Chapter 142
Chapter One Hundred-Forty-Two
Robin
Hearing my mother’s favorite song to sing to me echoing softly through Barrister’s house was like hearing a ghost. Finding out he has a basement, and hearing it even more clearly, I know for sure my mom isn’t dead. She never was. She’s been here, this whole time.
My eyes fill with tears as I look at the door.
I’m halfway afraid that opening it will make her go away.
What if I didn’t really hear what I thought I did?
What if Owen heard something different?
Maybe I’m imagining all of this.
“If you move to the side, I should be able to get it open.”
Falcon puts an arm around me and walks me a couple of steps away from the door.
“Or you could use the key,” Owen says, appearing with a ring of them. “I got them from Barrister. The detective is putting him in the back of her car right now. I’m gonna drive back with her. You know, just in case she gets possessed again.”
“I’ll give Jay my car keys.”
He leaves, and Falcon takes the keys to the door.
He tries a few before he finds the right one.
Then, he unlocks it and looks at me.
“Did you want to open it?”
I nod, a tear sliding down my cheek as he moves to let me open it.
It opens inward, and a step inside takes me to the top of a wooden staircase, leading down into a bright yellow painted room. I can’t see much of the room near the top of the staircase, but I can still hear my mother singing.
The trouble is I don’t know if it’s real.
How can it be?
She died when I was young.
But did that really happen, or was it just what I was told?
I get further down, and I can see more of the room; a double bed, and a woman’s feet on top of the covers, with red-painted toenails.
Then, finally, I can see her.
She’s almost exactly as I remembered.
Long blonde hair, and a bright smile, wearing a floaty floral dress.
In her arms is a baby, and she’s singing to that child.
It’s like I’m having a weird fever dream about myself as a baby in my mother’s arms.
“Oh, Robin, I love you.” She hugs the baby close.
My heart starts to break.
I wish this wasn’t real.
Because if it is, then she’s been down her all this time, and I don’t want to think about what that means because it’s too awful.
I step down off the staircase and move toward the bed.
She looks up, horror in her gaze as she stares at me.
“No. It’s not time yet. She still needs me. It can’t be time to take her away. Please don’t take her away from me!”
“I’m not here to do that. I … Mom, it’s me. It’s Robin. I … You …”
She doesn’t remember me.
Whatever trauma she’s been through, it’s broken her.
She needs help. I need to get her that help.
“It’s okay. I promise,” I tell her. “I’m not here to take your baby away. I’m here to get you out of this place. It’s not safe here.”
She frowns at me as I come closer. “I don’t know you. You look like Rebecca, but you’re not her.”
I wonder if Rebecca was the older sister Barrister told me about.
The one he killed. I don't remember if he told me her name.
“I’m not Rebecca. My name is Robin Yates.”
“But I’m Scarlett Yates.”
“Yes, that’s right. You’re Scarlett Yates.”
“Robin is my … You’re my daughter?” she sounds confused.
“We don’t have to think about that right now. Do you have a bag I could put your clothes and things inside? And anything you want to keep for the baby?”
“We’re leaving?”
“We are.”
“Won’t … Won’t Steve be angry?”
“No. He’s going to prison. He’s going to get what he deserves.”
He probably deserves worse than the sentence he’ll get, but I don’t care anymore.
All I want is to get my mother out of this nightmare house.
She deserves a fresh start, a long way away from this shitty basement room.
She tells me where her things are, but she doesn’t have a bag, so I decide to use a sheet to gather everything together and keep it all clean.
My mom puts the baby in her carrier which also seems to be her bed.
She goes into the small adjoining bathroom and starts putting things in a toiletries bag.
Falcon comes into the room when I’m starting to put everything on the sheet.
“Is she okay?” he asks quietly.
“She’s alive. I can’t … It’s crazy.”
I don’t know how else to put it.
“We need to take her with us,” I tell him.
“Of course. What can I do to help?”
“You can carry her things. She doesn’t have much, really.”
“I sent Jay to get the car. It’s a long story, but we had to leave it outside of this place.”
“Where are we exactly?”
“It’s a gated community. Hardly anyone is allowed in here who doesn’t live here. And this house is Barrister’s second home. His wife and kids in Platinum Hill don’t know about it.”
“Oh my God,” I mutter.
Every time I think it can’t get worse, it does.
He puts an arm around me, and it takes all my willpower not to break down.
My mother is alive. My mates came to rescue me.
Everything is going to be okay.
I rest my head against Falcon’s chest. “Can you believe that creep talked about having my marks removed by a plastic surgeon?”
Falcon sighs. “I was this close to killing him in that hallway.”
He shows a tiny gap between his fingers before he puts that arm around me as well.
“In all honesty, I’m still ready to do it.”
I believe him, and a part of me even wants him to do it.
It’s the same part that feels heartbroken for my mother and everything she’s gone through because of him. He doesn’t deserve to take another breath after all that he’s done.
But I know if we go down that path, all we’ll get is more heartache.
“Then, I’m not letting you out of my sight.” I wrap my arms around him. “Because I need you with me. Not sitting in a jail cell because you did something to make me feel better. I want him to rot in hell, but he can get there on his own.”
We hug for a moment before my mom comes out of the bathroom.
She’s holding a bag of toiletries and a baby’s towel.
“Oh,” she says, sounding surprised. “I’m sorry I didn’t know we had another visitor.”
I break apart from Falcon, and smile at my mom.
“This is Falcon. Two of my mates came out here to help bring us back home.”
“Home?” she asks, like she doesn’t understand.
“My home,” I clarify, wondering where she considers her home to be.
Does she remember where she came from, before she was stolen and sold?
“Oh,” she says, nodding. “Right. I didn’t think you meant the city.”
“The city?”
“I was born in Cressidan City so I guess I would call it my home. My mother had an apartment there. She left it to me when she died. I was just out of high school and so I tried my best to pass for a Beta and live like she had. I wasn’t very good at it.”
She remembers her past, and she’s from the city.
I’m stunned as she goes on.
“I tried to be an actress. I was in a play once. It was so much fun.”
“That sounds amazing,” I admit, as she puts her things on the bed.
“It was all I really wanted out of life.”
She moves over to the small closet and takes out a pair of flats.
Putting them on the carpet, she slips into them.
“Is it cold out?” she asks. “I don’t remember what month it is. I get the seasons all turned around.”
“You should wear a coat, or a sweater,” I tell her. “It’s almost fall.”
“Oh my,” she murmurs. “Almost fall. That would make you 27 in a month or so.”
I blink at her. “You remember when I was born?”
“Of course.” She smiles. “It was the end of September, the 30th. The leaves were falling and the trees looked so pretty. Your hair was the perfect color for the day you were born.”
“I guess I have an actual birthdate,” I murmur.
“I got to keep you for the longest,” she says with a smile. “Until you were 3 years old. That’s when I had to go with Steve and leave you with the Hamiltons. I made Colleen promise she would look after you as if you were hers.”
“She did.” I leave out the part about almost dying of malnutrition.
It seems like that was on Barrister. Colleen still did whatever she could.
I know I wouldn’t have survived if she hadn’t helped me.
I could have been sold to a creep.
That didn’t happen.
“After that …” she sighs. “I don’t remember everything. I’ve been in this room for a long time. Almost 24 years, I guess. I’ll be 47 on my next birthday. I know that.”
That means she had me when she was 20 years old.
She was so young when she was stolen.
“When’s your next birthday?”
“It’s the 1st of January. The New Year’s Eve countdown always felt special to me.”
She pulls out a thin trenchcoat and slips it on over her dress.
“I wondered if I’d ever get to wear this again. Still fits like a glove.”
She pulls out the rest of the items from the closet and sets them down on the sheet.
Then, she moves around to where her baby is sitting ready to go in her carrier.
“I think that’s everything. I guess I should give you a new name, little one.”
She looks at the baby and for a moment I’m sure she’s about to cry.
It makes a lump grow in my own throat.
“I get to keep you. Thank God for that.”
She looks back at us. “Okay. Let’s get out of this basement. I never want to see it again.”
Falcon picks up her bundle of personal items, and I lead us out of the basement.
My mother seems so happy when we get outside.
She stops and looks up at the sky.
“It’s the moon, little one. What do you think about that?”
She sighs as she looks around. “It’s so pretty out here.”
“It’s even prettier in Cressidan City,” I tell her, making her smile.
“Wait. Is that where you live? Are we headed back to the city?”
She sounds so excited.
“It is. It might not be what you expect, but it is the city.
“Finally,” she says. “I’m going home.”