotic question only a moron would ask. Instead, I just give him a bit of silence and warmth, I give him time to think and process. And that's not something he'll do in those ten minutes.

"We're going to see them now, mom and Liz." He mumbles against my skin, his arms loosely around my neck. "It's not ideal, after all that we've just heard, but I think it'll do us both good."

I haven't even asked him where we'll be heading to right now. I assumed we'd just go back to the motel, but this makes sense. "Okay." I mumble into his chest and stay quiet for the remaining nine minutes.

I'll go with you, I'll stay with you. Please, bear with and stay with me. We've got a murderer and rapist to lock up and let him rot to death. I want Ryan to look us both in our eyes for one last time and realize how the rest of his life will look like.

I want to say we won. We won some justice for the hurt ones. You lose. It stops here.

▀▀▀▀

"Oh my god—" Lizzie's mouth falls open and she jumps straight into Ethan's arms, soft crying sounds immediately touching my heart.

I give them their moment and push open the door to greet Sara in her bed in the living room. She looks the same, just a little paler than the first time I've seen her. She knows who I'm here with and is already crying, holding her arms out for me. I give her a hug, no longer able to keep in my own few tears, letting them roll down my cheeks.

As I hear footsteps, I let go and see Ethan's red-rimmed eyes. "Mom." He mumbles softly, his lips trembling at hearing her speak and seeing her. "My boy, my sweet boy."

He falls into her arms and sobs, whimpers, soft wails laced with an immense pain fill the room, piercing right through my heart this time. This time, my tears cannot be held back or limited to a few. I sob along as Lizzie wraps her arms around me from the side, both proceeding to hold each other and cry some more.

It takes us all a little while to stop crying and sit down. Ethan sits next to his mother on her bed, Liz and I sit on the couch across it, holding each other's hand.

"Fucking hell, four ladies crying their eyes out huh?" Ethan speaks, causing all of us to let out a chuckle.

God, I love him. So incredibly much.

"Lizzie baby, bring them something to drink and something sweet to eat." She gives a few instructions to Lizzie, who is more than happy to serve us her self-made cookies.

As Lizzie gets up and walks to the kitchen area, Sara turns to look at us again. She looks happier than ever, finally gotten her reunion with her son. "You lot look paler than me, I thought I was the sick one." Sara scans her son's face and then mine.

And thus, Ethan tells her everything his father has told him. He cries, he gulps, I give him reassuring smiles and nods, he cries some more, but he doesn't back off. He tells her everything he knows now. Lizzie cries silently on my shoulder, listening along. Sara doesn't send her away, it's like she wants her son to tell the youngest child the things she might struggle too much with. I don't blame her.

Ethan talks and we listen, he talks a lot. He talks about his questions, he talks about how confused he is. Most importantly, he talks about his father. The things his father told him. He struggles with the horrific terms, so he doesn't blatantly say rape over and over again. He asks her, sobbing, why, why didn't you tell me? Why did you keep all that burden on yourself?

Sara explains and, in all fairness, it makes sense. It all makes sense. Why would a mother do that to her son? Her son that had to take on an adult male role from an early age. He took care of his mother, his sister, all the bills. He did everything for them, dropped out of high school to work more and earn more, to be able to pay for his mother's treatment. How could she put more sorrow on his burdened heart? She loved him too much, he loved her too much.

It seems like she puts two and two together when we tell her about Ryan, about the DNA-test. I can see it paining her, but she's holding on. She doesn't know what happened to the kid. All she knows is that he was, just like all of them, blonde. She tells us she loved him, of course she did. That child was derived from something terrific, but that wasn't his fault. He was here after all and deserved her love.

She cries as she tells us she really felt driven into a corner, she felt like she had no choice when she gave him up for adoption. She wanted him to lead a better life and she does believe he did get it. That's what kept her going. For both of their sake, I hope and think they did.

The hours pass by so quickly as we drink hot teas, munch away on Lizzie's cookies, shed tears while sharing our burdens with each other. It's truly a bittersweet moment, but I wouldn't change it for anything.

"You two are cute together." Lizzie teases in an attempt to make us all stop crying for a minute. "You're too pretty for him."

I sadly chuckle at her words, glancing at Ethan, his eyes lightening up a little. The second I say "Am not—", he mutters "She really is."

Blushing at his words, and all their eyes finding me to admire one positive thing that has come out of this immense mess, I notice my phone keeps buzzing on the couch next to me. I had turned it around and have been ignoring it for a while, but I'm starting to feel like it might be urgent. We've lost track of time; I have to admit. But how much time is enough really, when a son has been separated from his family for three and a half years?

I grab it and notice it's Lexi again. Excusing myself, I walk into the hallway and lean against the wall opposite of a huge picture of Ethan. The one that caught my eye when I first visited this house. I call Lexi back and only have to wait for two rings.

"Hey, sorry, we completely lost track of time Lex. I'm assuming you're up?" I begin rambling into the phone, playing with a string of loose hair.

"Yeah, up she is."

My heart plummets with terror. That's most definitely not Lexi.

"Who's this?" I speak into the phone, not noticing that the living room has gone quiet. Ethan quickly makes his way over to me, placing his hand on my lower back.

"Come here and find out." The male voice ripples through my chest, sending shivers down my spine. It's unfamiliar, blood-curdling to say the least. Not the voice itself, but his tone. It's telling me I'm going to ruin you all.

"Who's this?" I repeat myself. "Where's Lexi? I swear to God if you touch her—"

"You're going to have to come here and find out." He laughs. I feel sick to my stomach but manage to put it on speakers for Ethan to hear everything that I'm hearing. The unknown man gives an address, but I remain frozen. Ethan takes the phone from me and types the address into my notes app.

"Let Lexi go. I'll come. You want me, right?" Ethan says into the phone, snapping me out of my frozen state. I turn to him and shake my head. No, no, no.

"We want both of you." He hisses into the phone, "You two have made it a lot easier for us by being together. Quite the pair you make."

"Give the phone to me." Another male voice snaps from behind. That voice I know like none other. It's Ryan. It's the man, the abuser, the rapist, the murderer himself. It's the person I thought was my blood-related father. Now, all I want to do is squeeze every drop of blood out of him myself.

Instead of speaking into the phone, he kicks something. Or rather, someone. I hear a familiar cry. An all too familiar cry.

"Brooklyn—" Lexi cries out from afar. My heart shatters. How dare I let her behind in that motel? Why didn't we take her with us? Guilt floods my heart and my mind starts buzzing. This mess is somehow getting messier. A whole lot messier.

I need to think of something, I need to protect both Ethan and Lexi. I need to do something. Think, Brooklyn, think.

"A single word about us, or that address, to Cole or the police, and Lexi will die in here and you will not even find the bits of her body." Ryan spits out and I grasp onto Ethan. "You have thirty minutes to get here."

And the phone line goes dead. 

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A/N; i have to admit, i cried a little writing this chapter. maybe it was because i was really getting into my feels with some insane classical music in the background. also, i've planned out everything for the final three chapters and the epilogue, so that was kind of emotional for me because i realize it is coming to an end and i somehow made it out alive haha.

thanks for reading, i hope you enjoyed.
please don't forget to vote & comment, i really enjoy reading every single one of them.

— lyra b.