Born This Way
Chapter Twenty-one: Family or Friends
Cordelia Emilia Dove
I awoke in the darkness again. My head was dizzier this time. There was a pounding that I was just not getting to go away, and the rocking of the boat was not helping. I tried to sit up, but felt too sick to even lift my head. I looked around the best I could to find we had not been moved far, or we were back where we started. Mesi was asleep on the other side of the room, not that the room was big enough to give it sides. Her legs were draped over mine, no shoes anymore. I wasn't wearing shoes anymore either.
Mesi started to stir. I moved my leg quickly, giving her room to move. She sat up just as slowly as I had, hand going straight to her head. She looked paler than last time, not that the light was any good. What had they given us? Was it going to hurt us?
"Cora?" Mesi asked in a sleepiest tone.
"I'm right here," I whispered, moving closer so that I could wrap my arm around her again. "Are you ok."
Mesi nodded and put her head into my shoulder. It was getting harder and harder to believe that she was so much older than me.
"I want to get out of here," She said softly. "I want to go home."
I didn't know what to say to that. She sounded so hurt, so weak, so innocent. I couldn't help myself. I couldn't hold it any longer. I started to cry. I started to show fear.
"I want to go home too," I said through the tears. "I want to hold on to Nina. I want Lex to hold on to me…. I just want to see my daddy's face, hear his voice, even just feel his hand wrapped around mine, rubbing it when I can't sleep and have snuck into his room late at night again."
"I want to hear Julia's soft feet on the floor," I heard Mesi said actually understandable and not through tears. "I want to hear Toler and Kate yelling about something stupid. I want Dean to say… deal with it. And I want to deal with it." She sniffled, holding back tears I could tell. "I want to hear my mom come home from work, tired and not in the mood to talk. And I want her to wrap me in a hug anyway and say that she would always have time for me." She was crying now, I could tell without seeing the tears in her eyes.
"Aw, Isn't this cute mommy," I heard from the door way. Mesi and I looked up, tears still in my eyes and on my cheeks.
"Very," The mother said. "Grab them…" She said sternly to her daughter. Then to us, she said sweetly. "It's time for your surprise.
Harrison Dean Bennett
"I'm sorry mom," I whispered for the sixth time into the phone.
Lex had already gathered the kids into the living room, making them easier to watch. I had called my mom after I had finished freaking out, and she was not happy with me. I could hear Bella and Cleo in the back ground, freaking out of course. I didn't want them to freak out, but I could keep this from them. I was in over my head and it was about time I confessed I didn't know how to swim.
I heard my mom sigh, she did that a lot. Then she said, "It's fine, honey, really it is. Those two are hard to keep on a leash, and I should've warned you."
There was a bit of silence on her end. I think she was talking to the others. Then she said, "Dean, the men are coming home. Do you think you can handle the kids for another hour?"
"Yeah, yeah," I answered, sounding more confident than I felt. "It's fine. I've got them."
Then I hung up and looked to the kids. Nina was on the floor, trying to calm them down, while Lex and I were far from calm. Jamie was still restless beyond control, and wasn't a bit surprised when he pulled himself up into Lex's lap. He looked scared, and sad. He looked Lex right in the eyes, seeming so little when he asked, "Mermaid?"
I was confused beyond understandment, but Lex seemed to understand what he meant right away, like he was some sort of kid reader, or at least understood his babble.
"It's going to be ok," He told Jamie. "Your mommy will find your sissy and everything will be ok."
I just looked at him while he talked to Jamie more, like he understood him. Nina watched to, like she also understood, like he was talking to her too. Watching them, it looked like they knew something I didn't, that only they did. I shook it off quick. I couldn't worry about that or anything else, other than the kids, my siblings mainly.
Julia was crying. I think that what had happened had finally hit her. Kate and Toler weren't their happy selves either, and the McCartney twins looked on the bridge of tears as well. How did we go from wild and crazy to tear fest in two minutes? How could this have gotten so bad so fast?
Merissa Olivia Bennett
We were led, more like pushed, across a small hall into another room that was just as small and dark as the one we had just been in. The difference with this room was that there were two other people in the room with us. I could tell right away that it was not Mako or Aqua. They were older, and one of them was a man. Cora and I looked to the door, just in time to watch it close, and the faces of the woman and her daughter disappeared, as well as most of the light. There was one stream of light coming from a window way too small to really help us. With this light I got a better look at our new roommates, and I gasped, tears coming back into my eyes. I couldn't speak. I couldn't move.
"Mom?" Cora asked, holding back tears of her own, just as it became very clear who we were sitting with.
"Dad?" I finally choked out.