CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I sit on the empty couch perpendicular to hers, feeling shaken. How did the conversation go from them not telling me I went missing to my mother admitting she signed a contract no one has ever mentioned to me?

She looks sick as I wait for her to talk, as if she knows the words that are about to leave her mouth will somehow ruin the relationship between us. I have to bite my tongue so that I don't tell her our relationship is already ruined, that she shouldn't worry about hurting my feelings after all I've done to her.

"You were young – you had only recently turned three," she begins, "when a man and a woman turned up on our front door. They looked important – I thought maybe they worked for the government – so when they told me that they had to speak to me about you, I didn't hesitate to let them in.

"They said that you were special – although they didn't say how – and that they'd pay us if we let them take you to their headquarters for an afternoon to do some harmless tests and evaluations. They were offering us a lot of money, and at the time, your father and I were having some troubles with our finances." She stops, takes a breath.

"When they showed me the contract, I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to let them do tests on you, but we needed the money. I don't know what came over me, but it only took me an hour to make a decision and I signed it."

There are tears in her eyes, and I wish there weren't. She shouldn't be crying, not over this. It wasn't her fault. Why can't she just be angry with me?

"The next afternoon, you went missing, and when you came back, you were diseased. I never saw them again." She looks me in the eye, her gaze filled with guilt. "I'm so sorry."

I have to look away and clamp my mouth shut so that I'm not tempted to blurt out that she shouldn't be sorry. I can't tell her I'm not her daughter. Not yet.

A small part of me is angry, though. If I was her daughter, the anger would probably be more intense, but it still simmers in the depths of my mind. After all, maybe none of this would have happened if she hadn't signed that contract, if she hadn't handed her real child over for money. If they hadn't had a person to swap me with, then they wouldn't have been able to swap me at all. In that second, I'm almost grateful that she isn't really my mother – I would never want a mother who handed over her own child for money. But it passes quickly.

Another question arises then: Why did they get Sarah's real mother to sign a contract but not my real mother? Why illegally kidnap one child and legally take custody of another for a single afternoon?

Even after all I've been told today, all the truths I've unearthed, I'm still swarmed with unanswerable questions. My head is pounding and I feel like I'm drowning in the uselessness of everything. Why do I bother asking questions and trying to work things out when my disease is killing me? I might go to bed tonight and not wake up tomorrow and everything I've done will be for naught. Shouldn't I be enjoying the time I have left?

The thoughts running through my head quickly become too much and I decide that the only way to escape them is to get some rest.

Without saying another word to my parents, I head upstairs and get ready for bed. Too many things have transpired in the time of a single day and I can't deal with it anymore. I know that after everything I've learned today and everything I've yet to learn I should have trouble sleeping, but it's only minutes after my head has hit the pillow that I fall into clutches of sleep and I'm whisked away.

-:-:-:-:-

I'm in a dark room. Footsteps approach outside and I crawl into the corner, clutching my chest. The door opens and light pours in.

I scream.

"Shh...shh..." the man with the honey-like voice says. When I calm down, he says, "Does your chest hurt?"

I nod weakly.

I can't see him smiling, but I can feel it. "It'll be alright," he says. "You're going home now."

He crouches down in front of me and I get the impression of dark brown eyes before a thick black curtain comes down over my eyes, and the darkness of the room turns into an even darker void of blackness.

I know someone's watching me when I wake up the next morning. I can feel their eyes on face, on the back of my head, on my arms, even though there's no one in my room except me. A shiver runs down my spine as I think of Rand's warning. They know where I live, they know where I go to school, they know what I do in my spare time and they want to kill me, so they're watching me.

They're watching me.

I toss on a pair of grey tracksuit pants and a black singlet-tee before heading over to the window. Pulling back the curtains an inch, I peer out, and even though I can't see anyone, I can feel them. Terror runs through me as I let go of the curtain and back away from the window.

My body has made a decision before my mind has had time to sort through the options.

I grab my black backpack and start packing. Phone, keys, wallet, umbrella and jumper – I stuff them all in my bag and grab a brush off my shelf, running it a few times through my hair to get out any knots.

In the bathroom, I brush my teeth quickly and quietly, and then head downstairs. I grab a pen off the bench and pull a piece of paper out of the printer before scrawling a short message in my messy handwriting:

I've gone for a walk. Expect me back this afternoon.

Melissa xx

I leave the paper on the small table by the door, and then I've left and I'm walking as fast as I can down the road without running. In the icy and silent morning, I feel exposed, and every tree, corner and window seems to be hiding something – someone. Their eyes follow me as I move down the path and I do my best to pretend they aren't there.

I can barely remember the way to Rand's house, but I trust my instincts every time I reach a corner and hope to death that I'm going the right way, because no matter how fast I walk, or how quietly I move, I can still feel their gaze on me, and tingles shimmy through my body over and over again, like unceasing rain running down my arms.

My loud heartbeat and the wind mix together in my ears, forming a single monotonous roar. It shouts at me to run, to get away from here as fast as possible, and eventually, I start to listen to it. My pace quickens and suddenly I'm jogging. It's not long before my jog has turn into a run.

As my breathing quickens, sweat starts to form at my hair line and under my arms. My lungs soon start aching and I'm reminded of how unfit I am.

And the whole time, the feeling of being followed rests in the pit of my stomach.

It takes forty minutes to reach Rand's place and it's not until I'm walking up the path to his front door that I realise they might not be home, or might still be in bed. They could just as easily refuse to let me in, telling me to go home, that it's too early.

I shake my head and go to knock on the door.

It swings open the second my knuckles come into contact with wood and Caden stands in the doorway wearing jeans and a grey shirt. He looks half-asleep with dishevelled hair and drooping eyelids. I'm surprised he's even awake.

It only takes a couple of seconds to get over my surprise but as a sentence forms in my throat, Caden speaks, beating me to it.

"I saw you running down the road from my window," he explains. "What's happened?"

I shake my head. "Nothing, I just..." I stop myself, take a breath, and rephrase. "I could feel them watching me."

"And you ran all the way here?"

"Not all the way."

He sighs and takes a step back just as Rand comes rushing down the stairs. He stops when he sees me.

"Melissa?" He sends Caden a worried look before setting his eyes on me and covering the last few steps to the door. "What are you doing here?"

I notice then that he looks nervous – jittery. He clasps his hands together before letting go, rubbing them on his pants and re-clasping them, and his eyes dart from my face to the street behind me and then back to my face.

He was expecting someone else, I realise.

"I could feel someone watching me and kind of panicked and came here."

For a few uncomfortable seconds, he just stares at me, a blank look in his eyes. Then he snaps out of it. "Come on inside and take a seat in the living room. Caden and I need to do something quickly, but we'll be with you in a sec." He steps out of the way and I enter the house, walking cautiously to the living room and sending looks over my shoulder at them by the door as I go. Rand looks panicked. Caden just looks uncomfortable.

Then I round the corner and I lose sight of them.

As I take a seat on one of the couches, the front door slams shut and the house descends into silence. My eyes latch onto the clock and I watch as the seconds tick by. It's only just past 7 am but it feels much later. I was expecting the clock to read nine.

It's only been a few minutes when it dawns on me that I'm the only one in the house. The silence in the air is so heavy that I can smell it; it's a mixture of settling dust and nothingness – that smell that follows you everywhere and that you grow so used to that you no longer classify it as a smell anymore.

After a while, I grow both bored and anxious, and so I make my over to the window next to the front door and look out. Rand and Caden are nowhere in sight. The window on the opposite side of the house in the living room displays an empty backyard.

Their absence makes me nervous. Has something happened to them? Have they left me to fend for myself?

I'm too scared to leave the house, so I return to the faded yellow couch and hug my knees to my chest, waiting.

I don't how much time has passed when I hear voices out the front door, but it feels like forever. And I'm so grateful that they're back that I don't notice the third voice that follows them until I've run down the hallway, watched them open the door and come face to face with a man who looks strangely familiar.

His eyes grow wide. "Sarah," he says.

His voice is sweet and smooth, just like honey.