This Alien Soul

Chapter 41

Amber

The truck snaked down backroads as I took the fastest route back to Mountain Lake as though on autopilot. My brain refused to process anything and my body felt completely numb.

I didn't even realize where I was going until I pulled up into my parents driveway.

I sat there in silence for a minute taking in my home. I had always thought the towering three story stone mansion with its arching rooflines and large windows was beautiful, even if it was a little sterile. It was home, it's where I had always felt the most comfortable.

Now I felt like a stranger. An intruder. That house was filled with so many lies. So many secrets.

I had briefly considered the thought that maybe Doctor Winston was wrong or my blood work had been mixed up with another patients by accident. Those things happened.

But then I remembered my fathers erratic behavior and that last damning conversation. No my father was hiding something.

He had been poisoning me, making me believe I was sick my whole life and I was going to find out why.

I didn't have my key but fortunately the front door was unlocked for me to charge right though.

"Hello, who's there?" I heard my mother calling from the kitchen. She had obviously heard the front door. She appeared in the hallway, wiping her hands on a cloth as I went storming in the opposite direction, toward my fathers office. "Amber..oh my God... we've been worried sick.."

"Where is he?" I demanded, feeling no sympathies for her feelings.

"Your father?" She quickly moved to follow me, her high heels clacking against the floor in her hurry. Why she wore those things all the time I would never know. Maybe her feet were so used to the arch she couldn't walk in anything flat. "He's in his office. He's been losing his mind with you disappearing like this."

"You knew where I was." I snapped turning a corner to the hall that lead to his closed off office door.

They had been calling all my friends mercilessly since the second ship landed and they noticed I was gone. Finally, the Longs had reached out to let my parents know I would be staying with them and that I was safe. But still they had called. Wanting me home, claiming I couldn't go this long without my treatments.

Reaching the large oak door to my fathers office I slammed though without knocking.

There he sat. His head bent over his desk as he wrote furiously on some charts. Probably another fake diagnosis for some other unfortunate soul. Just how many lies had he told, people he fooled. Had I been wrong to not tell Dr. Winston about him? Could he be doing the same thing to others?

I wanted to say no. That my father was an honorable man and a great doctor. But I no longer felt like I truly knew the man sitting across the desk from me.

"Not now, Lisa." He pulled off his glasses and rubbed at his tired eyes. It had only been two weeks since I left home, but he looked different. He appeared to have aged, with worry lines covering his forehead. His clothing was rumbled and his hair askew. He looked much like he had that crazed day after the dance.

"Hello father." I replied, causing him to jump, startled that it wasn't his wife that had stormed through the door.

"Amber." He exclaimed vaulting from his seat and around the desk to me. For a minute I thought he was going to hug me to him and I wasn't sure how to react. But no, he simply grabbed onto my arm as though to keep me from running again and started dragging me to a chair set up for taking blood. "What the hell were you thinking young lady, leaving like that. Do you have any clue how irresponsible and dangerous it is to go this long without your treatments?"