Writers 
Chapter Ten
I had exactly three plans for that afternoon.
Plan A: Go home and demand answers from my mother.
Plan B: If she refused to answer, demand them louder.
Plan C: If that failed, dramatically announce that I was moving out, even though I didn't have enough money to survive three days without her cooking.
Unfortunately, there was one problem with all three plans.
Adrian Blake had decided he was coming with me.
“You know I can handle my own family, right?” I asked as we walked toward the university gates.
“I'm aware.”
“Then why are you following me?”
“Because someone sent you a threatening message.”
“It wasn't exactly a death threat.”
“That's your argument?”
“I'm trying to make the afternoon less depressing.”
He glanced at me. “You're impossible.”
“And yet, here you are.”
He didn't reply.
I smiled to myself, although the nervous feeling in my stomach refused to disappear.
The visitor log had been real. My mother's name had been written beside the date Elena disappeared, and someone had gone out of their way to warn me not to investigate.
I needed to know why.
More importantly, I needed to know whether my mother had been lying to me all these years.
The thought hurt more than I wanted to admit.
My mother was the person I called when I had a bad day, when I needed advice, and when university assignments made me question every decision I'd ever made.
She knew my favourite food, my worst habits, and exactly how to tell when I was pretending to be fine.
How could she have hidden something this important?
“Amara?”
I realized Adrian had been speaking.
“Sorry. I was thinking.”
“About your mother?”
“About how much trouble I'm going to be in when she sees me bringing home a boy.”
He stopped walking.
“A boy?”
I turned toward him, fighting a smile.
“Would you prefer mysterious university investigator?”
“I'm not your boyfriend.”
“Relax. Nobody accused you of being romantic.”
His ears turned slightly red.
I noticed.
Naturally, I intended to remember that forever.
“Come on, Angry Shirt,” I said, walking ahead. “Try to keep up.”
For the first time that day, I heard him laugh.
It was brief and quiet, but it was real.
And for a moment, I wished the world would allow us to be two ordinary university students walking down a road instead of two people chasing a secret that had already begun to change our lives.
Then my phone buzzed.
I looked at the screen.
Another unknown number.
SOME TRUTHS DESTROY THE PEOPLE WHO FIND THEM.
My smile disappeared.
Adrian read the message over my shoulder.
“Show your mother,” he said.
“Oh, I intend to.”
I put my phone away and continued walking.
Whoever was sending those messages clearly underestimated my stubbornness.
That was their first mistake.
Their second was assuming I would stop now.
My mother opened the door before I could knock a second time.
“Amara?”
Her eyes moved from my face to Adrian.
Then back to me.
“Who's this?”
“Adrian. He's a friend from university.”
Adrian extended his hand politely. “Good afternoon, ma'am.”
My mother didn't take it immediately.
Instead, she stared at him.
For a moment, her expression changed so completely that I almost wondered whether I had imagined it.
Recognition.
Fear.
Then it was gone.
“Adrian Blake?” she whispered.
Adrian slowly lowered his hand.
“Yes, ma'am.”
My stomach tightened.
“You know him?” I asked.
My mother stepped aside, allowing us into the house.
“We need to talk.”
That was not the response I had hoped for.
I followed her into the living room, Adrian walking quietly behind me.
My mother closed the curtains before sitting down.
“Amara, I need you to promise me something.”
“No.”
She blinked.
“You haven't even heard what I want you to promise.”
“Because every time someone asks me to promise something before explaining it, the explanation is usually terrible.”
Adrian coughed into his hand.
I suspected he was hiding a laugh.
My mother gave me a look.
“This is serious.”
“So am I.”
She looked at Adrian.
“Why have you brought him here?”
“Because his sister disappeared on the same night your name appeared in a university visitor log, and I'd like to know why you were there.”
The words came out faster than I intended.
My mother's face went pale.
She looked down at her hands.
For several seconds, the only sound in the room was the ticking clock on the wall.
Then she spoke.
“I didn't want you to find out this way.”
My heart sank.
“Find out what?”
She took a deep breath.
“Three years ago, I went to the university because someone had asked me to meet them.”
“Who?”
“A woman I knew.”
“Who was she?”
My mother hesitated.
“Her name was Grace.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“Grace what?”
“I don't remember her surname.”
He stared at her.
“You expect us to believe that?”
“I expect you to understand that I was frightened.”
“Of what?” I demanded.
My mother looked directly at me.
“Of losing you.”
The words silenced me.
She reached for my hand.
“Amara, you were young. There were things happening around us that I didn't understand. I thought I could keep you safe by keeping you away from certain people.”
“Which people?”
She closed her eyes.
“Elena Blake was one of them.”
Adrian went completely still.
“You knew my sister?”
“Yes.”
His voice became quieter.
“How?”
My mother looked at him with an expression that held more sadness than I had ever seen on her face.
“Elena was trying to help someone.”
“Who?” Adrian asked.
My mother turned toward me.
“You.”
I felt the room shift around me.
“Me?”
She nodded slowly.
“I don't remember every detail of that evening. But I remember Elena telling me that something wasn't right. She was worried about a situation involving your family, and she believed someone was keeping information from you.”
I struggled to understand.
“What situation?”
“I can't explain everything because I don't know everything. I was told to bring you to the university that night. I thought I was helping someone.”
“Who told you?”
My mother looked away.
“Grace.”
Adrian stood abruptly.
“And what happened to Elena?”
My mother flinched at the sharpness in his voice.
“I don't know.”
“You were there!”
“I know!” she cried.
The sudden outburst stunned us both.
Tears filled her eyes.
“I know I was there, Adrian. I know I should have done more. But when I realized something was wrong, Elena was already gone.”
Adrian's face had become unreadable.
I could see the anger in him, but beneath it was something worse: the desperate hope that someone might finally explain why his sister had never come home.
“What did you do afterward?” he asked.
“I took Amara home.”
“And you never told anyone?”
“I tried to contact the people I had met that night. They refused to speak to me. Someone warned me to stay quiet.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
I pulled my hand away from hers.
“You let me grow up without knowing any of this.”
My mother's tears slipped down her cheeks.
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“From what? My own life?”
“From something I couldn't explain!”
“You could have told me that!”
My voice cracked, and I hated it.
I had imagined confronting my mother dozens of times during the journey home. In every version, I was confident, composed, and prepared with the perfect words.
Now I couldn't think of a single thing to say.
I stood and walked toward the window.
Behind me, I heard my mother crying quietly.
Part of me wanted to turn around and hug her.
Another part wanted to ask how she could have carried this secret for so long without telling me.
I didn't know which feeling hurt more.
Then Adrian spoke.
“Did Elena leave anything behind?”
My mother wiped her face.
“Yes.”
He immediately turned toward her.
“What?”
“A small silver pendant. She gave it to me before everything happened.”
I remembered the necklace in the photograph.
The circular pendant.
The crescent moon inside it.
My breath caught.
“Where is it?”
My mother stared at me.
“I kept it.”
“Where?”
She stood slowly and walked toward the hallway.
“Wait here.”
We listened to her footsteps as she disappeared into her bedroom.
Adrian stood beside me, his hands clenched at his sides.
“I never thought anyone would admit she knew Elena,” he whispered.
I looked at him.
“I'm sorry.”
He shook his head.
“Don't apologize for something you didn't do.”
For once, I had no clever response.
I reached toward him, then hesitated.
He noticed.
Without saying anything, he gently took my hand.
The gesture was small, uncertain, and completely unlike the confident boy who had once called me nobody.
I looked down at our hands.
My heart began doing something inconvenient.
Not now, I told myself. There is a missing girl, a suspicious woman named Grace, and a threatening stranger. We are not developing feelings in the middle of a family crisis.
Unfortunately, my heart didn't seem interested in my opinion.
Adrian gave my hand a brief squeeze before letting go.
Then my mother returned.
She held a small box.
Inside lay a silver pendant shaped like a circle, with a crescent moon engraved in its centre.
The same pendant.
I stared at it.
My mother placed the box on the table.
“Elena gave this to me that night,” she said. “She told me that if anything happened to her, I should keep it somewhere safe.”
Adrian picked it up carefully.
“Did she say why?”
My mother shook her head.
“She only said that the pendant would help someone find the truth.”
He turned it over in his palm.
There was a tiny mark on the back, almost hidden beneath the clasp.
A letter.
G.
“Grace,” I whispered.
Adrian looked at me.
“Maybe.”
My mother suddenly reached for the box.
“There is something else you need to know.”
We both turned toward her.
She looked frightened again.
“Grace wasn't the only person who knew about that meeting.”
“Who else?” I asked.
My mother hesitated.
Then she said a name that made Adrian step back.
“Your father.”
I stared at her.
“My father?”
She nodded.
“He knew Elena was missing. He knew I had been at the university. And before you ask, yes, he knew about Grace.”
My thoughts raced.
My father had always been a complicated subject in our house. He had been absent from much of my childhood, and whenever I asked questions about him, my mother gave short answers and changed the subject.
I'd assumed it was because their relationship had ended badly.
Now I wasn't so sure.
“Where is he?” I asked.
My mother looked toward the closed curtains.
“I don't know.”
“That's not good enough.”
“I haven't spoken to him in years, Amara.”
“Why?”
She took a shaky breath.
“Because after Elena disappeared, he told me that if I ever wanted to keep you safe, I had to forget that night had happened.”
Silence filled the room.
I looked at Adrian.
He was staring at the pendant as if it were the only thing keeping him standing.
Three years of searching.
Three years of unanswered questions.
And now, at last, we had a name, an object, and a new person connected to the mystery.
My father.
I looked back at my mother.
“What's his full name?”
She opened her mouth to answer.
But before she could speak, someone knocked on the front door.
Three slow, deliberate knocks.
Adrian's expression changed immediately.
My mother went pale.
I walked toward the entrance, but Adrian caught my wrist.
“Don't,” he whispered.
I looked at him.
“Why?”
He glanced at the window.
Then he said the words that made my blood run cold.
“Because the person outside is the last person your mother should ever see again.”
The knocking came a second time.
And then a familiar voice called from the other side.
“Amara? Open the door. It's your father.”
My mother covered her mouth.
Adrian slowly released my wrist.
And I realized that whatever happened next, my life would never be the same.