8
Emaline
I shoot Xavier and Aaron my darkest,most sinister glare as a warning to keep away from us when they turn up at the hospital ward. Instead of leaving, which is what I was hoping for, they instead parked their asses on the seats opposite us in the waiting room of the ICU next to my grandparents.
“Great,” I hiss to my bestie.
“They care, Em. I’m unsure why you’re so angry with them,” Rosie explains, and I know she’s right. But I need to be angry at someone, and right now, it’s them.
The silence in this room is intense as we wait for an update on Brielle’s progress and because my grandparents feel awkward with the Leroux boys here.
“Here’s your phones,” Xavier says and hands them to us, and Rosie gasps in relief.
“Oh my gosh, there’s like a hundred messages from Mom,” she says in a panicked voice and starts typing a reply.
I clear my throat and lean forward to address Xavier. “Thank you,” I breathe, glancing at my screen, and I find several missed calls and messages from Xavier’s number. I guess he was concerned.
“Austin found them in the tomb after bailing up the idiots who kept you down there,” he explains as my cheeks burn red, and I glance at the door to see if he’s standing nearby, but at a distance, just like Austin would.
“How…um,’ glancing at Grandpa to see if he’s annoyed with me for speaking to our enemy, and his silver eyebrows sit low over his eyes that stare at the floor. “Why did you think it was me?”
Xavier”s gaze is penetrable as if he sees no one but me, but then when I glimpse at Aaron, he’s the same, and my nerves fire out in my stomach. I’ve had sex with both of these men, and they’re still here. They didn’t bail on me or view me as a cheap ride or someone to use, abuse, and discard like other girls in their past.
“Austin was hanging in the graveyard and saw these…” I look to Gramps to see if he’s interested in this conversation. I can’t possibly be involved with Leroux boys if my grandparents disapprove. It would be deceitful and disloyal, and I doubt I could live with myself. “Men in balaclavas escorting a woman that we thought was you because we could get hold of you, and they’d been all that weird sh-stuff going on.”
Gramps’s eyes flicked up to look at Xavier while Grandma struggled to keep her eyes off the Leroux boys, probably due to their great genetics and impressive builds.
“Austin,” I breathe. “Where is he?”
“Home,” Aaron answers in that intense voice. “Dropped him off before coming here.”
I ignore my heart, dropping a little at Austin’s aloofness, and obviously, he doesn’t care much about me. Why should he? It has always been me going to him, never the other way round. Me sneaking into his workplace. Me climbing up that awful silo to speak to him. I suspect this is what desperate girls do. They chase men in hopes they might see her properly. I mean… really see her, like how Xavier and Aaron see me right now.
“It looks like your sister was hiding from some pretty crooked men,” Aaron adds, as his huge hands clench into fists and turn white at the knuckles. “They’ve got something to do with your parents.”
“Our daughter?” Gramps finally speaks accusingly, seemingly displeased with Aaron’s comment. “What has all of this got to do with her and our son-in-law?”
“You need to speak to Brielle to get the details, but your daughter and son-in-law were accountants? Am I right?” Xavier says, turning to Gramps, even though his body faces me from the neck down.
“Yeah? And?” Gramps snaps, and Grandma pats him on the thigh to calm his temper.
“Just listen to him,” she states evenly, and like magic, Gramps relaxes his shoulders and exhales.
“Fine,” Gramps flicks his hand impatiently.
“We’ve figured out that Emaline’s parents worked for these guys and maybe found something out, and maybe that’s why they disappeared.”
“Maybe?” Gramps hisses angrily as his ruddy face turns a lighter shade of beetroot.
“Gramps. Stop it,” I scold him. “You’re being unnecessarily inflammatory. Hear them out.”
“His farfetched story only rubs salt into the wound, Emaline,” Gramps shouts, pointing his angry finger at the Leroux boys while Grandma pats his thigh again, but it doesn’t work this time. “Our daughter and son-in-law vanished in Johannesburg while on vacation. What the hell does this have to do with their disappearance?”
“Their bodies were never found,” I yell back.
“It was an accident or…” he shakes his head, his eyes wet with tears. It still hurts like hell for all of us.
“Or what?” I ask hopefully, wondering if I’d missed a story or perhaps they had hidden something from me. Do my grandparents know more than what they have let Brielle and me believe? My head starts spinning from a hundred-one scenarios playing out in my mind. What did I miss? What did I miss? I was always the astute one who noticed details and vibes when I walked into a room after an argument. My intuition and instincts were constantly on high alert, sniffing out inconsistencies and oddities, but now I feel like I missed something that perhaps was right under my nose.
“Or…” he throws his arms into the air, “maybe they didn’t want to be parents anymore.”
“What?” Grandma’s mouth drops open in horror, and her eyes gape at her husband. It is as if she doesn’t know him anymore, and what he just uttered is utterly foreign to her. “Are you serious? You’ve never said that to me before. How long have you been holding on to that thought?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbles, looking ashamed.
“Where on earth did you get the idea in your head that our daughter and son-in-law didn’t want to be parents anymore?” Grandma pursues, obviously annoyed as the Leroux boys shrink down in their seats, uncomfortable by this domestic dispute that has nothing to do with them.
Before Gramps has a chance to speak, the ferociousness of my grandma sweeps in like a hurricane.
“Now you listen to me,” she growls, pointing her plump finger at his aghast face. “Our daughter loved these girls. She would never abandon them. Ever. Do you hear me?”
“It was…” he stutters, terrified of Grandpa as I would be too. The entire US military would be terrified of my grandma when she’s got a bee in her bonnet or a wasp in her shirt. Oh no, you never want to mess with Grandma.
I glance at the handsome faces of the Leroux boys, who seem dumbfounded. Xavier’s complexion has reddened a little, and I wonder if they ever have raging arguments like this in their family. Although I suspect they don’t see their parents that much, and everyone is happier that way.
“It was something our daughter said before she left for Johannesburg,” he finally admits. “Ah. Maybe I read into it.”
“What? What did she say?” Grandma snarls hotly.
He swallows and glances at the boys again, then at me, and I can tell that he doesn’t want to say it in front of me for fear it would crush me.
“Gramps,” I plea, breathing through the emotional pain cutting through my heart. It had crossed my mind that they deliberately rejected us for what reason, I do not know. But then, I considered every possible scenario, which happened to be one of them. On the other hand, my sister seemed to take everything in her stride. I was wrong about her, too. “I’m not a kid anymore. Say it. Tell me…us what mom said before she left.”
His eyes catch movement by the door, and I follow his stare at the ICU nurse standing in the doorway. “It’s late, and Brielle is sleeping. Perhaps you should go home, and we can call you in the morning when she’s ready for visitors.”
“Is she okay, though?” I ask. “Will she be okay?”
“Yes,” the nurse assures us. “Brielle is stable, but internal injuries need careful monitoring. So, go home, sleep, and come back in a few hours,” checks her watch, “when the sun has risen.”
The ICU nurse disappears, yet none of us move from our seats, and even the boys remain seated.
“Em,” Xavier starts, and I expect him to say he will leave. “I think we should arrange security for your sister.”
“Oh, yes,” I say, unsure where to go or who to ask.
“We’ll sort it,” Aaron states.
I look to my grandparents, and Gramps is frowning, unsure he can trust them, while Grandma’s eyes warm to their offer. “Okay, um…who will you-”
“Don’t worry about it,” Aaron repeats, taking his phone from his pocket. “I know exactly who to call.”
“Who?” I ask.
‘Not that crack dealer?” Xavier asks, and Gramps screws his face up as my heart drops. My grandparents already believe the Leroux family are crooks, and now they think they associate with crack dealers.
“Um,” I correct, so they don’t get the wrong idea. “Brielle hired a crack dealer to watch over me. I mean…she probably didn’t know he was a crack dealer, either. It was the security company who hired him, I think.” I am trying to make it sound better, although I suspect their minds are working over time. “Anyway,” I seethe, addressing Gramps, “you haven’t finished telling us what Mom said before she left for Johannesburg.”
“Hang on,” Xavier says, rising to his feet. “We’ll leave to give you some privacy.” He stalls right in front of me as if he’s about to bend that strapping body over and kiss my cheek, but he has a change of heart, probably due to Gramps’ penetrating stare.
“We’ll guard the ICU entrance,” Aaron adds, “looking out for anyone suspicious until security gets here.”
“Thank you,” I say politely as heat rises into my cheeks, bringing butterflies dancing in my chest at how sweet they are.
I send a direct, sinister stare at Gramps as soon as they”re gone. “Speak,” I snap. “Now.”
He flinches, taken aback by my abrupt manner, as Rosie shuffles uncomfortably in her seat beside me. “Maybe I better go too,” she breathes.
“Oh?” I say disappointedly.
“Yeah, um,” pointing her thumb towards the door leading out into the hallway where the boys are, “they dropped by to the trailer to find you, and now Mom is freaking out, so…yeah, I better go.”
I hug Rosie, whisper “thank you” into her ear, and wait until she’s gone before I return to Gramps to finish what we started.
He flicks his hand dismissively, “You’re right. I’m probably reading into it.”
“Gramps, I’m losing my patience here,” I shrill, slipping fingers under my glasses to rub my gritty, tired eyes. “Tell us what Mom said before she left for Johannesburg.”
“Alright,” he leans against the wall, folding his arms across his chest. “Like I said, I might be reading into it, but she pulled me aside the day we were driving them to the airport,” he glances at Grandma, whose eyes are wide and filled with angst. “She said that if something happened to them, she felt rested that the girls would be in safe hands with us. Naturally, I assumed she was talking about her dislike of flying for fear the plane would crash, but now I wonder if she meant something else.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police?” Grandma barks at him.
He replies, “Because it didn’t seem suspicious at the time. As I just stated, she’s a nervous flier and dramatic at times, like Brielle. But she also wanted to ensure that we would look after the girls if something did happen.”
Grandma pipes up, “Well, doesn’t seem too unusual, I guess…”
“You don’t sound convinced that it was purely Mom freaking out about flying,” I say, noticing the expression on her face.
“Well…” Grandma begin with a deep sigh, “It’s not something she’s ever said, is it? Those two often flew often, and your gramps are right; she hated flying, but she’s anything like that before, has she?” addressing Gramps.
“Nope,” Gramps answers.
“I remember her being particularly nervous about that trip, but I thought it was because they hadn’t been to South Africa before. It’s not exactly the safest country in the world,” she explains.
“They were going on a safari to one of those game parks, Em,” Gramps informs me, even though he’s told me this a thousand times.
Grandma adds, “And they flying on a small plane to the game park from Johannesburg airport. She wasn’t looking forward to that.”
Several moments of thoughtful silence pass, and we stare at the floor, avoiding each other’s gaze.
Grandma breaks the silence, and I snap my eyes open without realizing I have drifted off to sleep. “Yeah, but you know what I’m confused about?”
“What, love?” Gramps says, placing his hand on her knee to comfort her.
“They were spotted on CCTV the day after they were due to fly out to the game park,” she tells us.
“You haven’t said that before,” I state as my mind is now ticking over with reasons why this could be the case. “Do you think they missed their flight?”
She shrugs her rounded shoulders. “Maybe. I guess we’ll never know.”
“Or maybe Brielle knows,” I mumble hopefully, getting up from my chair and walking to the door to see where the Leroux boys had gone. I find them sitting in chairs against the hall wall, arms folded across their expansive chests, eyes closed, peaceful.
“Go home, guys,” I yell down to them, and only Aaron jolts awake.
“Not the paid security gets here,” he tells me, and only an idiot would argue with that.
“Who did you call?” I ask curiously.
“AA Security, owned by the Huntsman’s,” he tells me.
I chuckle. “Really? I thought you hated them.”
“We do…kinda. I don’t know. Getting too mature for hate these days and holding to past shit that had nothing to do with us sons anyway.”
“Maybe you and Royce could be friends then,” I suggest.
Aaron snorts a laugh. “I wouldn’t go that far.”