Side Effects

6 - Forbidden Help

Bree sat on her bed, tapping her fingers on a white laptop faster than anyone could. Her neck rested on the end of the bed and her back leaned against several pillows as she stared motionlessly into the screen.

"Bree, you're back! Why didn't you tell me?" The voice of her legal guardian, Donnamira Klaus, rung sprightly in her ears. Bree just shrugged, not looking away from the laptop.
"Well aren't you social(?)" Donnamira spoke sarcastically, folding her arms against the doorway.

Bree gave in and took the device away from her lap, placing it on the end of the bed.
"I was called out of college today."
"What? Why?"

Waiting for her guardian to take a seat, Bree paused.
"I was sent to the Town Hall."
Donnamira shook her head in disbelief and squinted her eyes, her smile widening as the seconds ticked by.

"No, I'm being serious!" Bree rummaged in her pocket and showed a small, rectangular card bestowed upon her by Cermentia's butler. It displayed the city symbol - an hourglass presenting a small city inside.

This symbol was rarely ever used, but it was recognisable to her; it was a symbol of government and hierarchy. The city represented the citizens within as a whole, and the hourglass acted as a way of saying that no matter how much time passes, all the citizens and their future ancestors will be contained within this city forever.

When she was still angry about her feud with the Mayor, Bree had drawn a crack on the hourglass - a commonly used symbol of defiance created by a group of rebels, including Donnamira herself. Donnamira laughed her light and joyous laughter at the sight of her child's vandalism.

"But honestly, Bree, what were you doing there?"

Bree explained everything - Cermentia herself, the way she looked down on her and acted dishonest and how she constantly interrupted her arguments.

Her insults, her remarks on how someone like Bree could not be aloud in public. Her accusations, her shameless blaming without proof or evidence. Her threat. The threat that told that the crime rate of the citizens depended on whether Bree went to jail or stayed free. Bree's power. The ability to become invisible at will, even as an ability that was not chosen by anyone, was held against her in every single excuse.

Bree's fist clenched - a common action noticed by Donnamira.

Bree hated herself. She knew that she had made her foster mother upset by this sudden news, but she never dared to look at her in the eye throughout her entire explanation. She knew that she was upset because of the silence that came after. Bree loosened her fist and discontinued any other movement in her body to acknowledge the white noise that hummed between them.

Through that moment of regret and self-loathing, her conscience dared her to peer at Donnamira. Her motherly figure. The only parent she ever remembered having. The person who she loved dearly, but could not always grow the same connection with her as she did with Bree.

Donnamira had a hand clasped over her dry lips. Her dark eyes didn't glisten, and no tears spilled onto her sand-coloured face, but those eyes contained no life inside them - not like they usually did. This was the most contained Bree had ever seen her to be, and her heart tore like paper to see her like that.

Steadily, she removed her hands from her face and opened her mouth, breaking her stare away from the darkness beneath Bree's bed to her daughter's youthful face. Every piece had clicked together for her - and an idea sprung from her mind and trailed out of her lips.