Confusion

"Hello? Is anyone here?"

Iris held her breath as she waited for someone to answer her but she waited for nothing. The noises stopped and were replaced with an eerie silence. She knew that someone was there. Someone was watching her and she was quite sure about it because the hair on her arms was standing in pure dread.

She stood at the threshold of the kitchen and slowly scanned the room. There was nothing amiss except for the strange noises that she heard a while ago and the pounding of her heart. The room didn't look like something was wrong with it. It was the same as it usually looks, she thought to herself but she was not so sure since she didn't usually come here. Her place in this mansion is in the basement.

"Hello?"

"What are you doing?"

Iris jumped in surprise and spun around to find Monette, staring at her as though she had lost her mind.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, pushing her away as she walked to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water.

"I was looking for your father," she said after she got a hold of her breath.

Monette stared at her as she drank her water. "You really no longer consider Papa as your father?" She asked in disbelief.

Iris smirked, shaking her head. "He's not my father." She scanned the kitchen one more time before turning her back to leave then stopped. "He never treated me as his daughter. None of you treated me like a family member or that I belong in this house," she added before leaving Monette with her mouth wide open in shock.

She was tired of all the drama that Monette had been throwing at her. If she was bored because she was not allowed to get out of this mansion, it was not her problem. She had no time to sit with her and talked about how her life was now so difficult that she could not meet her friends since her parents pulled her out of school and registered her for a home-schooling program.

She had her own problem that she wanted to fix fast. She stopped in the middle of the living room and wondered where Theo could be at this hour. Since Calixto talked to them about the changes in the mansion, the things that they were allowed and not allowed to do, she had never seen Theo.

And in the few times that she got out of the basement, the mansion felt undisturbed. She could not explain it well but the mansion was fixed impeccably like it was waiting to be photographed for a home lifestyles magazine.

"What are you doing here?"

Iris jumped a little before she slowly turned around and found Calixto, staring at her as though she had committed a grave mistake.

"I'm looking for—" She caught herself and lowered her head. She didn't want Calixto to know that she was going to ask Theo about her biological parents because she did not want him to know that she was looking for them.

"Hmmm," Calixto arched his brow and squinted his eyes on Iris who seemed to fall into deep thoughts.

"I was looking for Theo," she said, for it was the truth.

"He isn't here."

Iris lifted her face to meet Calixto's eyes and saw that he was not lying to her. There was no reason for him to lie but at the same time, she had fallen into the habit of needing to see his eyes to know the truth. Maybe it was the way of his speaking that she could not help but doubt him. He had a monotone voice that was difficult to read. And the perpetual blank expression of his was not helping.

She realized that the only way for her to understand what he was really trying to say was to look at his green eyes. Something that she was not comfortable doing because every time that she stared at them, she felt an unexplainable fluttering in her stomach—just like now.

"Where is he?" She asked, averting her eyes.

"I sent him somewhere for some errands."

Iris nodded but did not move. Now that Theo was not in the mansion, her determination to find out about her birth parents slowly subsided. She was left in a state of confusion as she realized that she only has Theo to ask about her parents. If he refused to tell her about them, she had no other means to find out the truth.

"When is he coming back?"

"Go back to your room."

They both said at the same time and Iris stared at Calixto, holding her breath. She did not know what he was going to do to her that she had broken his rules. She just remembered that she was not allowed to be in the other part of the mansion other than the basement.

"Sorry," she quickly apologized. "It won't happen again," she said, lowering her head and turning around. She dashed back to the basement, not answering Monette who called her as she passed her by on her way down.

She took the stairs two steps at a time. She could hear the pounding of her heart in her ears as well as the echo of her hurried footsteps. She did not know what had happened but she felt scared of the idea that she had no way of knowing about her biological parents.

She went directly to her computer, turned it on, and stared at the computer screen as she ran all of the information and hunches that she had in her mind, trying to sort them out to check what her next move could be but after tiring herself of thinking so many scenarios in her head, she got no definitely plan other than she was not ready at all and all she could do was to wait.

'Until when will you wait,' a soft voice whispered at the back of her head that startled her. She snapped her head over her shoulder, expecting someone to be there but she was alone in the basement.