Wax Figurine | T. Drake ✔

[27]

Olivia didn't come to school for the next two days nor did she show up at the manor which made Tim anxious. He had called her too but she was not picking up and when he inquired from the class teacher, he was told that Olivia's guardian had handed in a leave of absence.

That meant Bruce was aware of why she had disappeared abruptly so he decided to go and talk to him.

"Bruce, is something wrong with Olivia?" He asked soon as he had stepped into the study.

Bruce looked up from the documents he was signing, "no, why do you ask?"

"It's been two days yet she didn't show up to school," he remarked, "and I found out you had handed in a leave of absence for her."

"She's not feeling well," the man replied vaguely, not going into details because he had promised Olvia not to disclose the actual reason to others.

"She was just fine this weekend before she left," he reasoned but then paused, just realizing something, "and you had called her to tell her about parents, right? What did you tell her?"

"Timothy," he spoke up, using his full first name as an indicator that he wanted him to seriously comply with what he was going to say, "that doesn't concern you. I can't tell you more."

His brow furrowed skeptically, "so something bad did happen to her parents... And she asked you not to tell us."

"You should give her some space," he suggested instead, not replying to his earlier remark, "she will join school when she feels better, don't smother her in the meanwhile."

"I am not the sort of person to do that, you know me," Tim answered, still feeling somewhat skeptical of it all, "but will you really not tell me what happened?"

"No."

He sighed, knowing that if she had made Bruce promise not to tell her then the man will not utter a single word about it, no matter how much he tried to persuade him.

"Okay don't tell me but there is something which I had to tell you," Tim spoke up after a while of considering whether he should discuss it with Bruce or not, "it affects me and Olivia directly and she made me promise not to tell anyone but I feel like you should know."

Bruce paused, "what is it?"

"The reason I knew Olivia from my childhood is that I was more or less a part of that experimentation for which her parents were imprisoned," he elaborated, watching a faint layer of surprise cover Bruce's features, "I wasn't used further and wasn't brought up in the case because my parents died and you adopted me which did not let her parents get to me again. But I have enough reason to believe that my memories were tampered with and there was something much more sinister going on with her parents than what they were accused of."

Bruce listened closely, initially not expecting that case would be linked to Tim too. But as Tim started to explain, he reconsidered it.

"I don't remember everything, Bruce, but her parents weren't innocent people charged with a false accusation as she might think," he remarked, "I can recall two versions of her parents. One that I initially met them as and another is what they became after some time. I can't help but think these versions were separate entities and not the same person."

Bruce made him stop for a bit, "what do you mean separate entities?"

"I feel like the Gemma and Ashlar I knew died long ago," he revealed what he thought so far, "and the Gemma and Ashlar I saw the last time I was with Olivia, they were clones..."

"You could be mistaken," he stated, knowing that if he told Tim that Gemma and Ashlar had died, the boy would dive into another direction of researching the case on his own, "I went to check the facility they were supposed to be in."