It’s time for the truth

(Present)

A sudden thunderclap caused the electricity in the entire area to shut down. Sophie was in the middle of the story when the lights flickered and some unusual noises were coming from the hallway. Sophie stayed up all night enthralled by the story and curious about it. 

It is 6 in the morning. She runs towards the window to open up the curtains so that she can continue reading. Her bedroom door thumps loudly wide open as soon as she gets out of bed. She sees a bright light outside which is burning her eyes. She is not able to see anything.

Sophie stands on the floor and puts her head down covered with her arms so that the light doesn’t hurt her eyes. She did not see or figure anything but could hear the voices of Damien and Diana yelling and pleading to stop and forgive. Light passes through the door and falls upon the book. Sophie sees the book rising in the air, and within a second, the light takes it. The book appears to have been sucked by a light. After five minutes or so when everything settles down, Sophie quietly exits the room. She notices a bunch of people in black suits and ladies in a white gown down in a hallway. Damien and Diana are standing with their eyes down like they had committed some serious muddle and got themselves into trouble. 

A woman comes forward and says, “She was not supposed to know.” Another man with a heavy voice continues, “are you in some kind of relationship with her…. [he pauses] Damien?” Damien doesn’t answer. The man comes forward towards Damien and with his hand, he holds up his chin and makes him look into his eyes. “I asked you something,” says the man. Damien pushes away his hand, “I am not answering you… [turns himself away] I don’t answer anyone.” The man smiles and moves away from him. A woman is holding the book against her chest and approaches Diana. “Your brother does not think straight whenever he is angry and now it seems like he is falling in love with the little girl upstairs in his room… [She pauses] it is looking like history is repeating but we cannot let this happen, can we?” she exclaims and moves towards Damien. 

“I know and I am not falling for anyone. Apparently, she was attacked and she has already begun sensing and feeling things. She is different, she remembers the attack, unlike other humans. I had to make her understand so that she doesn’t tell anything to anyone,” Damien explains. 

Damien takes a pause and rolls his eyes at everyone in the room except Sophie who was peeking through the railing eavesdropping. Damien continues, “sometimes I feel that she is something, like us or maybe different but not any normal human.” 

A woman walks away from everyone towards the window. She pulls off the curtain and looks outside. “What is she doing here in Bufford anyway, here in Park Place?”

Diana replies, “she lives here.” 

A woman points out and asks, “Is that her house?” 

Damien and Diana look at each other and say nothing. Everyone stands quiet for a moment looking at each other. Diana and Demien have no clue, they did not know exactly what was the issue. A woman smiles and says, “well, no wonder she is behaving differently or is connected with you. She is a part of the family after all.” 

Those sentences left Sophie high and dry, again piling her mind with even more questions. Not only Sophie but Damien and Diana did not know anything about what the woman said. Before Damien and Diana could ask another question a woman warns them, “this book is not safe here, I am taking it with me and you guys if you want to stay in this world, you younger ones need to follow some rules.” All of them leave the house.

Sophie runs inside the room and slams the door behind her. Damien hears the knock, he looks upstairs confused and looks outside towards his people leaving. Diana is locking the door; “Damien…,” she says. Before she could complete her sentence Damien shouts at her, “Diana not now, I know you have several questions, so do I. At the moment we need to protect Sophie since she is familiar with everything.” 

“What do you mean?” Diana asks. 

“I heard the door slam upstairs, I will go and check on her,” Damien says. 

Damien knocks on the door. Sophie is sitting on a settee with her legs folded against her chest glaring outside the window. Her hair is waved as thin air touches her cheeks. Damien stands at the door, looking lovingly at her. He walks towards her and settles down beside her. Sophie looks at him. “I wanted to finish it,” she says. 

Damien peers at her with his eyes wide open, “you were up the whole night reading the book?” he asks. Sophie nods her head, “yes, I was. I wanted to know everything about you, where you come from, and the lady in the book, June… she seems so warm and like my own.” Listening to her, Damien all of a sudden remembers what a woman told him about Sophie being a part of their world. 

“I heard,” Sophie tells him. Damien gets obscured, “Wait, what?” 

Sophie continues, “I heard everything. I mean I was outside, I didn’t mean to overhear but they were loud and clear, I could not stop.” Damien tries to hold his anger in and breathes heavily, “yes, you were not supposed to listen but I promise you even I do not know what she said and what she meant. But, I can tell you that no matter what, I will keep you safe.” Sophie smiles and gets closer. She holds his hands and says, “I believe in you. I trust you more than anything. [she pauses] I want to know the truth, all of it.” Damien tries to keep his emotions together but loses it after hearing her and looking into her deep sleepy eyes. He holds her face and says, “I promise that I will tell you everything once I find out the whole truth.” There is complete silence for a moment and they could hear each other breathing. Damien holds her face gently as he kisses her temples. They are looking into each other’s eyes. Damien embraces her into his arms and picks her up to the bed. He puts her on the bed, Sophie looks into his eyes, “I…” she speaks softly and stops. Damien gazes at her with sensations that he never thought would ever develop. He wants to kiss her but decides to hold that thought. 

“You need to sleep right now since you haven’t slept at all,” he says. 

Within no time Sophie slides into a deep sleep holding Damien’s hands. Damien falls asleep beside her in a sitting position. 

 

Meanwhile, a woman knits thoughts to keep them apart. She walks to the man and says, “I cannot let this happen all over again. It was crystal clear that any connection with the family could ruin us.” 

The man replies, “You can take care of this, we are sure of that.” 

Later that evening, Sophie is awake and finds herself wrapped around Damien’s arms upon his chest. She can hear the heartbeat clearly. Very slowly she gets herself out from under his arms, looks up at Damien’s adorable sleeping face like one of those cute infants. She does not want him to wake up so quietly she makes her way out of the room. She has thousands of questions and is aware that none of her friends could help her. 

While she is stepping down the stairs, she looks at her phone. “Oh no mom was calling,” she says and dials her mom that very moment. Her mother picks up the call instantly as if she was on her phone waiting for a call. “Hello, is it Sophie?” her mother asks in a worried tone. “Yes mom, I am sorry we were up the whole night,” she says, thinking about what to tell her mom that she was doing. If she tells her that she was reading Damien’s family history, she would ask about it. There are already so many things running through her mind that she doesn’t want anything else coming up related to the book and a story, so she instantly without thinking a lot about it replies, “we all were chatting, sharing pasts, and discussing future and all that mom.”  

“Have you been taking proper care of yourself?” she asks. 

Sophie smiles and says, “Mom, I am feeling very well, and if you are home I am coming home.”

“Oh no sweetie, I am not home. I had to stay here. It’s been a long long day. I am heading home in like the next 5 minutes,” her mom replies. Sophie hung up the phone asking her mom to come as soon as she could because she was missing her. 

Sophie looks up at the room and wants to go back to Damien. Her thoughts get interrupted by a voice calling out her name, “Sophie?”

She looks back and sees Diane standing at a distance. Diane comes closer, holds Sophie’s hand, and inquires whether she was doing alright. 

“I am okay, don’t worry,” Sophie says. [pause] “By the way, who were those bunch of people?” Sophie asks. 

Diane’s happy look becomes unsettling. She faces the other side, leaving Sophie’s hands.

“They are not my favorite people but they are one of us. They take care that we are staying within our limits and that we are not making any human friends… [pause] close friends” says Diane, looking at Sophie. Sophie closes her eyes, “Bullshit.” She walks towards Diane and holds her from her shoulders, “look no matter what happens nobody can stop me from being a friend with you… [pause] close friends,” Sophie says. 

Diane smiles and hugs her. “You don’t understand these people are very dangerous,” she says. Sophie looks at her and asks, “So you are giving up now? You do not want to be my friend now?” 

Diane takes a deep breath and replies, “no I am your friend, nobody is unfriending no one. All I am saying is, I do not want you to be in any danger so it is better if they don’t notice.”

Sophie looks away like she is thinking about something. Diane asks, “what’s wrong, what are you thinking?”

Sophie looks around and says, “I wonder what that lady meant by saying I was part of the family.” 

Diane did not think about that at all. That one sentence the lady mentioned left a big question mark. This was not only for Sophie to whom this whole thing was like a nightmare but also for Damien and Diane. 

Sophie hears Damien’s voice, “Sophie?” Sophie could feel butterflies in her tummy. “Can we talk?” Damien asks in her deep emotional voice. Diane looks at him from head to toe and asks, “What is wrong with you, what is wrong with your battery today?” Sophie raises her eyes in response to the question and turns to Damien and smiles. “Yes Damien, you do not look as fresh today as you used to,” she says. 

Diane giggles; “Well I will leave you two by yourselves and see you later at the campus I guess,” Diana says. While passing Damien she very lightly punches him in his tummy and winks, “get charged up you, monkey.” Damien laughs; “Oh I am all charged,” he says. 

Damien smiles a tad and turns himself towards Sophie. Damien is coming closer to her, and Sophie is experiencing heat around her which is giving her ticklish sensations. Damien holds her chin up, looks into her eyes, and says, “Are you sure you want to do this?” 

Sophie looks confused; “This…this what?” she asks.

 Damien replies, “about going down the road with us, I mean you don’t have to.”

Sophie has so many questions, so many feelings, but right now all she wants is to be with Damien. She instantly replies, “Damien, I do not have to think about this. I mean I would not have been there with you guys in the first place. I love being around you. I feel happy, protected, and completely safe around you. I trust you.”

‘I trust you’ are enough words for him. He cups Sophie’s face and brings her closer, “I will be with you always. I have never felt this way with anyone the way I do when I am with you. [Pause] I feel so complete.” Sophie is on top of the world at that moment, she is so happy. 

Nothing was stopping them, they both wanted to be with each other. Damien has seen her support and Sophie has seen his care. They kiss without thinking or waiting for another second. They did not want to stop but unfortunately, they had to because somebody intervened by knocking on the front door. Damien kisses her hand and walks towards the door. “Mom” Sophie shouts. She is at the door. Sophie runs to her and hugs her tight. “How is my baby?” the mother asks.

To Sophie, she felt like she had achieved everything. But still, there were so many things bothering her. Why was she not supposed to know about their history, why would the lady say she was a part of the story in that book and therefore, the part of their kind, why do Damien and Diane don’t know about it, why would their people keep it from them? All these things revolved around her mind, but Damien’s embrace took over those thoughts. 

While she is walking back home with her mother, she looks back towards Damien who is standing by the door looking at her. She throws him a kiss and very softly says, “I am with you babe, it’s time for the truth that we shall find out together.” 

It is dark so her mother did not quite catch what happened. She looks back at Sophie and Damien; “What is it baby, did you want something?” she asks.

Sophie runs to her mother smiling at her and holds her hand, “No mum nothing, let’s go.”

Those questions of whats and whys must be circling in your mind as well. Let’s continue reading to find out.