Chapter 27

Hattie pushed the door opened as she was greeted by the familiar scent that the room emitted. She walked over to the curtains that hung just by the corner of the room, opening them up for sunlight to penetrate through the darkness that slightly shadowed the room. The bulbs had already gone bad.

The furniture and surfaces appeared a little dusty as a result of  little maintenance. 

"Come in" she ushered in Fay who was still by the balcony. Hattie proceeded into the house, trying to make it to the kitchen. She was greeted by a hanging cobwebs and she cursed in irritation.

"The house surely needs a lot of cleaning" Hattie scratched the back of her head in slight embarrassment by the outcome of the house. 

"I would do that in a moment" Hattie added

"I would help" Fay offered but Hattie frowned at it

"You are still ill" 

"I'm stronger that you think" 

"Of course you are. Don't bother I can manage" Hattie smiled  

"I haven't been here for over 1 month. But the house looks like I abandoned it for over a year"

"You have such a nice place. still" Fay said as if trying to make her feel less embarrassed.

Hattie walked towards the kitchen and she was welcomed by the offensive odour coming from it. She held her nose, squinting her eyes, her stomach churned in disgust. She found the cause of the smell and it was a one month old pasta that was almost liquefied in a pot. She gagged at the sight. She rembered making pasta that afternoon before going for a hair cut at Daphne's. pressing her lips together at the same time holding her breath, she reached for the pot. She was getting rid of both the pot and the pasta. She couldn't imagine herself cooking in a pot that micro organism once partied in. She made her way through the backdoor and disposed everything at the gabbge bin. She returned back and went over to the sitting room where Fay was standing wandering about 

"Come let's get you rested, while I clean up" Hattie addressed Fay 

They both walked to a bedroom. Her house wasn't as big and pleasant as Javier's or Bella's but it was worth calling home. She realised how much she missed the place. How she longed for privacy and self space. Who was she kidding. She loved staying at Javier's place. Even though she felt a little bit anxious or like she was being placed at the top of a cliff, anytime she was close to Javier. The longing feeling to grab him by his tie anytime he was dressed for work. The feeling of wanting to caress her lips against his every time they made eyes contact. She snapped herself from the naughty thoughts in her head.

"Mind you, you would be staying here alone"

"Alone?" Fay sounded amused 

"Yes because i won't be staying here"

"Oh ok" Fay said. Hattie knew that she ached to know the reason. But she probably was being less nosy.

"I'm currently staying at a friend" Hattie said trying to remove questions from Fay mind 

"That's nice"

Hattie stopped In front of the room she intended Fay to stay in. She opened the room door and it didnt look as bad as she had thought it would look. The room was barely used even when she was staying at the house. The door made a creaking sound as she pushed it further. She looked around the room and it was still intact.

"This is where you would be staying" Hattie said making way for Fay to pass through

"It's lovely"

"Try making yourself comfortable" Hattie offered. 

"Have you perhaps stayed by yourself before?"

"I have always been by myself for a long time"

"Am so sorry that you had to go through that"

 " You don't need to"

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Yes I guess, that's the least I owe you"

"Am listening"

***********************

Flash back

"Don't you dare call me mother" Rebecca roared angrily

"Take it easy on the poor girl" Philip said amidst a chuckle. 

"Come on boy" He beckoned on the dog wandering about in sitting room.

"I should have gotten rid of you when I had the chance" Rebecca spat out angrily, adding more gloss to her lips, emitting a darker shade of red 

"Life would have been much easier for me" Rebecca added

"Am sorry" Fay said as hot tears went down her cheek. It stung in pain, slightly bruised from the slap that she had earlier received.

"Your mother should really do the apology for bringing you out. You aren't useful anyway"

"She probably doesn't even know what she had done" Philip said to Rebecca who shot Fay a disgusted glare.

"The girl is just confused as stanley" he said addressing the dog on his thighs

"She doesn't know how much problem she has put us to. You good-for-nothing brat"

Fay just stood there, dumb founder by what was happening. She knew she was given a 'never to step outside' rule, but she did not know that the consequences would be too deep like how it was getting already. She wondered why they were so strict about her going outdoors it's not like she wasn't going to come back anyways. She wondered why they even adopted her if they were going to be so mean and heartless to her. She stood there transfixed at a Spot being lost as ever.

"If as much as anything happens to me because of you, I will hunt you down from my grave"Rebecca said with Venom filled in her voice

"I guess we have to relocate again" Philip suggested 

"But for how long? We wouldn't be in this mess if this little thing just decided to stay at home when we asked her to"

"But do you think they actually saw her?" Philip asked as he continue passing the dog gently in his back.

"Of course they did. It wouldn't take long before they come and do what they had always wanted to do. I shouldn't have taken her in, in the first place"

"Well you had to, it's not like you had a choice anyway?"

"Why did you go outside?" Rebecca snapped at Fay who was still confused by the whole situation.

"Stanley ran out and I went to go get him" Fay  said referring to the dog

"So because of a damn dog, you put our lives in danger?"

"Don't talk about Stanley like that"

"Shut up! old man and let me think. You do not realise how much damage this girl has caused to us right now. If the cartels ever tries to fight us we have no winning hand over it and we will all fall"

"What if the Cartels didn't even see her?"

"Oh please they have been searching, for her for a long time. They definitely have eyes and ears everywhere. Trust me, they know"

"So what should we do?"

"We would have to get rid of her"

"No matter what you are, that is still illegal and I can't bring myself in doing it"

"I wasn't talking about killing her, getting rid of her is different from killing her. Don't you understand that?"

"It's just that you are capable of anything"

Fay felt her heart on her throat as she heard the word, kill. They didn't even bother that she was there. That was how irrelevant she was in that place. They would always treat her with so much disdain. She had never ever felt the feeling of being loved Before. She didn't have a say to whatever they wanted to do to her and she could definitely not voice out or else the consequences would be drastic.

"We would have to leave her behind. Retaining her isn't going to help the matter at all"

"You have a point. I have seriously had enough of her"

"Mother I am sorry for what I did, please don't leave me? I promise to do better and act better I will do what you asked me to do... " She was cut short by a resounding  slap she felt on her cheek. She winced in pain as she felt the impact on her cheek

"You good-for-nothing bastard. begging is not going to solve anything"

"Take it easy with the young girl. you have already done enough" Phillips remarked as he looked at her

Fay wasn't fooled by the act that he displayed. He was just as bad as his wife even horrible. she remember the nights he would come sneaking into her ro harassing her, continuously. She looked at the people that she called parents and she realised that they weren't even the parents figure in her life. They just kept adding to her sufferance, making her life miserable, making her want to end it all. She knew Rebecca wasn't her mother and Rebecca always rubbed it on her face that her mother never wanted her. Rebecca acted as though she knew of her wife mother very well but anytime Fay tried  to ask Rebecca of who her mother was, she would scold her or sometimes raise her hands on her so Fay stop asking the question"

"Now listen young lady, we will be leaving tomorrow morning and we will not be taking you with us"

"Where will I stay" Fay asked already tearing up

"You can actually fend for yourself, you would be 18 in the next two years, taking care of your self won't be a problem. You can stay at the house if you want"

"Where are you going to go to?"

"And who gave you the audacity to ask that question?" Rebecca snapped at Fay

"I'm so sorry but you can't just leave me. How am I going to fend for myself"

"Look young girl. We wouldn't have been in this mess if you had just stayed home like I told you to, in the first place"

"I already told you, Stanley made me go outside"

"Please save, it the deed has already been done"

Just like Fay thoughts, they left the following day despite her begging and pleading for them to take her with them. she knew they cared less about her so her crying and pleading fell on deaf ears. She had always had too many questions all her life but she was too scared to ask. Who were the cartels, why wasn't she allowed to go outside, and why was she treated like she meant nothing in a life, most importantly who was her mother?. Those questions were constant questions she kept asking her herself.

Fay sat on the floor of the sitting-room in anguish as her heart tearing into pieces. The tears just kept rolling down like it have no control. They even put the house for sale so she had to leave. Yeah she was left all alone with nothing but her body that was already empty. She knew it was just her and her self and she had to fend for herself. She had to survive.  She had to prove them wrong. They definitely wanted her dead, they wanted her to suffer but she was going to prove them wrong she was going to try her best to strive in the wicked World.

And fend for herself she did. Working multiple jobs at the same time, she was able to raise enough money that could enable her go to school. she remember the first time she stepped her legs in a school. She had always been schooled online because Rebecca always made sure that she wasn't seen or let anyone see her at all. She being schooled online, made her loose out in all the fun of actually going to school. She remembered how shy she felt as she stepped into the school compound. The way people kept staring at her like she was a foreigner or something. 

"Being that geogous can't be overlooked upon" a friend once said to her.

Working multiple jobs and hardly having anywhere to sleep she landed herself a job at the restaurant where the unfortunate happened and here she was, with Hattie who was the lifesaver of her stress filled life.

"Who are the cartels?" and why were they after you"  Hattie asked

"To be honest I don't know?" Fay answered

 "Rebecca and Phillips always talked about them. They talked about them in fear and from my observations, they were dangerous people"

"What did they want from you?"

"That is one question I keep on asking myself. They never let me step out the door, they never let me have a normal life all because of the cartels. They didn't do it because they wanted to protect me but they wanted to protect their selfish self"

"Any idea where they might be?"

"I stopped worrying about them a long time ago. They actually taught me a lot. They taught me how to be strong and being strong is what I know myself for"

"You are really a strong girl for you to have gone through all this. So you had nowhere to stay for over a year because from your story this clearly happened when you were sixteen right?"

"Yes it happened when I was 16, you could imagine how scared I was about the whole thing but now I don't actually feel it anyway"

"I'm so sorry you had to go through all of this"

"You don't have to be"

"And your real mother, they never mentioned it to you?"

"I am still a aching to know who she really is but all my search has been voided and amounted to nothing"

"Hmmm, about the cartels, I would like to find more about them. They sound like interesting people and finding more about them will help you answer a lot of question that you have always thought about"

"To be honest, I don't advice it"

"Why?"

"The cartels are very dangerous. I know that because anytime Rebecca and Philip talked about them, Rebecca always had a very disturbing look on her face, a look of Fear and trust me Rebecca was one of the most Fearless woman I have ever seen. She, herself was very terrifying so nothing could scare her easily"

"Well I actually think there is something more to the cartels than you know about"

"I think so too, but I don't want to have anything to do with them"

"Anyways, try making yourself comfortable I have to pick some few things for my room" Hattie said as she walked towards the door. She took one last glance at Fay 

"I will get you some clothes, later this evening just try and take a shower" Hattie said with a little smile at the corner of her lips.

Hattie made her way to her room. She needed to pick up something. Her pendant that she always wore. She remember that she had forgotten to wear it the night she was going to Daphne's salon. The pendant really meant a lot to her as it was one of the gifts her mother gave to her when she was still little. She opened her room door and everything was still intact. The closet, the mirror stand, the bed, everything was just the way she left it and she was satisfied. With Andrew everywhere, she feared that he might have come to her house to check on her while she was away and that was one of the reason why she didn't want to come home. She felt too disturbed in living Fay here but that was the best option rather than having her stay at a restaurant.

Hattie walked towards her her closet and reached for the pocket of one of our coats that hung there. Luckily she found the pendant. She wondered how and what she would have done if she hadn't found it.

Hattie reached her hands towards the Clothes, selecting the ones that were small fit to be worn. she took few dresses, tops and trousers along with some coats since winter was slowly approaching. Taking some clothes over to Javier's wasn't a bad idea

Author's note: Guys I was thinking of changing the book cover. What do Y'all think?. Please don't forget to review and rate the story. It would mean alot

 If you have any thoughts, question or reviews on this story. Message  me on whatsapp, let's have a one on one discussion 

WhatsApp number: 08140323038

Facebook user name: Mandy savage