CHAPTER EIGHT: MEET THE CHARACTERS. MEET ME

MEET THE CHARACTERS. MEET ME

We are a family of eight in total. My dad and I with my aunts. I will list their names again in order of hierarchy in case you seem confused.

Natalie - the birthday of the lord.

Nanette - she who bears the wine.

Noa - movement or motion.

Nathaniel - the gift of God.

Nellie - light.

Nancy - grace.

Nina - grace.

Norma - the queen of beauty.

They all seem to behave accordingly to their names. Aunt 3, Noa, speeds on foot! Aunt 6, seems the most beautiful out of all, striking!

I have not been opportune to ask about their mother. Nathaniel never talks about her. He never talks about his sisters too. He seems to have shared a family bond with them a bit back when they were hugging because their faces beamed. I am really confused and I am not comprehending a thing maybe after all of this they will explain it to me.

"How do they know of Feline? Yes, Feline knows of all of my dealings. The dailies. I didn't tell her one-to-one. She just one day spilled it out that she knows what I do because she has seen me do it once. And she did not blackmail me with it. She never asked why I do it. Why do I spy on everyone around me? Why do I stay alone? Why do I hate everyone? Why do I seem brutal? She never asked why. I suppose why. She too isn't okay. There isn't one okay person in the world so that's settled.

Feline is here, finally. Feline knows them, my father, Nellie, and the rest of my aunts. She knows them all. They all play in slow-mo right in front of me exchanging pleasantries. Asking how each has been fairing. Asking where one got those pair of earrings. Asking what brand of lipstick one is wearing. Asking the stylist of one's hair. I still do not understand but I am putting one to one trying to solve the puzzles. Asking no questions just battling it myself.

'Okay, Siphoned bring Laylah.' My father says to me breaking me from my entwined thoughts. I nod in response as if my head is still booting owing to the too much information it is taking in.

I take Laylah from the floor with care with my hand. I raise her to my height. She staggers. She isn't standing on her own. I drag her along, herself plus her weight. My aunts, Feline, and my father are already out the door waiting to get their positions in the car and out. There are three cars outside not so fancy not so cheap. I take Laylah out, slamming the door - a habit I recently learned from her father. I drag her along the graveled floor to my father's car, the one I initially drove.

I hold Laylah by the clothes. A shirt long enough to cover her buttocks. She wears black jeans, one not so tight. She wears sneakers, one already looking dirty. My dad opens the door for me. He shakes me from my thoughts. 'Hun?'

I smile in return. He smiles back. I shove Laylah in the backseat with a throw. She hits her head hard on the window. I didn't pay mind to it. I just shut the door after her instructing her to wear her seatbelt. One who can't differentiate her legs from her feet, she can't even move! I still pay no mind to her. I am still confused. My head is whirling round and round and round to assimilate this.

"How's Feline related to any of this? Who is she to make my aunts and dad bow to her literally? Why pay respect to your colleague, one that will be given to your boss? Except...no it can't be."

I erased that thought that it can't be. Hellbent on the fact that that can never happen.

My dad gets to the front seat after shutting the car door behind me noticing I am lost in my thoughts. He didn't ask any questions. He only notices.

We are together in the car with an almost lifeless Laylah.

In the next car with which my aunts came in, they went back. "But didn't dad say Aunt Nellie and Noa will come with us?" It doesn't matter anyway. I don't care.

Feline stays in her car but this time with her lots. I'm very sure they all miss each other. They need some catching up to do.

Feline knows me. Feline knows them. They know Feline. I know them. This cycle...doesn't exclude Feline. She is in all our lives. Now is not the time to ask questions I say in my mind as I look at my dad. He is fixated on the windshield. God knows what he is thinking.

We all get to our destination. A sort of a roundabout. I have lived around this area for let's say five years and I haven't been here. "Where's here?"

I come down seeing everyone alighting from their cars. I take Laylah from the backseat. The place is windy. The place is misty. The place is hazy. It seems it has been crying for so long that it caught a cold. The wind is getting stronger. My father yells something to me. I can't hear him. The wind is preventing me from hearing him. He yells again. I lean towards him to hear him going against the direction of the wind.

'We're here to meet with the Top. This is the only place where we can meet with her. No matter what you do. Do not look at her before she tells you to. Do not stare at her for long.' I nod assimilating all that he tells me. A car comes in through the wind. A black car. I do not know its model.

A woman walks out of it. A tall white lady. She's wearing red lipstick too. She's dressed in a black dress highlighting her waist. She has hazel hair. She is in her thirties. "Okay someone young amidst these old folks." Not that Feline is that old. Feline is also in her thirties, early thirties. I do not pay notice to anyone there. They all seem to be in a file even my father. I run along to join him dragging Laylah with me along the graveled floor fighting against the wind who seems to be pulling her away from me. But I do not let it. I get in the line too next to my father then Feline then Nellie then Noa then Norma then Natalie then Nanette then Nancy then Nina. The Top stands in front of us. In front of me in particular. I assume she is the Top because isn't she the reason we stand here? She seems intrigued with me. Glancing at my father from time to time. My father says nothing but his facial expressions say a lot. "No, she is not going to be a part of us! " He sure boldens that. The Top just smiles.

She reaches for my hand amidst all of this wind. 'Nice to meet you, Veronica.'

Her hands are still hanging out. I reach for it with my left hand but got a hold of myself. Facing everyone, I am holding Laylah with my left hand reaching the top with my right hand and saying, 'It is nice to meet you too lady.' She smiles. A beautiful one. I notice as I stand there facing everyone standing beside the Top, there's someone in the car. A young lad. The one who drove the car the Top is in. He is a fine one. I can't make him out but from afar he looks striking. We catch each other's eyes. It is a very brief but electrifying moment. Then I looked away and I give a smile. He did too, give a smile.

And at that moment when I got excited, I am still holding hands with the Top. I feel what I haven't felt before. Electricity. I can't explain what happened but at that moment something ignites inside of me the same thing that happened in my room when I was with my aunts demanding for Laylah close to the door right at the moment I reached for the wall. It's happening again.

I let it come over me the same way I let it have its way before as I strike the wall shaking the house's foundation. But this time I am shaking hands with the Top and now I...I let my eyes turn velvet red oblivious to what I was doing.

Oblivious to the fact that my grip is too tight both on Laylah and on the Top.

Everyone is trying to pull me away from the Top but I am not moving an inch. I am breaking into her palms unconsciously. My velvet red eyes are known to everyone but me. The Top is screaming. Everyone is running towards me but somehow I hold them down. What happened. What's happening? Hypnosis? Telepathy?

What is even frightening is that I am unaware of all that is brewing in front of me. Confusion, fear, all of it. What is in my mind is him and him alone. The rest of my mind is pitch black.

WHERE'S MY DAUGHTER?