Hunting the Fairy Tale

Chapter 65 - Laptop Drama

TW:- This chapter contains scenes of and references to sexual violence. Reader discretion is advised.

Willow

Ronja's home has all the warmth of a beautiful museum. 

She leads us through a cold marble foyer, up gilded stairs and down a richly carpeted hallway to her bedroom. The house is not as big and lavish as my grandmother's mansion was, but it certainly reeks of wealth and opulence.

Her bedroom is quite large but doesn't seem to contain many things that could reflect her personality, except a big white teddy bear on her bed and a couple of posters of people I've never seen before pasted to one of her closet doors. They are probably Swedish rock stars or actors. Some of the posters have writing on them in a language that I cannot read. The room is pretty in an airy, breezy way; everything was done in nearly-white pastels, which reflect Ronja's looks, if not her personality.

"I have laptop," she says, taking a laptop from her closet after closing her bedroom door. She said that her father was at his company and that her stepmother was probably at the country club having her nails and body pampered, but she still nervously closed the door and is giving Paisley and me rather wary looks.

"Well, that is really nice, Popsicle. I have one too, and so does Alice. Did you bring us all the way to Tara to show us your laptop?" Paisley asks, being Paisley.

I can see that Ronja is battling to say what she means, and I don't think it is just the language barrier rearing its ugly head again. She is visibly shaking.

"What's wrong, Ronja? Did something happen?"

She turns anguished eyes on me, her lips trembling.

"I made big mistake. Papa will be angry. His wife wants him to send me to boarding school in Grey Mount. If he knows about this, he'll send me. I made big mistake!" she frantically flashes her light blue eyes from me to Paisley and back. I have never seen Ronja like this before. "It is not my laptop. It is stolen laptop. I'm afraid that owner might come to take it back and hurt me. If Papa finds out..."

Well! That is rather unexpected. I also feel nervous now.

"You stole a laptop? Is it like a hobby?" Paisley asks, giving a nervous laugh. "Maybe just put it back..."

"I didn't steal it," she says, shaking her head. "Well, I accepted it. I thought I could give it back, but... It has so many bad things on it."

To my shock, Ronja, the girl who always keeps herself quietly together and is highly reserved in her interactions with others, suddenly bursts into tears. I'm startled to see them flowing freely down her cheeks and suddenly fear that she could melt away in them. She seems so frail.

"Dude! I think I need a lot more information now," Paisley says while I try to comfort the crying girl.

"Yes. Yes. I'm sorry," Ronja sets the laptop on the desk near her windows. She opens it and browses to find a folder with her name. "I did not switch it off because it might want password. My charger works with it, and I stopped it from going into sleep mode and lock screen."

"Lucky us," Paisley says, giving me a freaked-out look over Ronja's head. I have no idea what she's talking about, either.

"I want to take it to police, but I don't want him to get into trouble."

Who?

We watch her open a video and play it from near the end. There is a crying girl in the frame, and a man is slapping her while she clings to the edges of her torn shirt.