Humming, a woman set about cleaning her home, dusting everything from the awards on the walls while making sure the pictures were straight.
Checking the clock, the woman continued tending the house waiting for the arrival of her daughter, she should've been back from the museum within the hour or two.
Coming towards the banister, she looked down to see a shadow coming from the front door before it went into the den.
Hoisting her violet dress up, she descends the staircase as she calls out, "Taylor, is that you?"
Entering the den, she stopped as she saw a woman sitting in the chair with a look on her face.
With an unfriendly smile, she greets her, "Hello, Missy."
Air trapped in her throat, Missy struggled as the memories hit her like a freight train, "You."
Relaxing in the plump chair, the woman chuckles with a mocking tone, "You remembered me, how sweet."
Coming towards her, Missy demands, "How did you find me?"
She watched as the woman chuckled, her brown curly hair stiffly moving while she shook her head.
"He always said you were too easy to read. Now, where is it?" the woman became serious at the end as she leered at the Missy.
Shrugging, Missy gestures as she answers, "I don't know what you're talking about. He loses things all the time."
Tilting her head, the woman didn't let up as she pointed out, "Now, why don't I believe you? Come now, Missy, we both know your penchant for lying. Don't you remember, hm?"
She watched Missy silently react as the implications came back to her.
"Why did you take it, hm, was it the guilt? Hormones? You didn't take it because you cared about it, did you?" The woman called out Missy's transgression as she sat across from her, watching as she loosened her collar as it tightened around her neck.
Chuckling, the woman musters, "Funny, that. He gave it a name, then you. So special, that!"
Unable to lie, Missy chewed on her burgundy lip before asking, "Why are you here? You should've been in containment after you failed."
A hand under her chin, the woman smiles as she answers, "Oh, you're not that green, Missy. You know why."
Her heart in her throat, Missy wildly gestures as she attempts to dissuade the woman, "You leave her alone!"
It amused the woman seeing Missy react with such ferocity that she saw the woman laughing at this.
"You know, it's funny. Thebitchhad a heart, after all!" The woman rubbed her mouth before putting her leg over the other as she watched Missy attentively.
Recalling her earliest memories, the woman talked about them, "Where was this heart, Missy? When you…gaveme to him… did you know what he was going to do?"
The implications severe, Missy weakly gestures as she states, "You had pneumonia, he was theonlyone to cure you!"
She didn't have the medical expertise to properly treat the woman when she was a child, it was a miracle she survived her bout.
Hearing the sob story, the woman mocked her.
"All my screaming. And you never came. Only when it was time for medicine. But you never came forme," the woman shot an angry glare at Missy.
Her pleas, her screams, her tears, the pain too much to bear, but Missy, nowhere in sight, left her to her fate.
When she was deemed a failure and put into containment, not once did Missy plea for her, she merely stood by and watched.
"I'd scream for you at night when he wasn't there, but you'd ignore me. You treated me like I wasn't there. Was it because you didn't want him to do the same thing to you?" The woman gestures as she speculates what Missy was thinking at the time.
Nearly chewing her lip raw and bloody, Missy stressed that she did everything she could, but she was limited in what she can do, she never got a moment with the woman, alone.
It was more entertaining watching Missy try to talk her way out of this that it made the woman laugh at the attempts.
"Do you even remember my name?" The woman beckoned Missy to recollect thoughts about her when she was a child.
Ever since that chance meeting, the woman was incapable of remembering her own name, and it's been years since she had a chance to hear it.
Shaking her head, Missy admits that she'd forgotten it, stirring anger in the woman as she mocked, "Had I succeeded, you'd rememberthatname, wouldn't you?"
Her eyes subtly turning to the clock, Missy begged her, "He's dead, isn't he, I heard it. He'sdead. You don'thaveto do this!"
Crossing her arms, the woman goes, "That's where you're wrong, Missy. It'snotover. Mission: reclaim the child. All other priorities rescinded."
She was getting that child, one way or another, and Missy knew what she could do, after all, she watched it happen.
The shock as it dawned on Missy what the implications were, as the woman confirmed with a stiff nod.
"Please… forgod'ssake, she'sjusta child!" Missy pleaded with the woman to break the cycle she was under, but she wouldn't.
Smacking the side table with her hand, the woman shouted, "Shut up! You should've thought of that when you left me alone with him. Where is it, where diditgo?"
In her mind, Missy panicked as she tried to come up with strategies, anything to put distance between her and the woman, but it was limited, and she knew she needed to do something before Taylor came back from the museum.
"Your grievances are with me, please. Take me. Kill me. I don't care. Just don't give her to thatthing, please!" Missy begs the woman to put aside her hatred of her for a moment and remember what happened to her would happen to Taylor.
Mockingly, the woman echoes what she said in her own voice before saying, "Doesn't want you back, you're useless. And useless are not worthy to keep, isn't that, right?"
Unable to choke back the tears, Missy panicked as she asks the woman if this would result in Taylor's death.
Shaking her head, the woman made it clear that it was against directive. She would be taken alive. What happens thereafter is dependent on what she would never say.
Eying her, Missy questioned her with, "If you could, you would?"
Seeing the woman think it over, Missy knew the answer before she said it.
"Why shouldn't I? She has a name, a "mother," what didIget after my pain and suffering? A spot in a cold storage. Did you really think this plan of yours would've worked that she wouldn't get curious, did she develop anything that made her curious and go behind your back, hm?" the woman gestures.
Why, she could've easily gotten one of those foolish tests done without Missy knowing, imagine her surprise when she gets the results!
Forcing herself to talk as she notices time slipping away, "He declared you defective after the test found you developed two extra hearts. It was he that placed you in that containment. Him alone. She didn't do anything to you!"
Taylor didn't even know the woman existed, a stranger, she wouldn't know what to say about it.
Standing up, the woman looked off to the side before turning her head towards Missy, declaring that if Missy wasn't going to tell her where Taylor is, then she's going to find the answers herself.
One way, or another.
Seeing Missy drop the act completely and turns into a stone-cold woman that she's familiar with, the woman watched as Missy jumped up from her chair as she tried to fight the woman.
Effortlessly, the woman's fingers turned into elongated silver spikes and drove through her chest within seconds.
Up close, Missy sees the look on her face.
"When you die. You will see your greatest sin," the woman said in a low voice as she saw life disappear from Missy's eyes before dropping her body on the ground in a heap.
Her fingers returned to normal, the woman moved away from the body as her cautious eyes began moving around while trying to find the child.
There were no pictures on the walls with Missy and Taylor, she probably thought this would happen, and ensured that the woman didn't know what the child looked like currently.
She was about to go upstairs when a figure moved, and she held her hand up as she moved towards the kitchen.
Slowly, the woman moved into the kitchen, no point disguising herself as Missy, someone would have heard the arguments in the den.
"Hello…soror…"