The Hunted Royalty

Chapter 5

My fingers tremble as the phone rings. She answers with a sleepy voice. Shoot, I forgot about the time difference, oh well. "Hello?" I take a second to gather my thoughts. I take a deep breath before answering.

"Hello," my voice quivers, and I clear my throat, "Aunt Katelyn, do you have time to talk?"

She must recognize me because I can hear her get up from bed, quickly walk out of the room, and close the door. Her voice is rushed and worried "Melina, are you ok? How's your dad? Hows Darian?"

My voice cracks. "Dad got into a car crash, he's in the hospital but seems to be doing ok. Darian is fine. I'm fine I guess but I wish somebody would have told me." Tears start to silently stream down my face.

"Told you what? Melina what are you talking about? We never kept a secret from you" she stops abruptly and sighs in a sympathetic way. "Oh. Listen Melina, I'm so sorry. I promise we did it for yall's own good. How did you find out?"

"Well I had to do a history project on the royal family, and my friend who is my partner got a little side tracked and looked at your-our side of the family and when he told me I connected the dots." More tears stream down my face and my voice cracks a lot.

"Melina, if you can get enough money to fly here, I'll explain everything. I can't tell you much over the phone and I'm so sorry but I also can't pay for the plane ticket because it would look suspicious. But I do have one direction that I need you to follow." Her voice all of the serious gets very sudden.

I wipe away my tears "Okay."

"You must stay out of any sort of spotlight, and stay on the download. As you may know your uncle is looking for you and sadly, I pretty sure he's extremely close because I bet it was him who put your father in the hospital. Watch out, and if you think someone's following you, call me, and if you have any sort of presentation or anything in school, call in sick and stay home. Do you understand?"

I nod forgetting she's not here "Okay, I understand."

"Okay, I hope you can find money for a plane ticket. I love you Melina" I can hear her smile in her words.

"Love you to Aunt Katelyn." and hang up the phone.

***

I pack my bag for school this morning after waking up Darian. I go downstairs to drop my back off by the door and make breakfast. I make eggs and toast for both Darian and me. Darian comes downstairs for breakfast and we both go and eat on the couch. "Hey Darian, I'm thinking about taking the bus today."

"Okay."

I take a deep breath before turning to him "Hey, um, I'm going to be saving up money to go to England."

"For what? Am I going with you?" he asks, not really sounding concerned.

"I'm going to go talk to Aunt Katelyn, and no, your not coming with. Your going to stay with dad. I'm going to try and leave on a Thursday and come back on a Sunday, that way you can miss 2 days of school. Also, can you do me a favor?"

"That depends."

"Can you please stay out of the spotlight. Like, stay on the downlow, and please tell me if you have a presentation coming up and I'm going to call you in sick so you don't have to do it." I look him in the eyes because I know he's going to want to ask questions.

"Can I ask why?" he asks.

"I'd rather you not. I will tell you once I get back because I need to get the whole story from Aunt K."

"Okay, I won't ask questions."

I sigh in relief and go to hug him. "Thank you."
"Your welcome sis."

I look at my watch "We should go outside, the bus should be here anytime." We grab our bags and head outside. I stay alert watching the busy street incase he comes. The bus finally comes and Darian and I get on. My eyes dart from seat to seat, looking to see if I know anyone to sit by. My eyes finally fine Karson's and he nods me over to come sit by him. I drop my bag on the seat. "Hey." My tone is light hearted.

"Hey. What up?" he voice is light, happy.

I giggle, "Nothing much, just got on the bus and now talking to you. You?"

He laughs and smiles, "Same as you." We talk about randomness for the rest of the ride before he asks if I wanna go over to his house.

"But we finished our project."

"Yea but you can still come over to hang out. You could have dinner, and your brother could come if he wants." I must look confused because he scrambles for another thought "I mean, only if you want to."

I laugh and shake my head. "No, no, I-we would love that. Just give me one sec." I get up from my seat and walk over to wear Darian sits. "Hey Darian, we are going to Karson's after school today to have dinner." He replies with a thumbs up and a wink. I throw my head back in a little laugh before heading back over to my seat. "Just told him."

"Good."

***

After school Karson and I sit by each other and Darian sits in the seat next to us with one of his friends. Darian's dark brown hair shakes when he laughs while talking. Karson and I just make small talk on the way to his house. When we get there his dad isn't there so we all just sit on the couch watching tv. After around 30 or so minutes his dad walks through the door and see us all sitting on the couch with our eyes glued to the tv. He then calls out. "I brought back food." We all look up, smile, and rush to the table.

While eating we all talk about anything that comes to our mind. I discover that Karson's dad is really nice. For most of the conversation I just eat and smile. My only thought throughout the whole meal is that this is what a real family meal should look like. I haven't had one of these in years. After mom left, dad gave up eating with us and would go to his room. So it would be just me and Darian, but all we would do is ask things like 'how was school today?'. Then sometimes Darian would go and eat dinner with a friend so it would just be me. Then the rare times that dad would join us, it would just be awkward and we would barley talk. The funny thing is, we would be totally fine and other time but the second it was dinner all of what we wanted to talk about vanished. I think it's because mom was the one who made sure we ate as a family, mom always made sure we had something positive to talk about. I remember how her smile was always so bright when we had dinner together.

After dinner his dad invites us to stay however long more we want. We stay another hour or two talking about what all is going on in our lives (except I leave out the whole royalty part and so does Karson). Darian talks about this new girl in his class, he seems to really like her so me and Karson give him some advice even though I know almost nothing about dating. I have never dating someone and Karson has only had one girlfriend of whom he broke up with not to long ago.

As we leave we both thank them and walk out the door with the same thought in mind,

This was the best night in a long time.