I woke up at around eight o' clock. For the first few seconds I was content. I pulled the bed sheets off me and was puzzled; I wasn't in my pajamas. I was in my day clothes.

At that moment, everything that happened the day before rushed back to me like a slap in the face. My mom is dead…

I just wanted to pull the covers back over me and stay there until someone found me. But I knew that I had to get up and eat and move around. Besides, my mom wouldn't want me to be a hermit. She'd want me to live life.

I opened my door and walked out of my room, suddenly very awake. I dragged my feet down the hallway to the living room and I stopped at the doorway. What I saw scared me for a minute; there were a bunch of people sitting in the living room, but they were just policemen and women.

I took a deep breath. Relax, I thought to myself. I noticed that I was very tense, so I relaxed those muscles, still taking deep breaths.

When I walked in the room, everyone went silent and stopped moving. All their eyes were upon me. It was like a room filled with solemn faced statues.

It was silent for a while until I finally said lightly, "Good morning, officers. May I have permission to cross the room for breakfast, please?" I smiled with my eyebrows raised.

No one responded, until a policewoman, the one I recognized from last night, said in the same manner as me, "Good morning, and yes, you may have permission to cross the room. I have donuts here."

Everything in the room felt like it was finally releasing the carbon dioxide kept in their lungs for the past five minutes. All the authorities went back to their conversations, drinking coffee and chomping on jelly-filled donuts and sesame bagels.

I walked across the room, to the left of the U-shaped sectional couch which faced the TV right by the doorway to the hallway, to the black marble counter piled with donut boxes, coffee cups, plates, and napkins. The policewoman smiled at me and said, "Take your pick. You can have as many as you want."

"Oh," I said smiling, "I don't think I can eat more than two. I'm not really hungry. But I will have a cinnamon-powdered one." I snatched a donut especially covered in cinnamon and sugar. I got settled on a bar stool chair and was about to take a big chunk of delectable deep-fried goodness. I sighed, "Silly me. I forgot milk." I grabbed a cup, poured some milk, and I put the jug back in the stainless steel fridge. I settled down again with my glass of milk and was going to try to eat my donut again, but I stopped, then put my donut down and leaned back in my chair. I looked at the policewoman and said, "Okay. I need to know. How long, exactly, were all of you here? Because I don't think I can digest this properly without knowing. Were you guys here all night? Did you guys check up on me when I was sleeping?"

She let out a short laugh, "No we didn't check on you when you were sleeping." She paused. "We just set a perimeter around the house." She said this kind of quickly and with a solemn face that said she was embarrassed to be saying this.

I just looked at her. "Was that really necessary?" I said incredulously. "Did you think I was gonna make a break for it in the dead of night?"

"We had to make precaution!" she said in her defense. "Besides, we didn't know what you might do with your mother…gone and all." She observed me a little to see if she said the wrong thing. I could tell she didn't want to be insensitive about it.

I just took a slow breath to steady myself. I'm not going to cry in front of the cops.

She just took it as an annoyance sigh. "I'm sorry about that." She said apologetically. "We're the police. It's our job to protect people, even if it's embarrassing."

"No, it's okay." I said hurriedly. "I don't want you feel bad; it's not your fault. I just wanted to know…and if any of you checked on me last night, then it would have been a little weird, because you didn't need to do that." I turned back to my donut but turned back just as fast. "What's your name, officer?"

"I'm Lieutenant Gibson," she said, "but you can call me Bailey."

"I'll just call you Lieutenant because I don't feel privileged enough to call you by your first name." I said uncomfortably. "Sorry."

"That's okay." she replied. "No need to apologize. You can call me anything you want." She said in a more authoritative tone, "You should eat something now. You're going to be leaving soon."

I almost choked on my donut. I coughed, and said in a composed tone, "Could you repeat that, please?"

She laughed, "I said 'You're going to be leaving soon.'"

"To where?"

"A two o' clock flight was made to Malibu. That's where you're going to be staying until you're eighteen. You'll stay with your uncle until you can claim all the things her mother left you."

I just stared at her. "You lost me at 'uncle.'" What is she talking about? I thought. I don't have an uncle!

"Don't you have an uncle in Malibu?" she asked with a slightly confused look on her face.

"No…at least…I don't think so." I was so confused. Do I have an uncle? Mom told me she was an only child…

Gibson finally said, "You need to see the will."

I followed her to my mom's office, leaving my unfinished donut and milk on the counter. We walked down the hall and to the first door and the left. On the desk, there were was a letter and an envelope. She lifted the letter off the desk and handed it to me. She said, "This is her will. In the beginning, it just says that everything would go to you when you become of age. Then it said she would want her brother, Tony Stark, to take care of you until then."

Tony Stark? I thought. The head of Stark Industries that makes all those amazingly high-tech but extremely dangerous weapons? He's her brother?! I wanted to say all of this, but all that came out was, "Huh?" which I felt stupid about afterward. I speed-read through the will, and there it was.

"We can't deny the requests of a will." she stated. "It's better to send you to him as soon as possible." She gave me a look. "Are you positive you didn't know about Tony Stark being your uncle?"

"Yeah." I said, nodding. "She never told me anything about a brother. She told me she was an only child." I sighed. "But whatever the reason was for her not telling me, it must not be good. Or maybe she didn't want me to turn snooty or something if I knew my uncle was rich and famous. I mean…it makes sense that I'm related to him: I'm two years ahead of my age. I knew something was different about me. I think the genius-like brains skipped over a generation, which was my mom."

"There's another letter you have to read," she said picking up the envelope. "This is addressed to you."

She held it out for me. It said, "To Cara, when I have passed on."

I opened it carefully, my heart beating rapidly. I unfolded to piece of paper and looked at it. It was written in her handwriting. It said:

Cara,

I haven't been entirely truthful to you. And when you read it, I hope you don't think of me badly. If you do, I'm sorry that I had to tell you like this. I wish it wasn't this complicated.

The truth is that I'm not an only child. I have a brother. He's Tony Stark. I haven't been on speaking terms with him lately. It was very uncomfortable. When I lived with my parents, I was underappreciated by my father. After he realized I wasn't as brilliant as his first-born, he was disappointed and upset with me always. Nothing I did satisfied him because it wasn't up to his standards. But Tony's work was always great and my father was always pleased with what he did. My mother was the only one to give me a shoulder to cry on and love to cure me of my father's cruelty. Tony wasn't much comfort. I could tell he felt guilty, but he had his own goals to achieve.

One day, I got sick of it. It was too much for me to handle. I sneaked out in the middle of the night when I was fourteen. I lived my own life. I did whatever I want when I wanted. I finished high school got a job at a grocery store and saved enough for college. But I wasn't happy, I was lonely. I wasn't the talkative one so I never got much attention from anyone, and I always looked depressed.

Then I met your father. He was so handsome. He arrived on a Harley and stopped right in front me. I had to talk to him, so I did. His voice was as sweet as honey. We met everyday at the same spot. I finally accepted the ride he had offered me in the beginning, and my life flourished.

You know how he left, so I won't repeat it. I don't know how Tony will react to you. He never liked things that were out of his control. He knows that I found a life because I called him before you were born. Please, don't blame him for my pain.

I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. I was too afraid of my past and I kept running away from it, never truly meeting it face-to-face. Just remember this: Don't ever run away from your fears, because if you just keep running, you'll never conquer them. That's a lesson I learned to late.

I hope you know already that I'll always love you, whether you do or not. Again, I'm sorry.

All my love,

Your mother, Talia Stark

I couldn't think. Tears were about to pour, but I blinked them back. I folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. I'm going to keep it as a reminder to the wrongs I had to make right. I thought, a new determination filled my veins. I'm going to do what my mother couldn't: I'm going to face my fears. If Tony doesn't approve of me, that's not my problem. I'm just going to be with him for four years. What could go wrong?

"Are you okay?" Gibson asked with concern.

I looked up and smiled reassuringly. "Yes." I said, determined. "I'm going to be better than okay. I'll make sure of it."

She looked at me impressed that I was taking my mother's death so well.

"I'll finish eating then start packing." I told her.

I left the room, very prepared for the events ahead.