Master of the Storm

Chapter Seventeen: Advantage

A/N: a lot of stuff is gonna happen in this chapter. Think of the Beatrix reveal in the first book. This is like the same kind of chapter

"What's going on?" Valerie asked.

"What isn't going on, at this point?" she responded. "These are busy times."

"Cut the bullshit," I replied angrily. "Tell us the truth. Why did the guards let Hayley go when she said she was you? What are you hiding from us?"

"When you say us, do you mean the three of you?" Evianna asked. "Or the whole group? 'Cause if you wanna understand anything, you're gonna need the whole story."

"Then tell us the whole story," Valerie said. "Tell us everything."

"Well, I guess the gist is up. I was hoping my secrets wouldn't come out today, but I guess I should have expected it," she said. "Alright, let's start at the beginning. That's how all good stories start. And we have a lot of time. Shall we sit down?" Valerie looked over at me. I looked back at her. Beatrix was busy filing her nails with the nail file she'd found in the drawer. No one said anything. "Fine, you guys stand, then. But I'd rather get comfortable. Mind if I borrow this?" She grabbed a folded up chair from the wall, and sat down on it. "Hmm, where to start," she murmured. "I was born. Everything went to shit after that."

"Meaning?" I asked.

"You know my parents are addicts. But you don't know the whole story. Pluto and Olivia think they do. But I didn't tell them everything. My parents have been slowly killing themselves for as long as I can remember. I grew up having to take care of them, when it should have been the other way around. When I wasn't hiding from them. I had an older brother, probably the only reason I'm still here, but that piece of shit abandoned me when he was old enough to leave."

"That doesn't explain anything," I snapped.

"Patience," Evianna sighed. "I'll get there. When I was ten, my dad overdosed. He survived, more or less, but it brought attention to the fact that my parents weren't the best caretakers for me. So they made some weird deal with child services, I only got to see my parents on weekends if they promised to go to rehab, and on weekdays, I lived with my dad's brother, who lived in the city too, but in a different district. Rehab didn't work and when my mom died of an overdose, I started going to a different school. I met Olivia, and then Pluto."

"What happened then?" Valerie asked in a hushed voice. She was getting invested in the story.

"This is the part Olivia and Pluto don't know. My uncle was a worse caretaker then my parents. He was an addict too, I guess it runs in the family. He tried to force me to take drugs too. Not just any drug, but this shit he was hooked on, some new experimental drug that you couldn't get just anywhere. Some mix of psychedelics and medicines I can't pronounce, no it really fucked him up. It turned him into a monster. My escape was Olivia's house. It fell apart. Our escape became Pluto's."

"I'm really sorry you went through all of that," Valerie said softly.

"But it doesn't explain what happened today," I said.

She rolled her eyes, any trace of emotion gone. "I'm getting there. Jesus, you people are impatient. One night, I was sleeping at my uncle's house. I was eleven, I think. I heard voices, and I was curious. I snuck downstairs, and listened to my uncle talk to a man in the kitchen. Any guesses to who that man was?"

There was a short pause. "Thomas?" I guessed. It was the only possible answer.

"Got it in one," she replied with a grin. Valerie pulled her phone out of my pocket, scrolling through it with trembling fingers. "I'm gonna call the others, and you're gonna tell them what you just told us."