Auriella Everleigh Soleil

"Where are we going?" I ask, looking up at Alexander. I grip his hand tightly, following him through the crowded airport to the area we had been told to meet a police officer from the small town our biological family was who was a contact for the Agency. I helped push our luggage cart, but Lex hardly let me do anything. I glance up every few seconds just making sure Xander is still right new to me, and we haven't lost each other.

We finally made it to the café where we were meant to be waiting and since we had flown private the flight was ahead of schedule. That only meant we had a few minutes to ourselves before we were thrown into a whole new life. We each order a drink as well as a couple snacks for both now and the hour and half drive we have ahead of us.

The café was set up cosily, along with the regular tables there were couches and armchairs. I snagged a two-seater couch and Xander took a seat on my right.

He waits for me to pick from the selection of snacks first, so I purposely leave the ones he likes the most.

"Are you nervous?" I asked him seemingly out of nowhere.

"For meeting our blood families?" He questions and I shake my head, and he raises an eyebrow wanting me to elaborate.

"For using those names." We both knew what I was talking about, we both had a strong aversion to our birth given names. Sure, we had used them until we were seven and eight, but we normally avoided it. They no longer sent us into a panic attack when we heard them like they used to, but that was after years and years of therapy, even though they didn't bother us we still preferred to use our chosen names.

"I think this is one of those tests like Amanda used to make us do, to test how far we've grown." He said in a soothing voice, talking about the therapist we still went to even after eight and half years, less now but still pretty regularly. I nod my head then rests it on the side of his arm, and then scan the perimeter of the café taking every angle detail which will continue to be engraved in my head for the rest of my life.

"I think our guy is here." I announce softly as we both take in the tall, bulky male wearing a policeman uniform. When he sees us he nods his head in greeting. Xander stands up, moving forward first and shaking the guy's hand. He then greets him, and we exchange a few pleasantries before following him to his car, a newish black SUV in immaculate condition. I slide into the back seat and Xander takes the passenger.

Xander keeps up the small talk throughout most of the drive while I busy myself by drawing some new sketches for my company while listening to emails. We stop briefly at some small diner for lunch then continue the ride. When we got twenty minutes out of the drive we started discussing business. We were told about the community of the town and how it was run. We were given files on everyone in the town to narrow down anyone we think could be part of the NITE team because let's face it there is probably an insider if they were able to take two children and still show face in the town.

I watch out of the window as we finally get into town, trying to retain routes and the different shops. We were going to have to take a couple of hours to just drive through the town one of these days and just make note of certain places and memorise the town, so we know it inside and out. We drove to the outskirts of town where bigger farmhouses were, and we stopped in front of a white house. It wasn't as big as the houses we grew up in, but we were aware what we were used to was excessive. Despite being big the house was emitting love and family but the house next to it felt starker, it didn't have the same welcomeness the first one did.

There were four teens outside, two with the same raven hair that Xander had and two blondes. The dark haired girl races into the white house while the blond girl rushes into the other. The two teenage boys stood watching the car, their American football long forgotten. They move towards the car as it starts slowing down.

"This is the Walker house where Nathaniel will be staying, and that one over there is Taylor's where Everleigh will be."

"Thank you, Cody." I thank the officer softly, packing all my things into my backpack. Xander opens my door for me, holding his hand out for me. When I am out of the car, I lift my sunglasses off my face and place them on top of my head. By now the girls who looked to be my age were back along with four older people.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say our parents.

The first couple's faces looked relieved, happy tears streaming down both of their faces, and they looked at Lex.

The second couple looked happy as well, but held themselves with a lot more composure. These were my parents, I was a carbon copy of the man, I had inherited both his eyes and hair colours as well as multiple facial features, but I also could see resemblance to the woman. I had her curls, but hers were tied back, and flattened down, like the teen girls, they looked like they wanted to give off the impression that she had straighter hair. My dad had made me love my curls, he brought all the products and watched millions of tutorials, so I never felt embarrassed to have ringlets flying freely in a halo around my face.

"Thank you for bringing them, Officer Evans."

"No problem at all." Cody smiles at Eleanor Walker, Alexander's biological mother. "They are some of the most well-mannered people I have ever come across,, so I don't think you should have a problem with them." He then looks at me. "But watch out for that one because she has a bit of fire hiding in her."

I raise an eyebrow at him, and Xander chokes down a laugh, probably thinking he was spot on.

"We've gone over everything already, right?" Cody asks, looking at us. "Your cars will get here tomorrow. Oh, and I was asked to give these to you. They are access cards to the gym where all the police train. You are both more than welcome."

"Wait." The bond boy calls out. "Why do they get to go to the gym, and we don't?"

"Their adoptive parents were police, and they still get the benefits and will for the rest of their lives." Cody challenges, it's obvious he doesn't like this kid very much. The boy grumbles something under his breath but ultimately doesn't say anything else. "If that's all I need to get going, let me help you get your bags."

Lex and I pocket the cards and go help take our suitcases out of the boot and without so much as an introduction, Cody Evans leaves us with absolute strangers.

I take back what I said about liking him.

"Hi." I greet, taking initiative since no one else seemed to be doing it, and we'd been standing in an awkward silence for a hot minute. "I'm Everleigh."

The name rolls off my tongue like I had been using it my whole life, but it certainly didn't feel that way inside.

A series of introductions occurred, the Walker couple were Eleanor and James, as well as Xander's little sister Madison and his older brother Liam, they wer missing the oldest Walker sibling, Harper.

The people who had raised me for the first two years of my life were Lilliana and Nicholas Taylor. I was then introduced to my older sister, who was also my quadruplet Emmeline and one of my brothers Gabriel, and soon I was rushed into one of my houses to show me around. Both Emmeline and Gabriel had blonde hair and brown eyes like Lilliana, Gabriel had a lot of her features. Emmeline though looked a lot like me. Besides the difference in colouring, we would be identical if we shared hair and eye colours.

"This is the first floor, the kitchen, lounge, Gabe, Mom, and Dad's room as well as mine are on this floor." Emmeline explains walking through. Her words were accentuated by a Southern accent everyone here seemed to have. She then led us up a flight of stairs onto the second floor where multiple doors lined a passage. She then walked to the last one at the end. "Your bedroom is up here with the other boys, it was originally a guest room, but I helped Ma put together something. You can always add more. We weren't told much about you, but we were told you liked pink, so we added a bit."

The room had white walls with a king-size bed in the middle, the bed had white bedding with different pink and blue throws. The wall above my bed had been decorated with a couple framed pictures in pink and blue that matched the bedding. On the left was a big window looking out onto the driveway and a desk which was handy for when doing work was inevitable. On the right was a mirrored closet and a white door which I'm guessing led to a bathroom. There were also two dressers opposite the bed on either side of the door, one of them holding a TV.

"Thank you." I smile at my twin. "I love it, honestly."

I placed one of my suitcases on my bed, opening it, so I could start unpacking. I had learnt how to pack, so I could unpack it easily. It was crucial to learn it when your father ran an airline as well as worked in the agency.

"Wow, you have a lot of clothes." I looked at the suitcase, this wasn't even a tenth of my closet, but I wasn't going to say that. "You have a lot of designer brands."

I could hear a hint of jealousy in her tone, but I didn't address it.

"Yeah, I love fashion, so people are always getting me clothes they think I might like."

We hear someone call her name from outside, so she gets ready to leave but hangs back a second. "The others should be home at about five thirty, and we have dinner at six."

With that, she turns and leaves the room, her blond curls bouncing behind her. I felt a little glad she had left, sure she was nice, but I was feeling a bit off about her, like she was acting a lot nicer than she normally was.

I shot off messages to my family and friends letting them know we had arrived safely, and I sent a text to Xander letting him know I was fine. We hadn't slept in different bedrooms since we were thirteen and fourteen and had just lost our fathers but even before that we had sleepovers more often than not when our fathers had work.

Half an hour later I had finished packing away everything and a wave of exhaustion hit me. It was two here and eight back home, but since I had been up since four in the morning prepping for a flight I was exhausted. First, I took a long, hot shower getting off all the airport grime and hopped into bed.

I wouldn't sleep long, maybe just an hour, then I would do some work.

<><><>

I was awake the minute my bedroom door opened, momentarily forgetting where I was. I reached for the gun under my pillow, but as memories of the day rushed through my mind I calmed down, pretending to still be asleep to give the adrenaline coursing through my veins a chance to slow down.

"Shouldn't we just leave her alone?" I hear a male voice unsuccessfully whisper.

"Mom said she has to come down,, and I don't really want to be the one facing her wrath tonight." The second voice answered the first.

"How do we even wake her up?" The first voice asks.

"I don't know, how would we wake up Em?"

"We don't." The first voice says firmly, in a serious tone. I feel two sets of eyes drilling into my figure.

"Is it normal to stare at people while they sleep?" I ask, my British accent coming out a lot thicker with sleep.

"Woah, you're British." The first voice says. He had curly blond hair like Emmeline, but the same ocean blue eyes I did. He was the exact same height as the other boy, who had the same brunette curls as me but honey eyes like Emmeline. With the similarities the four of us shared, I was going to take a wild guess and say these were the last two womb mates.

"Woah, you're American."

"And you're sassy." The blond laughs. "I'm Ezra, and that's Elijah."

"Everleigh." I yawn out. "So may I ask what you're doing here?"

"We came to wake you up for dinner." Elijah says softly, he was the calmer version of Ezra. My eyes widen a bit and I grab my phone off the nightstand then seeing it was half eleven at night then realise it's still set to the wrong timezone.

"So my phone is still on home time, and I am too tired to figure out the time difference, so can someone tell me the time?"

"Half five, we have dinner just now, so we thought we would let you know." Elijah smiles softly.

"Thank you." I scroll lightly through the dozens of messages that have come through while I was asleep,

So much for waking up and working.

"You have the brand new Ambivalent Azure." He gawks at my phone, I watch him in amusement fangirl over my creation. "Those only came out a couple of weeks ago and they are so hard to get. You have to be either rich or wait for the release and hope you get one. And even then they are so expensive."

"Do you think the price is worth it?" I ask, genuinely curious. I always want to know how to improve my company and people who don't know what I do are always the best critics.

"Oh definitely, have you heard what these things can do, and I was also told they were pretty much indestructible?"

"They are resistant to water, heat, and all that, but they can crack just like any other phone." It was something we were working on. "But it's pretty easy to replace the glass, I know how to do it. The glass on the laptops is pretty strong, though."

"You have one?" This time, Eli asks. I walk over to my backpack, opening the pouch and taking out both the laptop and tablet and throwing them on the bed.

"I know a higher up at Ambivalent Technologies,, so I have the whole collection." I show them my watch. "I get them pretty easily, so I'll let you know when I'm ordering, I can also get you a pretty good discount."

I do know a higher up, I employ all of them. And Alexander was also a higher up since he was the Co-CEO. Together, we were building a brand that was slowly taking over the world.

"How much of a discount, I need to start saving." Eli asks.

"You know what, they do this thing with new releases where they give away a couple dozen to help promote. I'll see what I can do." I look around my newly packed closet. "So, how formal is this dinner?"

"Not at all." Eli takes a seat on my bed and Eli takes one at my desk chair. "It's literally just immediate family plus Crew's girlfriends, Liv, but she counts. I don't think Nolan is going to make it home from college today because he has practice. And also Nathaniel's family, Eleanor, James, then Madi and Liam. I don't think Harper can make it either."

"Crew is the oldest, right?"

"Yup." Eli nods enthusiastically. "Then Nolan, Grayson, Gabriel, Emmeline, Elijah, me and then you. Hey, I'm finally not the youngest."

I glare slightly jealous of him, and he laughs at my expression. I then put on a white denim jacket on top of my black tights and cropped tank, dressing it up a little more. "This okay?

"Perfect." they say simultaneously before glaring at each other. I slip on a pair of white Louis Vuitton sneakers then I go over to the vanity, gesturing for Elijah not to move but grabbing my jewellery box adding diamonds to each of my multiple piercings. I start layering on rings and necklaces to finish off my outfit. Furthermore, I smooth my curls back into a sleek ponytail then section off the hair with more elastics hiding how scruffy my hair had become.

On a normal day I love having long, curly hair and the other days I have to wash and brush it.

I was finally ready to step out of the door, completely ready, when I looked at Ezra and Elijah.

"This is going to be a shitshow, isn't it?"

"One hundred percent."

"Most definitely."

Let me know your thoughts, this has a bit more family conflict than the old version. Also check out my Tik Tok page, @ara_bernice for updates and fun aesthetics, I actually love making book tiktoks, they encourage me to write. Or if you follow my Wattpad page I post the link most times I post a tiktok. 

Have a great rest of your week, please don't forget vote and see you next chapter

Ara <3