Their Little Princess

Chapter Forty-Seven

"What is it?!" Elijah says, I hear the inflection of concern as he begins to approach me quickly. Sandro is the quickest to react, reaching down and grabbing the pictures out of my hand before I can look at them any longer, he inspects the paper, looking for some kind of note.

"What was it?" My other brothers are asking him. I still can't move, my tears are frozen in time, they don't multiply, another sob doesn't escape, just a simple tear falling from the cries I almost cried.

Sandro doesn't let my brothers see the photos. He clips the sleek gun in his hand to the holster and slides the photos back into the bookbag, shutting my closet. One look around the room later, he walks over to Elijah and in a low voice gives him a string of orders before walking out the room.

I sit on the edge of my bed in silence, I hear my brothers rustling around the house as Elijah laces my shoes. I'm still in my pajamas. My eyes burn with tears that won't shed and I focus on the wall, not forcing myself to look away. 

Elijah doesn't say anything to me, and despite how much I want to say to him, I don't say anything either. The silence in the room slowly turns into an uncomfortable ringing as Elijah stands me up off the bed. "I'll have one of your brothers grab your things, come on."

I follow him down the stairs and he hovers his hand by my shoulder to lead me to the car. I climb into the backseat and strap my seatbelt. As the car pulls off down the road, I wish I'd brought my headphones. There's complete silence and my thoughts run at an unnerving pace. Elijah is quiet and I wonder whether he saw the photos or if he simply doesn't know what to say.

I squeeze my eyes shut. The only things running on my mind are the conversation I heard my brothers having and the photos I just saw. Invading my eyes and my ears, they both play on replay, sometimes at the same time, sometime one then the other. But I'm scared to open my eyes. I don't know which one is scarier, what's going on in my mind, or the fact that it's my reality. It startles me when my door opens and Elijah gently grabs my hand to help me out of the car. I don't pull away. Simply too overwhelmed to continue to fight back. 

And it occurs to me in the very back of my mind that maybe this was why they hid it from me.

I don't feel better now that I know the truth, I feel worse. I feel worse than I have in a really long time. But is that something I should forgive them for. I trusted Sandro to do what's best for me, and is this what was best? 

Elijah walks me up the long sterile stairway that I'm used to now, but instead of turning right, toward where the med bay which is where I always go, he turns left and we enter a large main area. It like the normal waiting area despite how vast and white it is, you would never suspect it's a 'mafia warehouse'. Even thinking that sounds too outlandish to be true.

I inch just the smallest bit closer to Elijah to avoid bumping into anyone, he doesn't even realize, we just continue toward wherever he's taking me. Finally, he leads me into a medium-sized office, about the size of Sandro's back home, there a cushion-y couch on the right side of the door that Elijah leads me to. He closes the door and there's a moment of silence as he shuts his eyes and exhales.

I just sit quietly on the sofa, trembling slightly. His eyes find me and he walks over to the couch. "I don't understand," I say shakily, "Why?"

He looks pained, "I don't know."

"Wasn't Daniel enough?" My voice is breaking, "Wasn't all of that enough? Now that picture, and I just—I don't—" A broken sob escapes. It sounds unfamiliar to my own ears, pitiful and sad. And it's so odd, but in this moment, I couldn't care any less about sounding pathetic.

My parents are dead. Both of them.

I'm an orphan.

Some people are just unlucky in life. Some people find a way to be happy again, but some people have to suffer until the end. They have to suffer until it's over. Until everything is finally over. But when will it be over for me?!

It hurts.

It just hurts.

The sobs are gut wrenching, my stomach aches so badly and they rack my entire body, "Elijah," I say, it's hardly cohesive and its shaky and cracked, "It hurts." He can stop the pain. He'll know just what to say to reassure me that none of this is my reality. He'll tell me to get in the car and we'll go back home. He'll stop everything from hurting because my brothers have all the answers. There's nothing they can't do.

His expression is pained, though he attempts to hide it. He pulls me into him and holds me tightly, I just sob into the simple long sleeve shirt he's wearing, "You're gonna be okay." His hand strokes my hair which slipped out of the ponytail holder ages ago. He's trying to soothe me but it won't work. I try to force it to work, though. I try to believe his words, I try to believe that someday it'll be okay. Someday everything is going to be okay. 

I try to believe that someday, I won't even realize it, but everything will be perfect, one day I'll never feel this way again.

After a solid 15 minutes of just crying my heart out, the sobs turn into intermittent hiccups and I just can't cry anymore, I have nothing else to give at this point. I don't remember why I started crying in the first place by this point, but I feel an empty ache where my heart should be beating. A displaced longing in the small spot of hope I held out for the small chance that my father at the very least could be alive. That things were finally working out in my favor. For once.

I'm grateful when Elijah doesn't let go. He just holds onto me until I stop crying and then even after that. He stays until I fall into an uneasy sleep.