Chapter 3-

I remember the first time I read the Snicket file, when I was fifteen years old. It told of past organizations and unsolved crimes, tales of arson and romantic mystery that left me in dramatic affection for weeks on end. I could recall, that morning as we woke up the day after Fiona was born, that same deep realization of fulfillment, of some sort of satisfaction that you get when retaining information like that day at the Hotel Denouement.

Of course, having a new baby isn't the same as reading a file, but hopefully, my dear Lemony, you'll understand what I mean.

We were assigned an abduction and an encoded ransom note that same day, Tocuna wearing nothing but a sheet wrapped many times around her shivering body and a pair of reading glasses as she copied the instructed style of writing.

Olaf had acted as if our conversation had never really happened, as if it had only been my own delirious imagination; but halfway through the day, I remember him telling me to watch what "sins I committed", as if his burning down another child's home that morning had been an act of total justice.

But I do remember the good things about that day. The fact that Tocuna's beauty seemed radiated many times over, the fact that she couldn't keep her hands off of me for weeks after seemed to brighten our attitudes.

But despite all this dysfunctional family perfection I didn't understand Olaf's words. His actions, his projections, his scripts were unchanged, his codes and attitudes were as if he had never mentioned knowing what went on behind closed doors long after he passed out.

"You make me out to be so beautiful," She's reading over my shoulder, Fiona in her arms.

And as I remember that feeling of safety we had for such a brief time, remember how beautiful our child turned out to be, I forget where I am now.

The date, the time, the year. My story must go on, to somehow mitigate the intentions of our Troupe, to show that we're only following orders with the fear of the lives of our children.

Months passed, I acquired yet another way to read encryptions. I stayed with the Troupe, hoping that staying financially comfortable would somehow help the future of our child, hoping that attaining the compensations for my findings would set me ahead of others.

The last thing I wanted was for Fiona to turn out like either one of us.

Of course, Olaf was too caught up in writing and blue prints and escape routes, too burned out at night to care for a daughter that was biologically his.

But I liked to think of it as my own.

When would I get another chance to mother a child? Especially when it belonged to the only person I loved?

And it was so painful to see Tocuna get out of bed when he called her, her footsteps long and uncertain as she made her way to his bedroom.

I believe that was the only time I ever felt worthless.

It never mattered how much we proved our intelligence. We would never be anything more than his whores.

But the tears in her eyes when she came back to our room, the strange look we would give each other, that was what made me want to kill him .

For making things so difficult, that was what I truly wanted him to be punished for.

He could've just stuck her to his work, never using her for sex and public appearances, never rubbing her fake loyalty in my face.

He would never admit what secret he knew about us.

Whether that we were sleeping together, or that we were plotting a way to leave him, I would never find out.

"What happened?" I ask her quietly as she makes her way back to bed.

"He says she's getting in the way,"

"Who?"

"Fiona,"

And I try to gasp but it catches in my throat, and a sick comprehension begins to rise because I'm trying all possible conclusions in my head.

What you don't know you can make mean anything.

"What problem does he have with Fiona?"

All she does is shake her head, halfway collapsing into my arms, falling silent.

We awoke the following morning to an empty crib, Olaf claiming he had chosen the greater good.

I remember grasping the gun in my trembling hands, my legs trembling under me before I could press it to his head.

"Where is she?" I'm screaming; wanting so badly to wake up from this nightmare I'm always stuck in.

And Tocuna's voice, choked with tears, is trying to reason with me— "Don't hurt him, Flo!!"

"He killed our daughter!!" I'm literally pushing the gun into his throat, feeling it cracking his neck. "I'm tired of his bullshit!!"

"If you kill me," he murmurs, "you kill yourselves,"

"Listen to him!!" Tocuna's terrible screaming echoes through the walls.

"Why?!?"

"He's the leader of the other side, Flo!! There are thousands of people standing ready to avenge his death!!"

My eyes must have been large at that point; the only feeling left in my body is that of the metal pressed against my fingertips. Tocuna stares at us from across the room, giving some sort of telepathic message.

I push the gun farther into his throat.

"We're waiting," he wheezes, staring down at my finger on the trigger. "They're all waiting,"

And I see Fernald in the doorway, looking coldly at his hooks; the rest of my Troupe standing in various places and it hits me. If I kill him, I open a new world of pain. If I take his life, my life will be taken with his.

I lower the gun, tears falling silently down my cheeks. "Just tell me where she is,"

Tocuna's eyes widen at the question.

"Tell her!!!!" She shrieks for me, and she runs to him, knocking his body to the ground.

He gasps from the absence of the gun, casting his ugly eyes to mine.

Her knee in his back, she snarls, "Tell me what you did to her,"

And the Troupe just gawks. Fernald begins to smile, his hooks shining oddly as he moves his arms.

"She's not dead," Olaf says meekly, stumbling over his words.

"She's just a baby, Olaf!!" I yell, kicking him in the mouth as he lies on the floor.

He laughs awkwardly, sputtering blood onto the carpet.

"She's just a baby," he repeats in a high pitched voice. "That's all it was. Just a baby,"

Tocuna smashes his head on the ground. And the remaining members of the Troupe run to his body, their eyes clashing with mine, saying unintelligent remarks about my "commitment to our leader".

Fernald reaches him first, pushing past Tocuna, screaming about injustice.

"My apologies, sir," he manages to whisper, stabbing the carpet with his hooks in anger.

And I walk away, backwards, to someplace where I can write this all down.

Whether she was dead or if she was routinely orphaned, I've never been able to find out.

Writing here, now, days later, I can't think of anything more to say. Perhaps the only child Tocuna will ever have was completely wasted.

I can only think of why and how I even began this life of injustice and guilt- simply because I wanted Tocuna.

I loved her so much I was willing to abandon every other path my life could've taken.

He said he killed her because she was an obstacle, a possible person that he would lose to the other side. A possible adversary, an exposure to the truths and lies of the villainous Count Olaf and his masked acting Troupe; this is what he got out of an innocent child of his own blood.

"What's going on, Flo?"

She's asking me from bed, her tear stained cheeks the only thing I can see with the light from the open window.

"Everything used to be so—normal," I swear I can feel her tugging the tenuous bond she's always had with him.

"Just—just let it go," I flip off the light. "Just rip it in two,"

"I can't. I just— I can't," I never believed she was admonishing me.

The floor was cold when I walked to his bedroom that night, the doors in the hallway moving, alive; so incredibly stifling that I could barely keep the breath in my chest. They looked like my face, indecisive yet alluring, following the countless eyes etched into the floor and ceiling.

By the time I reached the end of the hallway I was shivering.

"Flo," he's whispering, pulling the sheets back. "My dear, dear, Flo,"

And I feel the grayish sick rise in my throat before I can force a response out of my body.

"Never at all like your sister,"

"Do you seriously expect me to do this?"

He smiles his stupid smile. "Why yes, I do,"

"After all that's already happened?"

We frown at each other momentarily, eyeing our partially naked bodies.

"That's it," He's pushing me into the mattress, his hands pressing into my shoulders. "You be normal," he snarls, "or I'll kill you like I killed that stupid little baby!"

He almost stumbles to the adjoining bathroom, making me even more uncomfortably aware of my certain unfortunate predicament.

"Why did you do it?" I'm calling to him.

The flick of his lighter, the flame making its small, insignificant shadow on the cracked wallpaper. I can't think, my mind is flustered with this new sort of pain, this new sort of aching for someone; anyone to care about me.

Tocuna lying asleep at the end of the corridor, there's no one here to listen to my screaming.

My head begins to throb from stress and the absence of nicotine.

"I need what I need, Flo. And that…is why I need you,"

He's actually smiling at his meaningless words, his revolting teeth all I can see shining in the darkness of the bathroom.

"What are you talking about—"

"I want whatever I can have. And at the moment, I can have you,"

He's stifling me, the lit cigarette inches, centimeters from my cheek, a hair away from my mouth.

And I cry out, because he's stuck it against my neck.

"I hate you,"

And that strange, senseless feeling, intoxicating and addicting but yet so agonizingly controlling; that feeling takes us over.

"You—bitch," He says between thrusts, addressing my dryness.

I feel like I can't breathe.

But then it's over.

A lit cigarette is being placed in my trembling fingers, an arm falling around my now bare shoulders, showing me out of bed as if I'm leaving an employment office.

"I've always known what you've wanted," He's rasping, and my hand grips the loose doorknob, wanting so badly to rip it off and fling it at his ugly face.

The problems with desire, this questioning I've found myself doing, I never understood it until that night.

My psychological dysfunction, it's only started when I fell so deeply in love.

It had taken me until that night to realize I've locked myself up and dropped the key too deep inside of me to fish it out.

"I want to go to bed,"

Sometimes the story of love is beautiful. Sometimes it can make you sick.

But I'm already opening the door, Lemony. I'm already taking the much needed cigarette, already dreadfully wanting a reason to leave.

"I'll always know your secret, Flo. Nothing within your power can stop me,"

His lip is trembling, his eyes look wet. But I leave, not caring enough to console him, only wanting to wash myself of his filth.

Again, I find myself walking barefoot down the long, cold, corridor and back to my bed where a distraught mother waits for me to hold her.

I would give anything to be alone for one second of my life.

To not be faced with these devastating reasons for my own existence, these terrible things I must live with to keep myself out of poverty.

Her eyes are penetrating me.

"Do you—" The words are regurgitating from inside me in dry, separated heaves. "Do you—"

She stares, her beautiful long fingers gracing the line of her neck. "What is it, darling?"

"Do you still love me?"

Maybe I should've abandoned all hope at her hesitation. Maybe I shouldn't have stayed with the Troupe for such a pitiful reason as avenging our parents' deaths. Simply to be able to love where love shouldn't be. To choose acting as a profession for the convenient backstage places where our lascivious acts could occur.

Maybe I should've killed myself.

Maybe I should've denied my daughter's death.

Maybe I should've denied she was even my daughter.

My stomach is clenching with each thought, semen still remaining sticky and hateful inside of me.

But she speaks. "I will always love you,"

"Always?" I demand from her. "Even when all else falters?"

"Till death do us part, you adorable little Catholic girl,"

And I feel as if I'm going to die.

"My neck hurts," I say.

But she's already gotten out of bed, standing before me, her face so thoughtful it looked as if she were reading me like a book.

"He's done it to me, too," She whispers. "Did he say anything about—"

But she's already choking on her own tears, her fifteen year old eyes flashing against her twenty four year old orbs of forgotten family history.

"Why did we do this, Flo?" she sobs, dabbing the burn on my neck with the tip of her finger. "What have we gotten ourselves into?"