Chapter 38 Help me
COURTNEY
My eyes remained half opened while blinking back the liquid, falling from my eyes every damn second.
Perharp, it was because I'd been glued to my phone for the past two days, simply waiting for any notification since my brilliant idea of posting the CCTV picture of Ryker was executed.
“I hope you know you're setting yourself up to be a blind, old woman in the nearest future”, Tyler said, jumping beside me in my bed while Leah took the other spot.
Reluctantly putting the phone away from my face, I groaned out loud, feeling the frustration well up in my throat.
Should it be this hard? How could more than a billion people all over the world on social media not know him?
This was beginning to look shady and frankly, scary to me as well.
I hugged the kids to myself reassuringly.
We all sighed wearily, staring into the empty space in front of us.
God! I hope she came back soon. I was beginning to run out of hope.
“I know she will”, Leah replied like she read my thoughts. “I'd never believe what Uncle Lucas said about her”.
My expression instantly turned sour as I remembered what the kids had recounted to me when they came back from their outing with Lucas.
My first thought was to leave him a long voicemail, raining insults on him for being a heartless human to the kids, but I'd realised it'd be useless anyway. It wasn't going to change the kind of person he was or what the situation had turned him into.
“Yeah he's a coward”, I breathed out, agreeing with Leah.
Seven days. There was still not a single notification that raised my hopes, even a little.
I paced worriedly around the living room with my phone barely an inch away from my face.
Leah and Tyler followed my movements with their eyes like I was a freaking piece of entertainment. But somewhere underneath those gazes was a faint trace of hope.
My phone rang
The kids jerked on the couch while I froze on a spot, bringing the phone to my ears. “Hello?”
“Courtney?” It was my mum's voice. “Finally you answered your phone. I thought you'd changed numbers or something”
I felt my soul deflate in a second, causing me to gnaw with impatience, so I remained quiet, waiting for her to state her never surprising reasons for calling me.
“Sweetheart I know you can hear me”, she persisted. “Don't you want to talk to your mother?” She asked, aiming for a familiar tactic which wouldn't work, not this time.
“Say what you want mom” I gritted, itching to hang up on her.
“Okay okay fine”, she said resignedly, “Have you heard from your brother lately?”
I sneered silently, my eyes growing colder. “I won't tell you again mom” I warned, already at the end of my rope. Just how low could she go for her beloved husband and son?
“Uh–uh, you know, you and your brother are all I have and—”
“Cut the bullshit mom!” I screamed, only realising that after the gasps from Tyler and Leah.
“Your brother was arrested!”, she yelled back.
“I didn't find out until just a few minutes ago, and he's been in there for a week now. Please, you're the only one who can help him. Irregardless of your past grievances, you wouldn't wish him the worst, right?”
I sucked in some air with my eyes tightly shut and reminded myself that I was above all of this now. “Whatever mom, I can't bail him out of prison. Besides, don't you think I don't know you’ve visited him thrice now? so I'm pretty sure you can save him, too. You're his mother after all, right?”
A satisfied grin formed on my lips at the silence that followed and the beep that came right after.
“Wasn't what we expected," I turned to the children, waving my phone.
However, they only remained silent, giving me suspicious looks.
Getting nothing from them, I went to my room, hoping to clear my head, but a thought struck me like a lightbulb had been turned on in my head.
Taking out my phone, I made another phone call as fast as I could. “Is this the police station?”.
I scrunched up my nose in disgust. This place smells funny.
I approached the deadbeat apartment, looking like it could collapse if you weighed more than a certain kilogram.
Confirming that it was indeed 12B written on the door, I knocked twice, trying to steady my racing heart. While I'd not set eyes again on my parents since I left home, which was about seven years now, it had been almost ten years since I saw my brother.
Despite how he lived with my parents until I'd left, somehow I managed to have avoided him for three whole years. I still have no idea how I managed to pull that off, but I guess I was just as worthless and invisible to him as my parents.
Pfftt. Who am I kidding? I was — I still am, I guess.
“Down to earth, Courtney”
I blinked back to reality, realising I'd zoned out at some point, and my brother was right in front of me, giving me nothing more than his usual irritated look.
My lips parted, but there were no words coming out.
He noticed that and turned back around, going inside with an hiss.
“There's no place for your bastards in case that's your intended request”, he said, plopping on a chair distractedly.
My eyes widened in shock.
Taking a deep breath in and out, I snapped at him like I'd never done before. “They're not bastards and I'd rather stay out in the cold with them than bring them to this... place. Besides, how did you know?"
He shrugged and kept mute.
"You're going to help me find their mother."
“What?” Scott fumed, “I never agreed to that”.
“Of course you did when I paid for your bail. So you owe me! And if you don't, it's enough grounds for you to go back into the cell” I threatened.
He stared at me unblinking, then scoffed and turned his gaze away from me, "What do you want?” he asked, moving to his desk.
“This”, I slid my phone to his line of sight, showing him the stranger’s picture.
He got to work immediately, leaving me impressed with my decisions. Aside from Scott being an asshole of a brother I hated deeply, he was also one of the top hackers in the entire country.
Yet he chose to remain anonymous, squandering his money on meaningless things.
“There's no record of him at all”, he whispered, straining at his monitor screen. “It's like he doesn't exist at all”.
My heart dropped into my stomach, finally face to face with my worst fears. If Scott couldn't even trace this man, that meant this man was more powerful than her and Zora was truly fucked.