Chapter Twelve:
Reid pulled to a quick stop in front of the Danver's door. Victoria was standing on the last step. She was wearing what she had been wearing at the party. It was a red baby doll style dress with a thick black band under her bust, she also had an old worn out jean jacket over it and her classic black high top sneakers.
Her hair was coming out of the bun she had taken care to put up in his dorm. Her purse was gone, replaced with a black leather back pack that was over stuffed. Her mascara and eye liner had run down her cheeks like she had been crying heavily and hadn't bothered to wipe her face until later. She looked tired and scared.
She walked over to the truck instantly and put both her hands on the driver's side door handle. Reid watched her out the window. She looked up and down the driveway as if she was lost. She rested her forehead on her hands on the handle.
Reid could see her back rise and fall as she cried. It was as if he was frozen, he had never seen her like this. He had seen her bored, tired, mad, furious, passionate but never….this…this lost form of Victoria, he didn't like it, he wanted to help her to make her hurt go away but he didn't know how.
She opened the door suddenly. Reid could only stare at her.
"Move over," She gasped choking back a sob.
"Victoria…"
"Move over!" She yelled looking Reid in the eyes. Her normally ice blue eyes were blood shot and full of tears.
Reid moved over the truck, careful to avoid the gear shift, into the passenger's seat. Victoria climbed into the driver's seat pushing her back pack into the back seat. She slammed the door and put both her hands on the wheel. Her hands were shaking.
"Victoria, are you okay to drive?" Reid asked for lack of anything else to say.
"I am fine," She put the truck in gear and they tore out of the drive way.
The drive over was quiet. Reid didn't know what to say or how to comfort her.
They pulled to screeching halt in front of the old Colony house. Reid looked from the run down house to Victoria, who was looking at it not moving. Gorman had moved from there into another place after Mr. Danvers...
"Victoria?" Reid asked. Victoria didn't respond, instead she opened the door and got out the truck and ran through the gate at the house. "Victoria!" Reid got out of the truck and jumped the fence running after her.
"Victoria!" He yelled but she was already in the house. He followed her but she was already gone. Assuming she was downstairs he took the stairs two at a time leading to the ancient Covenant basement but it was empty.
There was a creek upstairs. Reid dashed up the stairs all the way up to the attic. He hadn't been up there since they moved Caleb's father up. Now, it was empty of course. The room was almost exactly the same except all remains of Mr. Danver's were gone, all his pills, clothes, everything.
Victoria was standing in front of the chair, in front of the fire place, in which Mr. Danvers used to sit. She was crying.
"Victoria?" Reid asked staying where he was on the top step. She looked at him suddenly, as if forgetting he was with her.
She pointed a shaky hand at the chair. "Everyone always said I had his eyes," She gave a small sad smile. "That I was his little girl." Reid watched her carefully. He took a step towards her and she took a step back. "Yeah everyone said I was his pride and joy." Her face looked as if she was struggling not to cry. "Mother…mother said that he wanted a little ballerina."
She shrugged looking back at the chair. "I can remember him. He was always so nice, but then something changed, and it wasn't him any more and no body….NO BODY …would tell me what was going on! I was ten when it started, TEN YEARS OLD REID!" She yelled her hands clenched in fists.
"And they took him away. Your dad, Pogue's dad, Tyler's dad, they all came in the night and they left with him. I remember because I watched from my door, they had to carry him. Do you know what that's like, to watch your father being carried away like some corpse?" She laughed in a cold hard way, "Corpse, he may as well have been because I sure as hell never saw him again. Dear old mother came by the next morning and packed my things and sent me off, I was barely fourteen and I was sent away to the other side of the world, with no one!"
She looked at the chair. "I never saw him again before he…he…" She looked at Reid in a pleading way. "He was my dad….hell, Sarah saw him before he…." She trailed off.
Reid shook his head looking at the ground, "You wouldn't have wanted to."
She scoffed, "My 'mother' found out tonight I didn't leave school," Reid looked at her at the sudden change in topic, "Yeah I was expelled, they said I didn't have good enough form and no matter how much my mother was paying them to keep me, I was a lost cause."
She shrugged watching Reid, "Ya know what she said to me?" She asked, Reid knew she was talking about Mrs. Danver's. "She said that I wasn't worth the bother, that…that…that they never should have had me. That the only reason they did was because He wanted a little princess, that she and Caleb were never enough for him that he wanted me. Forced me on the family." She was looking at everything in the room except Reid, "How is that my fault!? I didn't ask to be born! I am the first second sibling to be born in one of our families after an heir in a century! Yeah! I looked it up, and you know why? Because there was no point! Because there was a boy and he would carry on the family and the ….the power! But no, my dad had to be different and have me!
"He didn't even care enough to stop using! He just kept using and using until there was nothing left, and I was left alone, because mother had Caleb, she said that he only cared about me and no one else…" Victoria laughed backing up more until she hit the fireplace, "If he loved me so god damn much why did he leave!? Wasn't I good enough? And…and …and why does she hate me? I didn't do anything…I…I…I,"
Victoria couldn't catch her breath, she was crying to hard. Suddenly, she fell forward and hit the floor on her knees. Reid ran over to her and grabbed her shoulders holding her up.
She was just sobbing, "Look Victoria, you gotta calm down, you're gonna make yourself sick." She looked at him with lost eyes.
"Why Reid? Why? Who is gonna care?"
"I'm gonna care!" He yelled. She looked at him.
"I'm sorry, look I shouldn't be unloading all this stuff on you…" She went to stand up and her knees buckled underneath her. Reid caught her and held her close to him.
"Victoria, its okay everything's going to be fine." He whispered. She pushed him away.
"Oh yeah? Oh yeah Reid?" She yelled facing him in the darkness of the attic. "How, how is it going to be fine, my mother just threw me out of my only home telling me she never wanted to see me again, my big brother thinks I am a degenerate and the guy that I am fast falling in love with is using faster than my dead father!"
Reid opened his mouth to say something and then closed it. Victoria turned, her hands going back up into her hair. "Oh god..." She quietly moaned to herself before sinking into the very arm chair her father used to sit in.
Reid quietly crossed the attic and pulled an old chair from the corner till it was beside the arm chair and sat down in it. Not saying anything.
They just sat there, Victoria staring blankly into the fireplace, Reid staring back at Victoria. She put her head in her hands; Reid didn't know what to say, so they just sat there.