The Truth (Mommy's House 2)

Part Nine

I was sat at my desk, Liv sitting beside me when Cole crutched into the room. His head was down, and I noticed his hair had grown slightly longer, falling in front of his face more. Liv and I watched as he slowly propped his crutches against the wall and hopped over to the chair in front of us.

"Hi, Cole," I said with a smile, and he reached up to push the strands of hair away from his face.

"Can I ask you something?" he said suddenly, and I furrowed my eyebrows.

"Um, sure... what's up?" I asked.

"When are you going to leave me alone about this?" he asked, his light eyes staring into mine.

Liv and I flinched against this question. My heart sunk to my stomach, as I couldn't help but feel bad for the poor kids. They wanted to move past it, but we needed answers.

"As soon as we get the answers we need," Liv responded for me, reaching across me to grab some of my old notes.

"Well, how much more could I tell you? You pretty much know everything," he said, his voice heavy with aggravation. "I want to forget this happened, and you're making it really hard to do that."

"Unfortunately, I feel like you aren't telling us everything," Liv said, her voice gentle. "And we need your help, because you're the most compliant."

His eyes widened a little bit, and he shifted in the chair. "How... what makes you think that I'm not telling you everything?"

"I've been here long enough to know when somebody's keeping something," Liv sifted through the notes.

Cole appeared nervous as I then took over.

"We want you to know that, if you haven't seen the news, we found two young girls in Emilio's attic," I told him.

Something completely shifted in his demeanor - his face paled and his eyes were wide as he stared at the floor. "Are you serious?" was all he could say - his words hardly came out.

"Yes, and those two girls were found because of you. You spoke up, you and Bella. So he's in custody now, waiting to be prosecuted. In the mean time, we know that there are other people involved in this," I started. "People like Rose's boyfriend, people like Steven."

I watched Cole's breathing pick up, and he shook his head. "I already told you I don't know who that is."

"Okay," I told him calmly. "Then you don't have to say anything, but if you don't... just know there's other kids like you... like Bella, like Elliot, like those two girls. And they can be in danger if you don't give us the information we need."

"The two girls said that they believe Emilio is the mastermind of the recent kidnappings around the country," Liv intervened. "And they told me they've heard him mention Steven several times."

"And Rose called you Steven-"

"Steven was her husband," Cole admitted, and Liv jotted it down almost instantly. "He's dead. He's been dead for some time, she - she told me."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Did Rose confide in you often?"

Cole stared at his lap, before he rubbed his eyes. "Not... not me. Whenever... whenever she would bring me into a different room, she would think... think that I was Steven."

"What do you mean?" I asked, my voice as soft and quiet as possible. I could tell he was uncomfortable, with the way he was fidgeting with the band of his sweatshirt and the flushed colour of his cheeks.

He took a deep breath. "She hated me when she thought I was her son. But when I was 'Steven', she would say stuff like, 'You left me. You pretended to die to get rid of me', stuff like that," he trailed off, before he shook his head. "She was fucking insane."