Spokane, Washington - Three Days Later

Lacy Denworth had not caught enough sleep the night prior, leading her to drool right on top of her desk and the math sheet in between the desk and her lips. She never believed she needed to take Algebra, but it proved to be an essential part of her extra curricular activities. Did she have anything below a C in any of her classes, she'd kiss goodbye to the basketball team and the volleyball team. Currently, she had gone down to a steady B, challenged only by fractions yet. "Ughh..."

"Hey, Lace, you alright there?" The classmate on Lacy's left jerked her by the shoulder to try and wake her. "Are you sick?"

"Mmmm...?" Lacy opened her eyes and raised her head halfway up, moving their direction. "Wh- Gwen, what the hell?"

"You're still in school, Lace," Gwen told her, pointing to the front of the class. "Here, I've written down the notes you've missed."

"Oh, well..." Lacy gave a nod, being appreciative for someone like Gwen being there for her. "Thanks, you're a lifesaver. Now... Where did I put my pencil?" The athletic girl looked around her desk for the lead pencil she had taken out. "I didn't eat it, did I?"

Gwen shared a giggle, amused by Lacy's remark. "I have a spare one if you can't find it," she happily offered.

Lacy, however, felt like Gwen had done more than her fair share of charity with Lacy, and would not allow herself to feel like a burden. "I've got it, I'll find it-" And she did, at the base of her feet just underneath the desk. "There it is."

Gwen handed over her sheet of notes to Lacy. "Here, you can catch up while I focus on the current lesson." Gwen went back to listening to their teacher explain variable equations.

Meanwhile, Lacy started to copy what Gwen had written down, number by number, at a steady pace. She so easily got lost in the writing halfway through, starting to daydream once again. Again, about being far away from this school, and instead being in a wide basketball court, playing as a pro against pros, with a wide audience on both sides, cheering them on, howling and hooting. All eyes on her-

She faced Gwen again, and gasped; Gwen wasn't actually here today, she had caught a nasty cold, a fact that somehow eluded Lacy's memory. Oh... Fuck, did I take my meds?

Lacy was almost the perfect girl, save for being diagnosed with schizophrenia. Without her special medication she needed to take daily, she'd be prone to seeing and hearing things that weren't really there. Perhaps she should have stayed home after all. "Ugh... This blows..."

She felt defeated, letting her head drop against the desk and shut her eyes. Let this hell end...

Later

She stared at herself in the mirror, semi-bothered by the bags underneath her blue eyes. She yawned and stretched her body naturally, wishing it was Friday already. All the sleep she could have, just out of hand's reach. Behind her, on the right side upon the mirror, one of the bathroom stalls opened up widely, creating a big racket that hurt her ears. "What the fuck?"

"Lacy, have you been keeping up with your grades?" the little girl of white hair asked intuitively and sincerely. "You have to do your best to stay on the league."

Lacy kept her eyes away from the mirror; she didn't want to see that hallucination of that strange, mysterious girl she had kept seeing for the past few years when she neglected to swallow the pill. Try as she might, she could never properly be rid of Ghost Girl, the nickname befitting for the hallucination. Ghost Girl was a five or six year old, shrouded in a white dress that made her look like she was displaced from a wedding. With yellow-tan sandals, Ghost Girl popped up here or there. Behind doors and inside of Lacy's closet. Underneath the bed. Sitting in empty seats. The only true mystery here was that Lacy had never met a person whom Ghost Girl should have been based from. No way her mind has created a completely fictional being from scratch, especially since she had read this to be impossible, but to add to the mystery, Lacy had to have seen the real life counterpart of Ghost Girl in her life at one point far in the past. Anything in the memory banks beyond four years backwards was unobtainable, leaving her with nothing to go on.

"I want you to do better," the machination spoke again.

Lacy had nothing to say to it, to her mind. She knew she wanted it, and she was trying as hard as she could to keep afloat.

"Be seeing you soon..." And where Ghost Girl had been, was instead replaced by a closed stall. Lacy cautiously looked in the mirror, hoping the mirage was done away with.

"What the fuck is wrong with me?" Lacy turned the faucet and cupped her hands under the running water, splashing her face with cold water to help herself stay awake. "Just a few more hours..."

Lacy Denworth was a girl with a height above average, being a lanky five-eight for an eight grader, and she was still growing. Not even her mother was at such a height by that age. The height gene had to have surely come from her old man, leaving her wondering what else she had inherited from him sometimes. She never saw a flaw in it. In fact, she welcomed it, finding it advantageous when it came to basketball. The brunette kept her hair tied into a ponytail most days, and when not, was it down to her shoulders. She wasn't anything like most girls in her grade, not the type glued to her phone, and most certainly having no visible interest in the opposite gender. What was more, her body had not bloomed just yet, despite her classmates already having experienced puberty.

She figured she'd be a late bloomer, seemed simple enough. How could she know what she hadn't known yet? She was already a schizophrenic; why didn't she question that there was more wrong with her than one thing?

As she made her way back to her class, a faint pair of running footsteps from behind caught her attention. "Lacy!" Her mother had come rushing in some sort of hurry, stopping Lacy from entering. "Hey, come here-"

Lacy said nothing and only kept her eyes focused on what she thought was another episode from her broken mind. It wasn't until Lynn put both her hands on her daughter's shoulders and shook her. "Lacy, hey, we need to leave right now," she addressed with a fiercely strict voice that put Lacy on edge.

"M-mom, what's happening? Is everything okay?"

Lynn turned to walk the direction she had come from. "I'll tell you on the way, okay? Pick up the pace, this is an emergency."

"What about my-?" Lacy wanted to get her backpack but her mother had sprinted halfway through the hallway. I guess I'm leaving my stuff... Thank God I have my phone still. She'd have to ask one of her classmates to save her stuff shortly, but the only dominant thought in mind was the question of what was happening with her mother? Just what was going on to make her pick up her daughter in this state of panic?

"Forget it, I'm sure your stuff will be fine..." Lynn sped to the parking lot and unlocked her dark green 2026 Dodge Charger, the ideal car she felt suited her perfectly. "Tell me you didn't leave your phone."

"I have it!" Lacy answered, taking it out as she opened the passenger door to enter.

"Call your dad, and put it on speaker."

"Mom-" Lacy lunged forward then backwards into her seat when Lynn violently reversed from the parking space and braked hard. "Oh my God, mom, what-?!"

Lynn set the shift to drive and raced through the parking lot, leaving the school as quickly as she had arrived. Lacy picked around her phone, accessing the contacts and finding her father's, dialing him with the tap on the screen. "It's ringing, mom! And can you not drive like a speed demon?"

"Sorry, sweetie, but this is a serious emergency, I need to get you back home as fast as I can."

"Are- Mom, you're scaring me..." Lacy's voice trembled in nervousness. "Are you saying I'm... We're in danger?"

"Lace-"

"Mom, if something is this serious, d-don't you think I need to know?"

The phone rang out fives times, and before it became six, the caller on the other end had picked up. "Hey, honey! Is everything okay?"

Lacy held the phone right up to her mother's face. "Talk."

"Honey, it's me, I'm with Lacy right now! It's bad, hon, that thing I've told you about- It... It's finally happened!" Lynn had now lost control of herself; the voice of hers rattled and cracked under a heavy pressure that Lacy could not even begin to get an idea of just how heavy it was in nature. "Oh, God, I didn't think-"

"Yes... I know well what you're referring to... Jesus... I thought for sure we'd have a few more years..."

"This shouldn't be happening right now..." Lynn stopped at a red light. "We had it all planned out, us, my sisters, and-"

Had what planned out...? What is she talking about?

"I don't know what to do, I- I thought we were in the clear, the inheritance-"

"We can manage, Lynn," her loving husband assured in a suave voice, "we've gotten this far as a family. You, me and little Lacy."

"I'm- I'm just scared I'll lose my share of the inheritance. Ever since three of my sisters were written out of the will, I've been looking forward-" But she trailed off, eyes moving downward.

"Mom, the light's green!" Lacy alerted just as the car behind them honked out a courtesy tap.

"Oh!" Lynn stepped on the pedal, blasting off to reach home. "Meet me back home, I really need you."

"I'll call out, okay? I'll be home soon."

"Love you," Lynn lastly shared before quickly pressing to hang up. "Mmmmh, shit..."

"Mom... Y-you are going to tell me everything, aren't you?"

Royal Woods - 2026

They were alone, engaged in an unbearable silence for some minutes before Lynn decided to finally break it. This was Lynn Loud back then, three months into her pregnancy, didn't scoot herself forward so that she could have more space, sparing to hurt her child. "Look at me... This isn't... I don't know if I can go through with this, Lincoln. I don't know if-"

The hands of her brother lightly connected to the temples on her face, and with the gentlemanly charm he displayed for her to see, to ease her of her worries and shame that engulfed and troubled her mental state. "We'll make it work, Lynn. You, me and this child. We've done so well to keep this hidden from our parents, have we not?"

"But-" She felt out of breath in the seat she sat in, parallel to him.

"Shhhh..." Lincoln pressed his thumbs on her lips to silence her. "You know what you have to do now, don't you?'

"I- I do... God, I feel so... I feel so damn dirty..." She closed her eyes and turned away from him, expressing her shame by covering her eyes with her hands, sobbing away.

The young man next to her placed his hand on her back and rubbed lightly. "It's going to be okay, Lynn. You'll have a perfect life, you and our child. We all will, okay?"

"I'll go..." Lynn wiped her tears, facing Lincoln with reddened eyes. "I'll take my child and I'll change my name, and they'll never find me..."

"Good girl," Lincoln soothed, kissing her shoulder. "Don't forget, my love. Don't you ever forget that I love you."

Now

Lynn pulled up to the driveway, braking and setting the muscle car to park, scrambling out right away. "Inside, Lacy!"

"Coming!" Lacy exited the car, pushing the door shut without looking back, hurrying after mother. While nothing had been shared in the car, Lacy expected to be given a thorough, possibly calm and rational explanation of the matter at hand. Mother's silence did not bode well for her, but perhaps her father's arrival would smooth things out, well enough for both to speak to her about this instead of attempting to ignore her. Lacy accepted it and was patient; she decided to head upstairs to her room and distract herself. "I'll be-"

"No, I need you to go to dining room and sit there..." Lynn instructed. "We are going to wait for your father to arrive."

"Are you both going to tell me?" Lacy then shook her head, "Because you didn't say a word about this. I'm just as lost as I am scared, mom! How do I know you're not just acting crazy?"

Lynn shut the door and then made her way to the windows where she peeked out of the closed blinds. "Don't argue with me, missy."

"Who are we trying to hide from?" Inside, Lacy had indeed been itching for the missing facts, but knew she had to wait just a bit more. The gaps in the newfound mystery would soon be bridged together, solved like a puzzle and understood like text on a page. She went to the fridge and helped herself to a Sprite can, chugging half of it down in under five seconds. And when she looked to the direction where she had just come from, she didn't see her mother having followed her. Nor did she hear her footsteps ring out closely. Or ring out in general for that matter. The silence sank in. The buzzing behind the fridge became noticable. The fizzing of the soda grew louder. The round clock in the back of the room still hung in place, hands moving in the same direction as it always had been, in turn ticking away in the same endless tune is had been condemned to play for all of its life. Lacy Denworth held her breath after being able to her herself breathe through her nose, delaying her exhale for a few seconds before her heart yearned for the air.

The silence... The silence was in its natural state. Unbearable yet mysterious. The epitome of madness and torture yet a force that brought upon peace given the right counters. Silence was only silence half the time. Sometimes. Silence, sometimes.

She thought for a moment that she had been left alone, and had a jump when Lynn paced into the room, sitting at her regular seat at the table. "Jeez, mom, you have me panicked here! Please say something!"

But Lynn, possessed by a mantle of fear, remained ominously quiet, eyes fixated right through Lacy.

"You're..." Lacy lifted a hand, folded it into a fist and banged on the table. "Snap out of it!"

Lynn reacted to the noise and twitched. "What? Oh-"

"I'm owed an explanation, and I need everything, from the start to right freaking now."

"Y-yes, I agree-" Lynn had a lengthy tale to tell her daughter, and saw to it that it needed to be told already, so she had just about decided to start, only for the front door to swing open after the man of the house had unlocked to enter. "Oh, your dad is home."

Earlier - Elsewhere

Lincoln Loud ended the call and stood frozen for a minute, processing what he had just heard. The phone went back inside the pocket of his pants, and he went promptly left the clothes shop in a collected manner. But the truth of the matter was that he was just not simply of a sound mind after hearing the news; the albino girl's escape was a thorn on his side, a complete obstacle and perhaps the greatest yet only one with the power to undo and tumble down the very lives affiliated with it. The containment of the unwanted child was the very foundation that held everything together, and as long as nobody outside of the inner circle of the secrets' holders looked too closely into things, it'd surely remain that way. A one-way ticket to the American Dream.

At least, it was supposed to be the American Dream.

All that, all the promised riches they were guaranteed suddenly felt like it was slipping away. Forsaken and forfeited just like that.

No, not like that. Not simply just like that. There was still time to get off his ass and go searching for that girl while the trail was still warm and fresh. It had only been three days yet, but Lincoln believed her to be within the radius of seventy miles in any which way from the institution, perhaps less than that if he were lucky. "Fucking hell..." He finished up what was left of his cigarette, plucked the butt out from his lips and crushed it and the spark it had under his workplace shoe. The day had been going well right before the call. Now here he was, sitting in his Ford Ranger 2020 once his smoke session had finished, starting the engine to begin his untimely journey.

First, he had to get home and have to tell his family an emergency had occurred, an inconvenient one that had to pull him away from his wife and child. The missus would understand, but the child was another matter. Lincoln's daughter was still growing, and in the time that she continued to age, Lincoln knew he could not miss even one second of it; she was never going to age in reverse, there were no rewinds, and theses mere minutes of her childhood were the most golden and precious; every single moment he shared with his family were the best damn ones in his life, of which he could not ever even think of losing.

Fifteen blocks and seven turns later, he returned to his house, pulling up to the curbside parking after noticing the vehicle his wife owned taking up the driveway spot. I wonder why she's home early...

The bad feeling didn't give way until his key entered the knob's hole, and ever so slowly he turned as he heard a pair of faint, muffled voices through the door. He turned the knob and pushed the door lightly, not moving until he looked inside. "I'm home!"

Now

"Oh, looks like your father is here!" Lynn stood up and sped out of the kitchen to the living room. "Welcome home, honey!"

But it was not Lincoln who had just arrived, but a completely different man; this man, a looming six-footer with a slender yet fit body and a light tan skin. His face features were normal; his eyes were an olive green shade of warmth and comfort if you stared them down long enough to become more than a pair of eyes. His hair was short but combed handsomely slicked back. If anything, he seemed to be the closest thing to a perfect Chris Pine doppelganger. "I'm here, are you two okay?"

"I'm- Yes, we both are!"

"Good, where's -?"

"She's at the table, I think we should tell her everything..."

Not-Chris Pine agreed with reluctance, nodding as his wife led him to the dinner table. "I guess we'll have to..."

Elsewhere

Lincoln Loud was met with a sharp slap from his wife seconds after he had looked inside, yet remained nonverbal and empty.

"You... You son of a bitch, you said this was foolproof... You said-"

Lincoln sighed, rubbing his struck cheek about as he stepped in and kicked the door shut behind him. "She called you too?"

"Did you think she wouldn't or something?!" Again, the Mexican woman acted to slap her husband again, but had her hand blocked before hitting face. "Let go of me! Damn you, Lincoln! Go out and fix this mess before she brings about any attention. For all we know, she might have had the police called on her! Do you think a girl with no home will go unnoticed?! Huh?"

"I'm going, Ronnie Anne, I'm going, okay?" Lincoln promised. "I'll take care of everything before anyone else gets the call. I don't need the others freaking out... I can't believe it took this long to find out..."

"I saved you the trouble of packing for you, I know it's gonna take you some days to find her."

Lincoln rubbed his eyes. "Thanks-"

Ronnie Anne sniffed him, then stepped back. "You promised no more of those lung sticks! Oh my God, what the hell am I gonna do with you? Estas loco o que vergas?"

"I'm going, woman!"

"And don't worry about us, we'll be just fine! I'll tell Liby something, but just know she'll miss you while you're gone... So don't take long."

He made his way to the bedroom to grab his packed luggage. "I'll be fast, count on it."

"You'd better be..." Ronnie Anne followed him. "If you ask me, that girl should not have been allowed to live. Why did your sister not go through with the abortion like she wanted?"

"Couldn't say," the man quickly answered, picking up his stuff. "I'm off now."

"Good luck to you, and don't fuck this up, this means everything!"

"I know, I know..." Again did he feel like having another smoke, and he would have it after he was far enough away from her and this damned house. And not only for that, but for how greatly this situation had inconvenienced him and his family and everything they've laid on the line. But Ronnie Anne had a point; this nuisance of a girl was better off having never been born to begin with. And then some.

Once he finished loading up, he took out his phone and dialed the contact who informed him of the lost girl. When it picked up, he wasted no time to get to the point, "I need a photo or something. I don't know what this girl looks like right now."

"I'll send you a pic shortly. Goodbye." The contact hung up right away.

He got into his truck again and inserted the key into the ignition just as his phone made a ping sound, notifying him the image had come through. And he was starstruck to see a side view of young Estelle from a distance. She- she has my hair...

And it was rather strange of him to see her this way, an entirely new way he had not ever done so. This girl carried his blood and being in her, and who else could know what else she inherited from him? For the first time, he was really looking at another of his own offspring, feeling a warmth blossom from inside. And yet, she remained to be a thing that he had to be rid of in the end. "Oh, man...

The question remained; what was it that he had to do when he got his hands on her? What was to become of her? And what of him?

The hunt for wee Lupa/Estelle is just starting, but will the father of these young girls succeed in tracking her down? And who is the caller who had kept tabs on the orphan girls? And what is the connection, nay the big secret that binds them all in this dark web made up of deception, lies and tragedy that has yet to be exposed into the light? Find out all this and more next time on-