Disclaimer- the pretender is no creation of mine. I do own Connor, Katie, Jake, Tommy, and Ben. Christian and Alicia are actually my real roommates. CNU is a real college in Newport News, Virginia.
Authors Note: My mom called me a little after eight this morning to tell me that my Dad's dad had died. I never really cared for the man, but I was unable to go back to sleep. I was going to do a bit of typing on Genesis but was unable to so I started writing about my grandfather in my journal. I didn't intend for this to be a story. But that's what happened.
END OF THE NIGHTMARE
I just got a phone call at 6:30 in the morning on Tuesday, November 16. My grandfather died, only that's not the sad thing. The sad thing is that I don't really care. Is that wrong? I never knew him. I guess part of that could be my fault. I never made any effort to get to know the man. But he deserves some of the blame too. I don't think he ever loved, or even liked me. And if he did he never bothered to show it. Not to mention he was a bastard.
I can still remember eleven years ago when I was seven he called to ask to speak to my mom.
"Is your mother there?" He asked.
"No Grandpa she went to take Jake and Tommy to the pediatrician they have strep throat," I told him.
"Who is this?" Grandpa asked.
"It's me Grandpa, Katie." I replied thinking he had mistaken me for my brother Connor
"Who?" I was stunned. How could he not know who I was, after all he's part of the reason I and my brother even exist. He was the one who allowed for my mother and father's genetic material to be taken and for a set of twins to be created from my parents. Yet I tried again to prompt his memory.
"Katie your granddaughter. You know the one you let the Centre create?" I replied my voice full of sarcasm.
"Oh" he replied and hung up.
"Screw you too," I spat and slammed the phone on the cradle.
"Katherine Jamieson Russell watch your language," My father chided walking into the kitchen with Connor.
"Sorry Daddy," I spoke.
"Who was that on the phone?" Connor asked.
"Grandpa Parker," I said. My father turned around and looked at me.
"What did he want," My father asked.
"To speak to Momma."
"Oh," Daddy replied.
I could tell that Dad was trying to keep his cool. Dad and Grandpa didn't quite have the best relationships. See when Dad was four, Grandpa stole Daddy from his parents. Daddy was then held prisoner of Grandpa's company the Centre for the next thirty years. The only way I know how to describe the Centre would be, think hell with nicer furniture.
Dad also hated the way Grandpa treated Momma. For all of her childhood and most of her adulthood Momma tired to please him in hopes that he would show her some form of affection. Momma even went as far as hunting my father -the love of her life- across North America believing that if she caught my father Grandpa would be pleased. Well in her own way Momma caught Daddy -or maybe it was the other way around- and needless to say Grandpa was far from please when Momma left the Centre with me and Connor to begin a new life with Daddy.
I hear a knock at my door and turn from my laptop to answer it. It's Connor. By now my two roommates have got to be pissed with me. Not only has the phone rang and woken them up but just as they're about to drift back to sleep Connor knocks on the door bringing Christian and Alicia back to the world of the conscious.
Connor doesn't speak -well not out loud anyway- when I open the door. The two of us never need to actually speak out loud to communicate, thanks to the Centre and their genetic manipulation.
'Let's take a walk,' Connor suggest. I nod my head.
'Let me put on my sweatshirt and grab my ID,' I reply. Connor waits for me to put on my blue CNU pull over, and grab my ID. We leave the dorm and head outside. As we walk outside I take a look at Connor. It's so obvious that we're twins. We have Momma's blue eyes and a head full of reddish, brown hair. We're both the same build and the same height. And both dressed the same with our sweatshirts and plaid pajama bottoms. Every American college students attire.
We say "hi" to the front desk assistant and walk outside. We are met with a cold blast of air. It's official, fall has finally hit Newport News, Virginia. We sit on the benches outside of the dorm, or residence hall as the head honcho's of the campus like to call them. I guess it's to make parents feel that it's okay to be paying three thousand dollars a semester for a eight by twelve foot space that their kids are going to share with two other people by calling our dorms a residence hall.
Not that my parents are hurting for money even with two kids in college and two in middle school. Dad's a well known doctor and Mom's a hotshot attorney. Momma also has a pretty hefty trust fund that her mom and dad set up -one of the few decent things Grandpa ever did for her-. Not to mention the funds Dad, Connor, and I liberated for the Centre shortly after Momma got me and Con out.
In case you're wondering Momma and Daddy never knew about me and my brother. We were kept in Africa for the first three years of our life. Then when we turned four we were brought to Blue Cove. Shortly after Momma's friend and former Centre technician -Uncle Jon- discovered me and Connor. Momma was pissed to say the least, she fought tooth and nail to get me and my brother out. She threatened to bring down the Centre -not that she and Daddy didn't a few years later- if the Centre didn't hand over her children. Five months after Connor and I were brought to the Centre we got our first taste of freedom. Momma drove us to Richmond, Virginia and right to Daddy. Apparently Momma had known just where Daddy was, she had been holding out on the Centre when it came to my father's location. The two of them had been conduction an affair right under the nose of the Centre for almost two months.
We left Richmond and went overseas for a year. Momma was pregnant with Tommy then and she wanted to be as far away from Blue Cove as possible. When Jake was born two years after Tommy, Momma and Daddy felt that it was time for the Centre to be brought down. Grandpa and all his lackeys were sent to prison. And prison was where Grandpa died.
He had been quite sick, but then he had been sick for years. In all honesty I never thought that the old man would die. He seamed to have run on spite. I figured that as long as he had some one to hate he would continue to live. Guess I was wrong -and just for the record that is a rare occurrence-.
I found it odd that though Momma help put Grandpa in jail, Grandpa would call her every now and then. Maybe he felt that Momma was his one last link to family. But that's his fault, the bastard had his wife killed, as well as his son Lyle. Lyle had pushed for chairmanship of the Centre just before it was brought down. Grandpa had someone assassinated Lyle, not that it was one of humanity's major losses.
"I'm assuming Momma called you," Connor says breaking me of my mussing.
"Yeah. Daddy call you?" I ask him. Connor nods his head as he pulls out a pack of Newport 100's. Connor takes a look around seeing no one he lights his cigarette using pyrokinesis -once again that you genetic manipulation-. I pull out my own pack and light my cigarette off of Connor's. We let the nicotine calm us.
"Momma would kill us if she ever found out we smoked these," Connor says.
"Ah, these will probably kill us first," I tell him.
"Are we going to the funeral?" Connor asks me. I sigh. I don't really want to go, but I know that Momma will, and Connor and I should be their to support her.
"I guess so. We should be their for Momma anyhow." I reply. Connor doesn't speak he just takes another drag off of his coffin nail. He knows that there is something else I want to say. After a few moments I finally say it.
"I'm glad that bastard's dead. I hate him. I hate what he did to our family, to other peoples families. He deserved to die, alone and unloved." I feel the tears threaten to well up in my eyes and I force them away. If there's one Parker trait I inherited it's that I don't show weakness.
Connor puts out his cigarette on the pavement and then pulls me into his arms. I try to pull away but he wont let me. He takes my cigarette out of my hand and tosses it on the ground. And then places both of his hands on either side of my face so that our blue eyes meet.
"He's gone now Katie. He can't hurt us or our family any more. It's over, we don't have to be afraid anymore," Connor tells me and burry my head into his chest.
For the first time in fourteen years I will be able to live my life not in fear. No longer do I have to keep looking over my shoulder. Cringe each time I see a black Lincoln town car. Worry that I'll get a phone call from my parents saying that my baby brother's were taken in the night. With my grandfather dead, what ever remnants of the Centre that still remain will fall with in a few weeks.
Connor and I head footsteps and look up. It's our personal body guard Ben. Ben is the only reason Connor and I were even allowed to go to college. Momma and Daddy feared that it was not safe enough for us to attended college with remnants of the Centre still around. Ben is also a student at school -or is believed to be-. Normally Connor and I don't go any where without him. Ben is more than just our bodyguard. He's a good friend and my Uncle Sam's son. And maybe my boyfriend, much to Connor's dismay.
"So I hear that I may be out of a job," Ben says. I can see the concern in his eyes for me.
"Yeah Benny it would appear that the nightmare is finally over," Connor says. I look up at my brother and I see that he is smiling. It's not a smile of joy, but one of relief. I don't need to look in a mirror to see that the same smile is on my face.
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