Part 11

"Helena, where did you get this?" I asked her, fumbling with the picture in my fingers. It was it wasn't it? The picture I had written about in my story. The first one I ever wrote for Leekie had this exact picture in it. Although I had written it from Helena's perspective and so didn't write about or realise what was on the front. 'Project Socrates', I thought again. I flipped it over again, in the dull yellow light I could just make it out. From somewhere I grabbed a torch and lit it up over the image. A man stood in a jacket, a bomber jacket like the one Delphine had given me before we went in the tunnel. Behind him was a lab of some kind, though it looked like an old school one, with rows of brown varnish desks, taps in sinks deriding one from the other. On them were Bunsen burners, vials and beakers of god knows what. The man stood in front of these, a clip board in his hand, writing something. His face was not clear at all looking down. In face the photo was really dark, barely visible. What was visible was visible was a flag hung half heartedly on the left hand side of the photo. The material was some kind of red, but it was really too dark to see. The centre image was lighter colour, indistinguishable of what exact colour but the silhouette resembled a cup, a goblet. Thinking about how this related to Socrates I could only imagine what it was trying to be was the Hemlock cup. Helena hadn't said anything, waiting for me to really look at the image and take in every aspect. The bomber jacket must still be at Alison's from before I had the shower. I would need to go there once I found out more. When I looked up at her to get some more answers, she just shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.

"Katija, it was on her." Helena said, she was sitting there staring at something and rocking on the foam. Strange woman. Strange how different we were. If that part of my story was true, with the image and the name on the back of it, what else was?

"Katija is alive?" I asked, curious, trying to make it seem less obvious what I was trying to do. Then again, what person would think; 'you wrote a story about every detail of what is happening and now you are trying to see if this is real'. People just don't think like that. Helena shook her head again, sorrow filled her face and she looked down.

"Katija was murdered."

"How?" I asked, it was a weird question one she would probably not want to answer at all but I needed to push this.

"She was shot in the head." Helena made a gun out of her index finger and hand and shot herself between the eye balls. "By bad men. I found her in car parked out side of Beth's house." This was shocking, but at least not everything I had written was true, like some sort of prophecy. I brushed off the idea that I had some how predicted this and focused on the image.

"Do you know who this man is?" I asked, in a patronising manner I guessed, pointing to the photo. I treated her like a child but it was hard to gage whether she understood or not. It was strange actually thinking about how I trusted her. She could easily go crazy psycho bitch and kill me here and then, but she didn't and I trusted her for it. She grabbed it out of my hand and took it closer to her face, holding it close and inspecting every last detail. It seemed as though she knew, by the way she looked at it in recognition.

"No." She dropped the photo to the floor, her mind wondered and she picked a barbie doll up from the side. It resembled her, with big yellow white hair in tight ringlets, dark roots and cut jagged tips. She stroked it with her hand, cooing at it's face. Aside from this scene I looked back to the photo, turning it over once more as if expecting something more to be there, to appear. But nothing did. I sighed heavily, putting it on the foam in front of me. Better to ignore it especially if it meant not bringing up something major to focus on. I leant back against the uncomfortable shelving, crossing my arms over. It was night, and it was cold, and we were sat in a storage unit in the middle of the city. Snow crushed up just at the end trance of the unit.

"What are we going to do hey?" I asked her, breathing out and seeing my breath in front of me. Helena moved slightly closer to me, then pausing looking around, then moving right next to me. Her face was overly trying to pretend to not be doing anything, suppressing a grin spreading on her. It was comical in a way, she was childish and scary as hell but in this very moment she was kinda...adorable. I put my arm around her still weary of her movements. She cuddled into me like a dog nudging someone for attention. It was cold and I was cold, but she was warm in her big coat and I liked it. Having no attention, no one to hug, no one to just hold was hard. The way she held me brought tears to my eyes. Kira is probably sleeping in her bed, Miss S tucking her in, reading to her. Kira would lean up on her arms and hear S's soft words and calm spoken voice, she would bob her head and her eyes would droop. She was protest that she was not tired, that she wanted S to continue. And S would, reading just a few more words, slowly trailing off as Kira's eyes fell deeper and deeper into a trance. S would move away, helping her arms down from supporting her head and lay her on the pillow. S would kiss her forehead, turn off the main light and close the door. Just the idea, just the thought of Miss S doing it tonight and now me, made my heart sink. My heart slowed and all I wanted to do was kiss her head and let her sleep. Or even just to be in the house. Or even know that this was hat was happening. Maybe Kira was awake, looking at the same stars as I could be outside. Looking at one and thinking of me. "What did I do Helena? Why did I come back to New York that day. If I had just missed the train or stayed an extra night in the motel, then I might have not met Beth. I might have spared myself all of this shit. Went and got Kira, and left with Fe." Helena held onto my hand that was hanging over her right shoulder. She took the fingers one by one and held onto them, playing like a baby would.

"Maybe." She said simply. Her accent softer, not as strong as it was when she first said something to me. "But, now you are a part of a family, you are my sestra, and I'm glad that you came..." Helena began to bite on her own finger nails, looking at nothing in the distance. There was a tone that made me think she genuinely meant it. But the way she said it, totally and completely without thinking, the nature of it made it hit me hard. A family. I had never had a family before, and I guess I now had one. A very weird and dysfunctional family made up of people who were exactly the same in every genetic way but totally different. My mind wondered, maybe this could be it. Enough of finding my story, but I have actually found my...family. But Felix and Kira were my family, I thought on the contrary. Felix had been with me since the first day I met him, hiding behind Miss S in the house. I don't remember the first day I got to my home, just that Fe was away somewhere giving me time to get to know S. Immediately we clashed, arguing and shouting at each other, but in between she gave me the mother figure I had always wanted and resented. When Felix had come back he could finally meet me, his young 8 year old self scared, I remember him coming around her legs, extending his hand to me. I took it and he pulled me into hug, wrapping his skinny arms around me. Today, when he hugged me before I went, it felt like that. It reminded me of how we used to have it before I kept fucking up and leaving. Before I left Kira.

"Helena do you have a daughter?" I asked, pulling me knee up to my chest, balancing one arm across the top of them. She stopped biting her nails and didn't look at me.

"No." She said, but there was something underlying, like this was a really touchy subject. But I wanted to push, before Alison had made a big deal out of me having a biological daughter and no one had asked since. I pulled her in tighter to comfort her a little bit.

"Never had the chance, or don't want them?" I tried to put this as gently as possible in case I regretted asking later. She wrapped one arm around her stomach area. And her face was saddened immediately, as if the mear words she would have to use to express it hurt her emotionally and physically.

"They took something from inside of me." My heart skipped a beat. What did she mean, a baby? Did she have a force abortion, was it a bay through a bad circumstance but she wanted to keep it? Or did something worse happen, that was unimaginable. But at this rate, I was a clone. That was more unimaginable than anything in this world. I let it drop and just hugged her. I could relate. It was a cruel world and some times a mother had to do drastic things to survive. I should know. For a moment we just sat there, I put my knees down so I could hug her properly and just did. The rain outside pattering on the cold ground sounded like small children's feet at a park playing. Cars trolled past in their monotonous life going somewhere but getting no where, stopping and starting. People talking in the distance, even music from clubs and bars. But all I was focusing on was the feel of another human being next to me. Just humanity at it's finest point. Two strangers people sharing something at their lowest point finding comfort in each other, in the raw human thing that we can all do; touch.

"We need to get these bad people, yes?" Helena said, moving her head to look at me. I pushed some of her hair away from her face to see her better, her red eyes, her hollow cheeks, a person caught up with the wrong people.

"Yes." I replied. But as always it was not going to be that easy. "I have a daughter." I brought the subject back up, Helena didn't look sad, but instead happy with a small smile on her face. "Her name is Kira and she is 8 years old." Helena wanted to know more and she smiled at the mention of her, maybe she liked children? Maybe she was born to be a mother? "I haven't seen her in a while. In over a year. Last time I saw her she was well, doing great in school..." I realised this would not be down to me. In fact the last time I saw her was just after I had met Beth. When I got away for a day, headed over to the outskirts to S's house and saw them working on something in the living room. The lights were on inside so they couldn't see me outside. I just leaned against the telephone pole, watching. It was sad, to see your own flesh and blood, your daughter being mothered by someone else. Even S who I had known forever. It wasn't right, but then again, I wasn't either. Helena nudged me to carry on. "And...I don't know. It's been a while". All of this hospital stuff had made me forget. But there were countless memories I wouldn't forget. Felix and I thought we would take her out for the day on the town, we lived in a rough area so the only entertainment was loitering somewhere or being reckless so we choose the latter, stole a shopping cart and put her in it. Running away from the store being chased and not caring. Felix would be wearing his jumper around his waist over his jeans trying to pretend it was a skirt, with a white t-shirt, and I was wearing a dress with a cap trying to be pretend to be hard. I was such a tom boy. Kira would scream and laugh and we would just take her places, anywhere to get out of that house to pretend that we were normal kids just living out life. She noticed my face and hugged me back, tightening her arms.

"We will get them for taking her away from you." She said, not looking at me, closing her eyes and leaning on my chest. I stroked her hair and looked around. Something seemed to click in my head, like a cog breaking free from a rusted dusty hold. There was something I had never questioned about what had happened to me in the last two days. Something that hadn't even come to mind until now, where there were no distractions. Who is Miss Duncan? There was a sneaking suspicion in my head that I knew who she was, or that I had met her, or that I could recognise her. It was the way Delphine had made sure I had never met Miss Duncan and she had never seen or met me. Why would she do that? What could she possibly say to excuse not wanting us to meet? Maybe she was a force not to be reckoned with or maybe there was something worse than that. That would be where I could go, although it had nothing to do with Beth. The whole reason I am here was to find out why she killed herself, because I witnessed it and I could not live it down if I could have prevented it. But I needed to find out about this picture also, who that guy was. This was a thing that could hold lots of relevance. Katija, the German I had written about so eerily close to real life had this on her. What was he doing with it, why would it hold so much importance that the day she died this was with her? I leaned forward picking up the picture from the ground. By now Helena was tired, she had moved away from me, as I moved forward she pushed behind me, putting her head on the pillow that was by me. I realised this would have to be it for the night. The picture was folded up and stuff in my inside pocket for safe keeping, no bra these days they were restricting. I laid down, on the foam right next to Helena with my head on the pillow. I didn't mind the intimacy at this point it was a dark time for all of us. But the way she breathing on my neck and started to play with my hair was weird, so I turned over my head by her feet, using my arm as a pillow and went to sleep.