Centre of the Storm

Chapter Fourteen: Three Months Later

A/N: I know this is a short chapter and I apologize, please don't hurt my family

Strands of hair were falling out of my ponytail. I pulled out the elastic, and ran my hand through my dark blue hair, letting it fall past my shoulders. I wasn't sure why I had put it up anyway. It didn't look good on me.

A slight breeze blew against me, and scattered some of the leaves lying at my feet. I zipped up my coat as I felt a slight chill. I took a sip of the cheap coffee I had bought at a small cafe down the street. It was bitter against my tongue, but I was getting used to it. Besides, I had promised Beatrix I would try it.

I looked around. I was sitting on a bench beside a park, a few trees beside me. I heard faint laughter as a few young children played on the small playground farther away.

I warmed my hands against the cup as another gust of wind blew against me. I hoped Beatrix would come soon. I would have just gone back to the motel already, but she had the key, so I was waiting for her.

She was out looking for a job, while I went to mine. It had been hard to convince her to look for one, as she had wanted to continue selling weed, as she was suddenly deep into the business and had clients. But I had put my foot down, reminding her that we were trying to start a new, crime free life, and dealing drugs wasn't a part of that.

I had turned sixteen a few weeks ago. Beatrix had bought cupcakes and we'd eaten them on our bed. It had been a small occasion.

We'd discovered after coming to the city that the rules for kids working weren't strict at all, and most places would hire people as young as twelve to work without even needing parental consent, so I'd gotten a job at a small cafe a few streets away from the motel. It payed alright, and was never too busy. I often walked and fed the motel owner's multitude of small dogs as well, when she was out or busy, which got us a bit of extra cash. I was pretty sure she liked us, as she didn't seem to care much if we were late with payments, and turned a blind eye to Beatrix's late night deliveries.

Three months had passed since we had arrived in the city. We'd had dreams of living in an apartment by now, though we were still in the motel. Life moved slowly, but it was better then living at the orphanage. For the first time in my life, I felt almost free.

Things had gotten better for me, and Beatrix as well. She had made some friends, though they called her Amelia, and didn't know anything about her.

My mental health had gotten better. I was starting to learn to forgive myself for everything that had happened. I didn't wake up everyday with the feeling of guilt weighing down on me. And while I still cared, I thought less about Cashlin, and Alyssa, and everything I had left behind.

I had started painting as well, which was something I'd always wanted to get into. At first it was just mixing colours, but I was getting better at it, and had started to paint objects and even people. I was currently making one of Alyssa. It was my way of honouring her.

And i had discovered there was a small library a few blocks away from the motel, and I went there almost every day. There had never been anything I was interested in at the orphanage's library, but at the new one I liked to look through the mystery novels. I didn't have a card, so I would go the library to continue reading my books.

I would go there to use the computers too. The internet was a lot faster, and I could use them with privacy, unlike at the orphanage. I usually used them to look things up, like recipes, prices, or things like that. Sometimes I played online games, just because.

But the one thing I never did was look at news articles, if they had anything to do with murders, bodies, disappearances, runaways, anything like that. Even though I figured it wasn't about us, I didn't want to know.

I heard shoes crunching against the dried leaves on the ground, and looked up. Beatrix was walking towards me, her now dark black hair that neither of us had really gotten used to yet, blowing away from her face. She'd wanted to cut it to shoulder length but I'd begged her not to. I liked her long hair, and it went almost past her elbows now.

"What took you so long?" I asked, getting up. When she got closer I noticed she was paler than usual, and there was a haunted look in her eyes. She was gripping her iced coffee in shaking hands.

"Bea? What's wrong?" I asked, feeling uneasy.

She took a deep breath. "There's something I have to tell you." She paused, wringing her hands. My heart pounded as I stared at her, waiting. "Look I know we agreed not to look at any news articles that could have anything to do with, you know, everything that happened." She paused again.

"Yeah we did," I said, anger creeping slightly into my voice. Even though I knew it would probably happen eventually, I was hurt she had broken our promise.

She sighed. "Yeah, well, you need to hear this. I was using a library computer, and I accidentally opened this news article. It seemed interesting, so I kept reading it." Her hands started shaking again. 

I could feel myself getting scared. "What did it say?!" I demanded.

"She was found. Alyssa's body has been found."