Chapter 698: Fine Without Me

Cylus did not know Sadie, so he had no love toward her, and the small amount of pity that once gave the girl a special place in his heart vanished the second he recognized her. He did not care what drove her away, all he could think of was the many hurdles Mina had to face because she was left alone to care for parents who did not care about her.

To Cylus, Sadie had to know how Mina was being treated by their parents, yet she still chose to leave her behind. That one fact negated all the hero stories Mina would tell him about the woman, and despite her pleading stare, he could not bring himself to smile.

"I'm sorry Mina, but I can't be happy about this. She left you to clean up her mess. Did you forget that?"

"You don't even know me," Sadie snarled, stepping forward as if she were ready to fight Cylus.

"Stop it please," Mina begged. "Troy, please take Sadie out."

"Troy? Well, at least you stayed by someone's side. Too bad your sister needed you more."

"Cylus!" Mina shouted, but neither person was actually listening to her. Troy looked as though he planned to let the argument play out, but Mina looked panicked. She did not know whose side she would pick if the confrontation became physical.

"You think I didn't try to take her with me? I tried everything to convince her, but she didn't want to leave."

"So? You still should have stayed. Do you know what happened to Mina?"

"I know what my parents did-"

"Oh, so you know your mother wished that she was in that car with you?"

"Cylus!" Mina shouted again. "Please stop." Mina was shaking badly as she spoke. Cylus stopped his rant, but only because he could tell his words were hurting Mina more than Sadie.

"Is that true?" Sadie asked. Her face had gone pale, and Mina tried to change the subject, but the woman shouted at her.

"You don't deserve to be angry with her," Cylus said, and Lady, who had managed to sleep through most of the arguing, finally woke up, taking Troy's attention away from his wife.

"She didn't tell me-"

"I bet she didn't. Just like she probably didn't tell you that she was kidnapped, tortured, shot and ra-"

"Please stop!" Mina said loudly. "You're scaring the baby," she said, but truthfully, she did not want to think about what President Lee did to her.

"Sadie, listen to Mina. This isn't why we came here." In any other situation Sadie would have yielded to her husband, but she could not ignore Cylus' words.

"What were you going to say?" Sadie asked, feeling as though it was something significant. Mina had not mentioned being shot, and the word Cylus was going to say never left her lips.

"I told you about it," Mina replied, trying desperately to change the subject.

"No, you didn't; you told me that something happened, but you never said what. Mina, how could you tell him, but you don't want to tell me?"

"Maybe it's because you pretended to be dead," Cylus snarled, and Sadie threw a punch at him, but Mina stood in the way, catching Sadie off guard.

"Why are you two doing this to me?" She questioned in a whisper.

"I didn't come here to talk about the past or fight. I'm here because I wanted two important people in my life to meet." Mina roughly rubbed at her tears, hating that Sadie and Cylus, despite looking like twins, clearly disliked one another. "This was a waste of my time and resources," she continued, walking away from the scene with a frown.

"Mina please, I'm sorry. I was angry," Cylus said, tugging on the woman's arm to get her to stop, but Sadie pried his hand away and stood in his path.

"I'm sorry I reacted poorly, but please don't hide things from me," she said, and Mina could not help but to shake her head at both apologies.

"Neither of you care about me," Mina reponded, pulling her arm away from her sister. "If you did, you could have held your anger the way I held it in for you."

"What are you talking about?" Cylus asked.

"Don't play dumb Cylus. I thought you would help take care of my parents after I was gone, but you did nothing for them."

"I felt guilty; every time your mother looked at me, I thought her heart was going to break. I couldn't…"

"Couldn't or didn't want to?" Cylus stayed quiet because it was a combination of both. He was angry with Mina's parents for allowing her to slip so deep into depression without trying to intervene, but now that she had pointed it out, he knew it was wrong.

"And you," Mina said, pointing to Sadie. "You could have told me your plan. I would have kept your secret, and I would not have been tormented by the way we parted ways. How do you think I felt knowing that I ignored you the day you died? Do you know how that tortured me?"

"I'm-"

"Sorry?" Mina finished. " You've told me, and I'm sorry too; sorry that I thought anyone could possibly set aside their emotions to cater to mine for once."

Troy watched Mina walk away from the man she called her 'maybe' brother and her sister with a slight frown. He wanted Sadie to tell Mina from the beginning, but she insisted that it was a bad idea, and now, she was regretting it. While he disliked anyone yelling at his wife, with Mina and Cylus, he felt like it was a family feud that needed to be spoken out before it consumed them from within.

"Take Lady," Troy said to his wife, handing the baby over before chasing after Mina. While he held as much guilt as Sadie, she told him that she held him to a lower standard since he was not a blood relative, and he planned to use that to his advantage. "Mina wait."

"Leave me alone Troy."

"What did I do?" He questioned.

"The shoes you bought me hurt my feet," she replied, and Troy could not help but to laugh.

"Mina seriously, wait. I think you're being a little unfair toward them." The woman spun on her heels and glared at Troy who smiled triumphantly.

"That isn't funny."

"I know, but now that I have your attention, listen to me. You did to Cylus exactly what Sadie did to you. He isn't angry with your sister, he is mad at you, but he doesn't blame you for leaving, so he's taking it out on Sadie instead."

"You mean the way my mother blamed me when Sadie returned?"

"I wasn't there for that, and I'm sorry it happened, but yes; the same."

"Troy, why do people think I'm a robot who can just turn off my emotions at will?"

"Because you're so good at making others feel good that it makes them forget that you have problems of your own."

----

Cylus disliked Sadie, but the baby in her arms was innocent, and with softened eyes, he reached for the child to be handed over to him. He was surprised when the woman actually allowed him to hold her daughter, and when he looked at the little girl's face, he felt an overwhelming sense of familiarity. If anyone saw him with the child, they would definitely think she belonged to him; the resemblance was that extreme.

"How old is she?" He asked, trying to let go of some of his anger.

"Six weeks; do you want to be in her life?"

"Shut up," Cylus said because the answer should have been obvious. Sadie scoffed and tried to take her daughter back, but the man turned away. "I'm not done bonding yet." Sadie rolled her eyes, while Cylus narrowed his.

"It wasn't easy to leave Mina behind, but I honestly thought they would treat her better once I was gone." Cylus nodded because in a lot of ways, their parents had begun to treat Mina better, but better was just no longer locking her in her room and allowing her to move out despite her young age, which could be argued as cruel.

"Weren't you ever curious about her?"

"I thought she moved on. I saw Ren with a woman who I thought was her. She was wearing Mina's necklace, and I… I didn't think he was sick enough to do something like that."

"Did you really think it was a good idea to leave Mina to deal with him alone?"

"I don't know what I was thinking," Sadie admitted. "I just wanted to get away from everyone. No matter what I did, I was always living in Mina's shadow."

"You know, it's funny, because Mina felt the same way about you. The only difference is that she saw it as you giving her shade." Sadie's lip quivered with Cylus' analogy, and she found herself suppressing the urge to cry. If she had taken a second to think about things in that perspective, she probably would have been a happier person.

----

Over the course of a few months, Cylus and Sadie were able to put aside their differences, but they still bickered from time to time, making Mina have to work around their irritation with one another. At every turn, they would try to make the other person look like the worst sibling to her, and while Troy found it amusing, she found it stressful.

Some of the things Sadie remembered about her were no longer true, and the same went for Cylus, so when they would try to prove who knew her best, they would both be wrong, but she did not have the heart to tell them.

"I think Lady is the only thing stopping those two from killing each other," Troy joked, and Mina glared at him.

"That isn't funny. They are driving me insane. How am I supposed to work if I can't even think straight?"

"Threaten to kick them out," Troy offered. Mina considered it, but the pair looked so content bickering over what color was best for Lady's skin tone that she did not want to disturb them.

With Cylus' help, she was able to purchase a building, screen, and hire a trustworthy staff who submitted blind resumes, meaning they were chosen based on merit and nothing else. The only people who skirted through the hiring process were Chief Chute's daughters. She hired the girls as repayment for their father's kindness. They already knew she was alive, and so far, they had not said a word to anyone.

Although young and still in school, they were girls who, like her, learned to speak in circles to avoid getting in trouble by their father. That skill was particularly useful to Mina, who wanted other people to fund her newest project instead of funding it herself. Madam Aych was already very widely criticized online as being 'reclusive' and 'antisocial,' but the girls were good at making it seem as though she attended parties all the time, but people ignored her. Their main job was to keep her trending without images, and while they were successful, some were catching on, and Mina was in the process of organizing an invite only event to help ease the tension.

"Are you sure this is promising?" What if someone takes a picture?"

"I will be disguised as Madam Aych, so it won't matter,'

"I have a better idea," Troy said. "Why don't we make anonymity the theme?" Mina smiled at Troy, handing him the paper on which she was writing. "Great minds think alike." The smile on Mina's face melted, and Troy intuitively knew he had said something wrong. "Mina, maybe you should call-"

"No," the woman interjected, she opened her phone and slid it to the man. "As you can see, he is fine without me."