Chapter Twenty Seven: "Second Reality"

Karla Smith.

Alex's words bounce around inside my head destroying everything in their path. My gaze continues in the small mirror in which those strange colors are still reflected. I sigh wearily, irritation welling up inside of me.

Why couldn't he leave me alone?

"Why are you telling me all this, Alex?" My tone of voice, calm yet angry at the same time, surprises us both.

A few seconds of silence follow my words and I repeat the same thing joining my gaze with his. Alex opens and closes his mouth undecided what to say next and I sigh in defeat.

"There's a reason I play stupid, Alex." I cross my arms. "And I think we both know that reason."

He frowns and his back touches the back of the seat, his gaze fixed beyond the steering wheel. He looks defeated, tired. And there's a part of me that doesn't care at all. I let out a tired sight.

"I know very well what Aradia does." My gaze focuses on anything but him.

"I don't believe you," he whispers. "Since when do you know?"

"From the beginning."

More silence.

“I allow it. I let her free from time to time because she doesn't cause enough damage to prevent her from being locked up.” I adjust better in the seat. "When things have gotten out of hand for her I have always put her back to sleep. And I always try to make it look like the idea was hers."

I look again at those colored eyes that I like so much and what I see in them hurts me. I know my words are hurting him, but I've reached a point in life where I'm sick of lying, of lying to him.

“Many times when I let her out of her, or she ended up out of the cage by herself because I was weaker or tired of being in charge of her, I feel free from her, Alex. It is the only moment in which I can rest, in which I stop worrying about others and myself."

A sad smile forms on my face.

"I'm sorry, but I'm very comfortable dealing with things the way I'm dealing with them now."

Alex sighs again and it takes him a few seconds to speak, which seems to take forever to me.

"Karla."

He just says my name and the way he does it hurts me. I'm sure in his mind he's looking for a way to tell me what he's thinking. And it's understandable, I didn't even think I'd be telling him all this, I didn't think I would be honest with him, I didn't think I would reveal myself so soon.

A small laugh catches my attention and I can see the disbelief, the anger in that action.

"I can't believe you've played with our emotions —again a pause—, with mine."

He takes a deep breath to continue his speech and his voice rises with each word.

"When they told me the plan you supposedly had, I thought you had lost your mind. Something must have been very wrong in your head to want to lock your sister in a cage in a shared mind and that in order not to bear the emotional pain that this caused you, you reset your life and started a new life in another city, with a different name."

The contempt of his look of him, of his words of him... My chest hurts and the feel of crying overwhelms me.

"But what you just told me is even worse, Karla. The worst thing is that you are aware of all the double lives you have lived. You are aware of what it has cost us to keep you safe when every black-eyed men try to kill you; when my superiors came to fulfill the mission that I could not fulfill. It's even worse, Karla because you knew. You could have protected yourself and yet you let many die because of you."

His gaze from him becomes more and more cold and distant and I do not know how to stop what I feel.

"You've been alive for centuries and in those eternal years in which you decided to ignore everything around you, thousands died trying to protect the girl from innocent looks and acts. Many betrayed their kind for you; Ethan; Frames; Diana; Adam ; myself, without going any further."

"Alex.

"No," he interrupts me, "don't you dare make excuses or play the victim now, Karla."

I frown at his words from him.

It fucking hurts.

"I just realized how little you care about the people who love you, the same people who helped you when others wanted you dead. Damn, even I was in purgatory for you, damn it."

He runs his hands through his hair messing it up more and rests his head on the steering wheel, closing his eyes shortly after.

"You had it all planned from the beginning, right?"

My silence serves as my answer, and I look down at my lap from him, the guilt I shouldn't feel washing over me.

"Why?"

"I've already told you why."

"No. You have made excuses for your behavior. I want to know why you had to lie to all of us; your family."

I stop playing with my hands and direct my gaze to his, a distressed, tired, and above all angry look.

"Because I could."