APtCH: Chapter 3

It was now October 28th, Eddy's fifteenth birthday! He told everyone that he did not have anything planned, but at least wanted his friends to hang out at his house later that afternoon. But right now, the morning sun was shining down on the little town of Peach Creek, even with the morning being so cold with November coming closer and closer.

We soon zoomed in on a car being driven down the street, heading towards the police station nearby. Inside the car was Double D and his parents along with Jennifer. They were heading towards the station to meet up with Double D's real father. Serena and Matthew stayed back home instead of joining them, mainly because Serena was in one of her lazy day moments where she did not want to get out of bed from being so tired. Matthew decided to stay behind because he felt like things would be too awkward if he or Serena went. Their mother and father were the ones that kidnapped his fiancé all those years ago, and they did not want him to hold some sort of grudge at them for being their kids, despite them now living with Double D and his parents as family.

Double D could feel himself starting to panic as he saw the police station in his sights. Jennifer could see his hand starting to shake. She went to hold his left hand tightly, "I-It's going to be okay."

Double D looked at her and smiled, trying to calm back down, "I know…"

They soon parked in a spot that was usually for visiting officers from other stations, getting out of the car after they did. They walked towards the building, heading inside to the secretary at the front desk, telling her what they were there for.

"Oh right! Mr. Wells told me you two would visit today," the secretary gasped before gesturing to the direction of Mr. Wells's office, "He wants you to meet with him at his office."

"Thank you," Aiden stated to the desk lady as the four of them walked to the head detective's office.

Double D could feel his heart beating faster and faster with nervousness again as they approached the door to the office.

Wendy knocked on his door to let him know they were there before Mr. Wells opened it for them, "Hello Mr. Wells."

"Ah! There you two are," Mr. Wells greeted as he let them in. He noticed that both Double D and Jennifer were with them, "Your father is in the room next to me, which is my personal space for long nights. Please take as much time as you need Eddward, okay?"

Double D gulped a little, "Y-Yes sir…"

His parents were the first ones to enter the room followed by Double D and Jennifer, with Double D hiding a little by standing behind his adopted dad. They could see a man sitting on the couch in the room, looking at his cell phone for a moment to pass the time. The man had short light brown hair and bright green eyes; the same hue as Double D's eyes, you could instantly tell they were related based on some of their facial features. He was wearing a blue polo shirt, some light brown pants, and brown shoes.

"Vincent Peters, I assume?" Wendy started to as she came up to the man.

The man named Vincent looked up from his phone to see the two adults approaching him, "Yes, that's me."

Vincent could see that the adults were not the only ones in the room, he could see a teenage girl and a teen boy that was hiding behind the other man in the room.

"I was told that there was some news I needed to know about. And, since you made me come back here you Peach Creek…" Vincent started to say with a bit of hesitation, "Is it an update about Erica? Did you finally find out where she went?"

Aiden and Wendy looked at each other for a second; they could tell he was not comfortable talking about what happened fifteen years ago, "Yes, we did."

That was when Double D found the courage to step out from behind his adopted father so he could be seen by the man in front of them. Vincent looked at him for a moment before remembering something, "Oh, isn't he one of the three boys that were on the news a few months ago in July? I recognize your hat," he stated, not really picking up on what was going on just yet, "I remember reading a web article about that incident on my phone. It was all over the local news at the time."

"Yes…" Aiden started to say, "He's our adopted son, Eddward."

It was when he heard the boy's name and looked back at him that Vincent started to widen his eyes in shock, realizing something he had not noticed until now; the color of the boy's hair (or what could be seen of it with his beanie on) was the same as Erica's, and even looked like her a bit, but looked more so like him.

Double D started to walk closer to him a little nervously, "Umm, h-hello, sir… I-I'm uh—"

Vincent hopped off the couch to approach Double D, giving him a tight hug, "I-I can't believe this! Y-You're Erica's son; my son! You're alive!" he said with tears in his eyes.

Double D felt a little awkward for a short moment before hugging him back, trying to comfort Vincent in some way. Both father and son were finally reunited.

After they separated from their hug, Aiden and Wendy began to explain to Vincent how they found his son when he was only six, along with describing the incident that made international news a few months ago. The culprits behind that case were the ones who kidnapped Erica fifteen years ago. She died giving birth to Eddward two months after they kidnapped her, and the culprits kept and raised Eddward to use him for experiments.

Vincent was clearly shaken by what they told him, "I-I see…" he started to say in a sad tone, "So that was the reason I could never find her…" he closed his eyes, "I've always thought that was the case when the people she was working for also vanished. B-But I didn't think she had died… At least I know my son is alive now, that gives me some comfort."

"We are so sorry about this, Mr. Peters," Aiden started to say to him, "We investigated and found you and your fiancé's name after we rescued your son. We wanted to tell you for many years, but we decided against it when we noticed Eddward started to forget what happened back then. We did not want him to remember that place again and for him to continue living a normal life away from that."

"Don't worry, I understand your reasons now," Vincent replied.

"After we finally arrested the culprits for good, we took in their twins as our own," Wendy continued to explain, "All three of them were very close back then, so it felt wrong for them to not be with Eddward as a family. They are all good kids, and the twins are absolutely nothing like their parents. And, besides us wanting to give you an update on this case…" she gestured to Double D, "Eddward also wanted to know more about both you and his mother since he finally remembers and knows the truth."

Jennifer was quiet as they told him about the other reason for this meeting. She glanced back to Double D, only to see him still acting a little nervous about the situation.

Vincent could only smile as he looked to Eddward, "I see. What do you want to know first?"

Double D could now feel himself starting to become less nervous. Even though he was the one who requested this meetup, Double D also started to doubt himself if he wanted to meet his real father or not. What if he was a bad person? What if he did not care at all? Would he start to get mad with them about the news? But now, he was getting the feeling that his real dad was a good person; at least that was the impression he was getting so far.

They talked for a very long time to each other about a few things; about what his mother was like when she was alive, as well as how the two of them met back then. Vincent and Erica were high school friends who met back up later in their lives, falling in love with each other. Vincent said she was a very kind and loving woman who always tried to help others, even if they did not want any help. A few months after proposing to her to be his wife, they learned that she was pregnant with his child; they were both ecstatic to learn the news and, once they found out their child would be a boy, she was the one who wanted to name him Edward. But then, as everyone knows by now, Erica went missing when she was seven months pregnant with him. At first, Vincent thought she had run away for some reason, starting to wonder to himself if he had done something wrong to make her upset. But then he learned that the people she was assisting at her job also went missing, along with the experimental drug they were working on. He had a feeling all of this was connected somehow but did not really have that much proof or evidence to confirm or deny that they were the ones that took her away; at least from what he could find out on his own. He then spent a few years trying to find Erica but could never find her or his son.

"… It was a few months after I gave up looking for your mother that I met another woman. Her name was Sheryl Bosch, she was a very good friend of Erica from her college days."

Double D widened his eyes at him, already seeing where this was going.

"We were both sad about Erica's disappearance, of course, but then we started to hang out more before realizing we were in love with each other," Vincent lowered his head a little, "I did feel extremely guilty at the time, but at that point, I had a feeling Erica would never come back, so we eventually got married."

He then took out his cell phone and unlocked it to show Double D and everyone else something. It was a recent picture he took of himself and his family; his wife and two kids were having a picnic in the picture, "This is a picture of Sheryl and our two kids; Felix and Ashley. They are currently 12 and 9 years old."

"Oh. S-So I…" Double D muttered a little in disbelief, "I have a younger brother and sister?"

Vincent nodded his head, "Yes, they are your half-siblings."

He then looked back to his cell phone and searched for something else before showing it to Double D. It was a picture of Erica before she was pregnant, she was smiling at the camera and making a peace sign. You could tell it was an old photo that was scanned to a computer to preserve it, so he could always have it on him. She really did resemble Double D a little bit, but it was mostly the hair color that was the same between them.

"This is Erica, and I still do miss her a lot," Vincent sighed a little before continuing, "But now that I know for sure that she's gone and you're still alive, it kind of puts me at ease to know all of this has finally been solved, and that the ones who did this to her are behind bars for good. Thank you for telling me."

"It's no problem, Mr. Peters," Aiden stated to him, "If there's anything else you want to know about, or if you want to talk with Eddward more, we can give you our numbers if you wish."

Vincent nodded his head, "I would like that, yes."

While Vincent and his parents were talking to each other, Double D and Jennifer continued to sit next to each other on the couch. Jennifer could see that Double D was not nervous anymore, "A-Are you feeling better?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm feeling a lot better," Double D stated as he made a sigh of relief, "Before we got here, I was starting to get worried that something about the meeting would go wrong, but that did not happen."

"That's good to hear," Jennifer replied with a smile.

The two teens could hear some of the conversations the adults were having. Double D's parents asked Vincent if he and his family would want to join their neighborhood in celebrating Halloween in a few days. He said he would love to; their house was in a rural area with not many neighbors, so they usually would go to other neighborhoods further away to trick or treat, "I guess we could do our trick or treating here this year," Vincent said.

"Did you hear that, Eddward?" Jennifer gasped, "It looks like you might meet your younger brother and sister later this week!"

Double D stayed silent for a second before making a chuckle, "Now I wonder what Serena and Matthew would think about this. I hope they won't get jealous."

"I don't think they will," Jennifer said with a little laugh, "If anything, they would be happy to know that you have more family; and maybe even become their friends."

The three adults came back over to the two teens, "We're back now."

Vincent looked at Jennifer sitting next to Double D, noticing some of her mannerisms and the fact she was not really making any eye contact with everyone, "I just realized I never got your name, young lady."

"H-Huh? Me?" Jennifer asked in surprise, glancing over to him, "I'm, umm… My name's Jennifer," she started to rock a little from where she was sitting, "I-I'm Eddward's, umm… Girlfriend."

"Ah, okay," Vincent stated before asking, "I hope you don't mind me asking this, but are you on the spectrum?"

Both Double D and Jennifer widened their eyes a little, "Y-Yes sir, I am," Jennifer replied.

"I see," Vincent stated before making a smile, "You see, I recently became a teacher at Oak Valley High School at the start of this school year, and one of the things that every teacher nowadays is trained to do is to spot things like this; to help us be informed about the subject and to help out any students with the condition," he then walked over to the two teens to sit down next to them, "But that's not the only reason I know. My son Felix is also on the spectrum, he was diagnosed with it around this time about a year ago. You both have the same issue of not making eye contact with anyone you talk to, though you seem to be shyer than he is about it."

Jennifer was very surprised to hear this, "R-Really?"

He nodded his head, "I think you should meet him one day; it could help him out if he met someone else with it. He's been feeling a bit down since the start of the school year when he noticed not many kids were talking to him anymore."

"… I-I know how that feels," Jennifer muttered to herself, "It's one of the worst feelings in the world," she looked back to Vincent, "I guess I can try to help."

Everyone in Mr. Wells's resting place soon left the room, approaching the head detective who was sitting at his desk, "I assume you are all finished for now?" he asked.

"Yes sir," Wendy replied to him, "Thank you for letting us use your office for this."

"It's no problem!"

The group then proceeded to leave the police station, parting ways so that Vincent could go home to his family and tell them about the news he learned.

Author's Note (October 16th, 2023): Yay! Another chapter down, and a few more to go! Not much to say here this time, so stay tuned for the next chapter!