Thaddeus

Chapter Twelve

(Four days after previous chapter)

Brooklyn was in an absolute state of panic.

It had been four days since her youngest child, her daughter, went missing. The babysitter, who Brooklyn must've called a hundred times by now, said that Aaria had snuck away. Brooklyn called everyone in her contacts, even Bernard. But no one seemed to know where she was. So, desperate, Brooklyn had barged into her daughter's room and began searching through the young teenager's computer. One of the perks about having a daughter who wasn't as distant as some other teens was that Aaria never used private tabs or even attempted to hide what she searched. The kid was even open to sharing her password.

After some digging, Brooklyn had learned that Aaria was doing research on Thaddeus. She felt her stomach drop, Aaria couldn't know where Thaddeus was, right? Doing a little more digging, Brooklyn saw that Aaria had also been trying to find Zagen's address. How she heard her grandfather's name, Brooklyn had no clue.

And that was led up to today's current events, which was Brooklyn standing outside her father's house. She'd been praying to every single God and Goddess she could remember the names of that Aaria wasn't here. It was bad enough Thaddeus was but having both of her kids with Zagen sounded like a nightmare.

When she arrived a few minutes earlier, Brooklyn noticed a cop car pulled up towards the door, which was why she'd parked across the street. Hoping it didn't have something to do with her kids, knocked on the door. She heard a quiet conversation, people shuffling around inside. Whoever was talking got louder and louder until eventually, the door opened.

Brooklyn was expecting the person beyond the door to be her father, but instead it was a man in a cop's uniform. Zagen was standing right behind him though. Wordlessly, the two men stepped aside and allowed Brooklyn to enter. The police officer looked quite somber; his eyes packed with sympathy. Brooklyn noted this and turned to Zagen, who was unreadable as always.

"Is my daughter here?" Brooklyn asked hesitantly, she was wishing for the answer to be no. The officer and Zagen shared a glance with each other before looking at Brooklyn. The cop cleared his throat. "Are you Brooklyn Bancroft?" He asked and Brooklyn nodded, feeling wildly confused.

"And your daughter, she wouldn't happen to be Aaria Bancroft, would she?" Brooklyn scoffed at his question. "Yes, the girl with the same last name as mine is my daughter." She replied sarcastically, tilting her head a little. The cop inhaled a smooth breath as Zagen quietly sighed, then pointed towards the living room. "You'll want to sit down for this, Brooklyn.." He said as he turned for the room, claiming a leather chair.

Once Brooklyn was seated on the couch, Zagen began. "This is officer Terrell, he and a squad of his was called to the house four days ago. The reason they were here is because Aaria was.... killed." Zagen normally didn't have a problem with telling someone their relative was dead, but this was his family they were talking about. Even if he had just one, that was the reason.

Brooklyn was purely frozen, she didn't even blink for a good minute. "I- You can't be serious, where is my daughter, Dad?" She blinked back tears, a small part of her knew Zagen was telling the truth, he just couldn't lie about something like this. Terrell looked down to the ground. Brooklyn didn't know what to think, all she could feel was her heart breaking. The three of them went dead quiet for a few minutes.

"What happened?" Brooklyn shakily asked, rubbing her hands together as she tried not to cry. Zagen drew in a breath. "There was a burn wound on her chest." Terrell spoke up before the elder could. "What killed her was trauma to the head...She didn't suffer, ma'am-" Terrell couldn't finish his sentence before Brooklyn had hurled her purse at Zagen, launching to her feet. "FIRE!? SHE WAS BURNED!? WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU WHEN THAT HAPPENED?!" She screamed as she tried to lunge at Zagen, but Terrell acted quicker, pulling her away. "WHO DID IT?!" Brooklyn yelled, pretty much vibrating with anger.