9: 35 AM
I glance up from my wrist watch sighing as I trudge out of the lecture hall, my heart slamming in my chest at the close proximity with numerous students.
Their heated gazes didn't go beyond me.
It was there every second, only my endless spiral kept me sitted through the whole two hours without flinching at every glance thrown my way.
Everything Instructor Calvin taught flew over my head, my mind racing with what the Dean Jerves could want with me.
Relieved, I hasten my steps to get away from them as quickly as I can. A tiny beep from my wrist watch reaches my ears over the constant buzz of the moving crowd. I raise my wrist, reading the flashing message in a moment's breath.
Your ride will arrive in five minutes.
My heart squeezes in my chest, I look away lowering my gaze focusing on getting out of the building.
"Liliana" A sharp voice calls out the moment I step out of the building.
My head whips up in the direction of the voice out of pure instinct, my heart thumping in fright.
Adaera.
The fright that seized me sizzles at the sight of her.
I stop as she approaches with her tucked behind her an amused smile on her face and I follow dazed as she leads me to a quiet alley between the two buildings away from prying eyes.
How much I would love to swoon over this moment.
To sob once more, on how much better my chances in Velmora would be, if..
If only, I could be about half as composed as her.
But, not today I'm needed at the Principals'
That I'm pretty sure is anything but good.
"Hey!" I manage to mutter awkwardly when she stops 5fts before me. The look in her eyes shifts to something I couldn't quite grasp as she settles beside me.
"Hello" She replies monotonously, her sharp eyes catching onto my nervousness.
Thank goodness, she didn't pry, wait this is Adaera and the word 'pry' didn't sound good in a sentence with her in it.
Thank goodness, she didn't call me out, yes that's the right term.
A slight chuckle escapes her thinly stretched lips. If I didn't know any better, I would have swore she could hear my little mental squabble.
"You are such an open book, Lilliana. " She said coolly, tilting slightly towards me.
"Huhh!!" A startled cry was all I could mutter. Guilt gushing at my insides, which was very odd. I was most definitely not obligated to tell her about my every move just because she'd helped me once.
Quite a few times actually. I wince, the feeling of guilt swarming at me in waves.
Heck, we weren't even friends. Sure, she's been nice and the closest hum… person to me since I arrived here. But, somehow I couldn't see her as a friend, for probably the same reason she's been so nice to me.
Thinking about it creeped me out all over again. Let's not go there…
"Whatever" She casually dismissed like I expected. Very much Adaera.
"I am here for something particularly important" I listen, leaving my head.
Important.
Velmora had pretty messed up semantics, so I wasn't sure what the word 'important' meant in her dictionary.
"To you at least.." She adds dryly.
I sure was an open book. I cursed under my breath.
"Here." Finally, revealing her hand that had been tucked behind her along. Not like its was odd.
"Can this wait? I have to be somewhere.." I let my gaze fall, dismissal in my tone until I see the white envelope perched in her now outstretched hands.
It was eerily familiar. But that's not important.
A letter.
Mum must have replied to mine. I thought feeling a surge of relief, happiness and hope fill my chest all at once.
I snatch the letter from her hand without thinking, joy visible in my features.
Somewhere, in my peripheral vision I see a hint of pity settle in the depth of her eyes.
But, I couldn't care any less right now.
For all I knew, she'd find my simple display of emotion pathetic in some reverse psychology this messed place taught.
"It's from her right!" I asked, light with the thrill of knowing it's a rhetorical question. My fingers trembles as I unclasp the seal clumsily in excitement.
"That's the problem.."
Problem. I barely register her words, with the letter finally in sight.
I unfolded it in a hurry, excited to hear from my Mum in two weeks. Even if it was happening in the most orthodox manner.
At least it's finally happening.
My brows furrow in confusion at the letter I had addressed to my mum fourteen days ago. The faint scent vetiver hitting my nostrils, my handwriting staring back at me in cold mockery.
"Adaera" I look up from the letter for the first time since I held it.
"Was there some kind of mix up?" I ask, my voice barely above whisper looking into her eyes.
The uncanny sense of familiarity, her look of pity from before … every sign I decided to ignore that something was wrong. The logical part of me, I chose to shut up because she was being too pessimistic, the part of me who let myself be carried away by all the falsities once again like an idiot.
It all came crashing down in a slow but agonizing ache that found its way to my chest.
"Here." She places a bound file in my hands.
"Huh" I barely respond bracing myself for the worst as much as I could.
My finger shook under the fear enveloping me like a cloak. Mustering some courage, I open it.
The bold words 'background check' stare back at me on the first page. I look further to see its subjects.
Sylvia Halecrest and Lilliana Halecrest
Me and mum.
"What the hell…" I said more to myself than to her. Looking up, I stare dead straight at her for an explanation of whatever this madness was but far gone was the amusement on her lips, her face a picture perfect of calm. A glaring contrast to the hysterical look I wore right now.
It however made me horrified. I continue on with the file at her silence, even as my instincts scream I throw it away and run out of the hall.
Run?
The fear had me paralysed to the spot. There were pictures of me and a younger version of mom attached by the side, basic data about us though mum's was about over decades older.
I flipped to the next page, my eyes consuming the words like it was the air I desperately needed.
I staggered for a moment, the ridiculousness of the words more cruel than every nightmare Velnora gave me.
But, I couldn't stop, I kept flipping through like I was possessed, every word plunging the invisible knife lunged in my heart in a slow, torturing grind.
I don't know what I was expecting when I didn't tear the papers and throw them in her face after the first atrocious word. Maybe, it was me hoping that at the end I'd find a note saying that it's a prank on a very realistic level.
No level of preparation would have made the impact any less devastating.
My hands grow weak and the file falls out of my hand, and as if expecting it Adaera catches it before it could hit the ground.
My whole life had been a lie. No Sylvia Halecrest and Lilliana Halecrest ever lived in 7th Avenue 69 Street, Stanford. No one by that name or description ever visited or even stayed in a guest house or hotel. There were no medical records, no receipts from utility companies or loans mum always had to pay at the end of the month, no record of our residency, no resident had ever seen us, no employee record at the numerous restaurants and companies mom worked part-times on daily basis.
Nothing that proved that was my home two weeks ago.
The place I called home all my life was apparently owned by an aged couple given as a gift from their children for their retirement twenty years ago.
I never had friends as I had been home-schooled, we barely went out or socialised but it was too much to say we never existed.
"I had more done." She handed me several similar files, much thicker and detailed than the last when she saw the disbelief in my eyes.
"The letter couldn't be delivered, there was no one to." She continues and I take in every picture – the flowers and vegetables behind the garden we never cultivated, the dust behind frames of an old couple and their middle-aged kids and grandkids, the orange glow from hearth we never had, the walls painted in much lighter colours, the pictures of gathering in the middle-sized living room..
The home that was nothing like I knew it.
Each picture taken as if daring a challenge and after every file were signatures of prominent people, the Chief of Police back at Stanford, prominent individuals, renowned detective organisations who had swore in the authenticity of these reports.
"The letter was returned two days after it was sent." She said as if to console me.
"I ordered for these checks last Friday after we parted." Her words sounded like nails to a coffin to the blade in my chest. I just stare not knowing whether to be grateful for the effort she made or angry at her for going stalker mode on me.
"So, you think these papers prove that my whole life was nothing but lies." I shot back my body shaking in unconcealed rage.
"They prove that someone wants you to disappear and they did a good job." Her cold eyes held mine without a trace of sympathy.
"Can you hear yourself? What's your point exactly, they want me gone and I pretend all those years never happened?" My voice breaks just by saying it out loud.
"My point is you focus on surviving Velmora."
"You are not ready to know who and why." She concludes flatly, eyes sharp threatening me to argue.
For the first time, since I stepped into Velmora, I hated how I couldn't be as ruthlessly calm as she was. Whatever sense of superiority my perceived humanity gave me over these people vanish into thin air.
I walk away, the wind howling in my ears at the deafening silence.
"Liliana." Adaera calls but I keep walking too tired to respond.
"You can't find someone who doesn't want to be found."
Her words rings in my ears, burning my eyes.
I walk out of the quiet alley lifelessly, a smiling young man comes in my direction blocking my path.
"Miss. Halecrest." The man calls out, his confidence in his judgement oozing from his smile. I nod stiffly and his smiling eyes run over me taking in my slumped shoulders, lifeless eyes and the tremble in my hands.
"The car is waiting." Still smiling, he beckons, gesturing I walk in front like he didn't notice my rambled state of mind.
What was I expecting? I wonder, heading to the limousine packed in front. The young man enters, taking his seat opposite me and the driver turns on the engine driving out of the Academic Sector and into one of the three main transport routes in Skyline.
I look out the window, this will be my first time driving through a main transport route and seeing several cars on the road since I got to Velmora
The car speeds through the highway and I stare amazed at how beautiful Skyline looks from above.
Straining my eyes, I try to see beyond the towering steels barricading our district, curious about how beautiful other districts will be from above.
The sight is a welcome distraction. In that moment all my hatred towards Velmora disappears without a trace.
Who would have thought?