Free Finding Fiona by Emily Ann Ward Page B

she said before fleeing to the
bathroom. She slammed the door shut and dropped on the ground next
to the toilet. Her entire body was shaking, and she felt as though
she was on fire. How dare he try to say he was protecting her?
    If she’d disliked Troy before, she now hated
him. He’d lied to both of them for months. Troy wasn’t even his
real name. He could have told her who she was. She could have
avoided so much pain and confusion.
    Although, it wasn’t as if she was any less
confused now that she was with James, in her childhood home. If
anything, she had more questions. And the pain… looking at those
pictures, that memorabilia, and thinking it might not even be her
in those pictures. None of it may even belong to her. She may just
be an experiment, something bred for the purposes of science, not
created in an act of love, not… human. It made her so sick she
thought she was going to throw up.
    For a moment, she forgave Troy for his lies
and deception, for sinking her into the ignorance that kept her
from the harsh truth of her past. But then she thought of her
sleepless nights, the rumors in the neighborhood, the appointments
at the Social Security office, the blank slate she’d had all
summer, and she hated him again.
    After a few moments, she realized she wasn’t
going to throw up; it was just her emotions stirring her stomach.
She leaned her head on the porcelain, holding back tears. How could
he do this to her? Her only family member had lied to her. He
recognized her journal, too; that’s why he’d taken it. She’d never
forgive him.
     
    * * *
     
    Minutes later, Fiona returned to the bedroom,
where Hannah and James stood. Hannah stared down at her hand, which
held Fiona’s phone.
    “ You didn’t talk to him?” Fiona
asked, her voice tight.
    Hannah took a shaky breath. “I can’t right
now. I can’t even…”
    “ Well, I don’t want to look at
anything else,” Fiona said, her gaze on the photo album on James’s
lap. “I’m mentally exhausted.”
    “ Okay,” James said as he nodded.
“It’ll all be here whenever you do want to.” He started to put the
things away. He muttered something under his breath that sounded
like, “I’ll kill him.”
    Fiona massaged her forehead. “You guys have
any movies here? I just want to zone out.”
    “ Keith has tons of movies,” James
said. “Maybe not your kind. They’re mostly blow-em-all-to-hell kind
of movies.”
    “ Anything’s fine.” Fiona paused.
“Do you think Walter will come here?”
    James stared at the boxes. “Probably. That
bastard. I talked to him about you… and he kept telling me to leave
you alone… I should have known something was up. He was acting so
weird.”
    “ What do you mean?” Fiona suddenly
put up her hands. “You know what, I don’t want to know. Tell me
later, but if I find out anything else about Troy or Walter or
whatever you want to call him, I’m going to hurt someone.” She took
a deep breath. “Tomorrow, we should find out who the girl in the
car was.”
    Hannah handed Fiona’s phone back to her, her
lips tightened into a thin line. Fiona wanted to say something to
comfort her, but what was there? The guy she’d dated for three
months had been lying about everything and was probably using
Hannah to get to Fiona. Fiona gritted her teeth. No words could
adequately describe that jerk.
    Fiona heard the front door open. She turned
and looked down the balcony as Keith walked in with grocery bags.
She wondered if Troy had moved to Boston just for her. Did he even
work at that pharmacy? She had to think about something else. “I
love this house,” Fiona said flatly.
    “ It’s really beautiful,” Hannah
said, but Fiona could tell her mind was elsewhere, too.
    “ It used to be an old bank,” Fiona
told her. “At least, I read that in an article.”
    “ Wow.” Hannah’s gaze took in the
view, only slightly more interested.
    Fiona examined the chandelier, wondering if it
was the old one, or if