The Wrong Identity

"I think we should sit down and have a conversation about this situation" Luca tells us all gesturing to the living room.

I hestintantly get off the chair and move to pick Paige up from hers, I place her down gently on the floor which she instantly grabs my hand for comfort. 

Claire and Luca sit on one of the couches as Paige and I make our way back to the couch we had sat at earlier that day. Amalia made herself comfortable on an arm chair next to both of the couches. 

"So we have spoken to Detective Lawrence and we have managed to get a speed track on the DNA test meaning we will be able to get the results tomorrow morning due to this being an emergency" Claire tells us, I started feeling sick at the reminder of how big this situation is. 

"so for now are going to set you both up in the spare room upstairs next to Amalia's bedroom" claire continues after no one speaks. I could tell Claire was hopeful and full of anxiety due to the way she spoke about the DNA test. 

"Luca and I still need to discuss some things so Mali are you okay to show the girls the room they will be staying in?" Claire asks Amalia, which she smiles and agrees gesturing for us to follow her as she stands up.

"erm thank you for taking Paige" I hesitantly speak and quickly turn around to follow Amalia up the stairs not wanting a response from Luca or Claire. 

Paige and I follow behind Amalia up the wooden oak stairs, we made it to the top and follow her into a room down the landing. The part of the house I had seen looked like a maze and I had no idea how I was going to be able to remember the layout. 

"so this is the guest room are you guys okay sharing the double bed?" Amalia asks us moving into the middle of the room.

The bedroom was beautiful there was a brown wooden bedframe with floral duvet sheets, there was a couple of beige blankets at the bottom of the bed making it look so cosy. although it was a quite simple room it was much nicer looking than our bedroom from home.

"yeah that's fine we share a bed at home anyways" I tell her dropping our bags at the bottom of the bed. 

"by the way I'm sorry for earlier, and I'm sorry if I hurt you when grabbing your arm" Amalia appolgises referring to earlier when she had a strong grip on my wrist. 

"its okay I get it" I tell her as we both watch Paige starfish the bed giggling quietly as she sunk into the mattress. 

"Hey Mali?" I say hesitantly, remembering her telling us she preferred to be called that. She looked away from Paige as our eyes locked suddenly making me nervous to ask the question. 

"what do you think the DNA results are gonna say?" I ask needing to speak to someone similar to my age who I felt was going to speak truthfully. 

"Honestlty? I do think your Ivy" she tells me pausing as she looked at my black facial expression. "like look at us we look so similar" she says pointing to some similar features we had. 

"Do you remember when Ivy went missing?" I ask a few moments later as I sat down next to Paige on the bed, which in my opinion felt like sitting on a cloud. Amalia moves to the bottom of the bed and crosses her legs so all three of us are sat in a small circle on the bed. 

"I do its fuzzy but I remember holding her for the first time and being excited at the idea that I was a big sister" She replies her face slowly moving into a frown.

"I honestly don't know why I decided to come here" I tell her truthfully, suddenly feeling emotionally unstable at the prospect that my whole life could be turned upside down. 

"I'm glad you did, life around here has been never the same since Ivy left" Amalia reveals sadly making me feel some sort of remorse for her. 

"Who is ivy?" Paige questions making me realise she had started listening to our conversation.

"ill tell you later okay?" I tell her softly ruffling her hair slightly. 

"ill let you guys settle in I'm just gonna go downstairs" Amalia tells us kindly as she stands up from the bed and leaves closing the door gently behind her. 

I don't believe in fate but as Amalia's footsteps faded away my phone began to ring from my bag. I move to my bag that was left abandoned on the floor.

"Who is it?" Paige asks as I retreave my phone out of my bag to see an unknown number. 

"I don't know" I reply pressing accept and moving the phone to my ear deciding to not let Paige listen to the person on the otherside of the phone. 

"Aofie?" a woman's voice travels through the phone causing my heart to beat faster. I was able to recognise that voice anywhere it was our mum. 

"Hi" I speak through the phone deciding I didn't want Paige to know that I was talking to mum incase she told anyone. 

"What have you done.. Theres an alert out for my arrest!" she yells through the phone, It wasn't out of anger but out of stress. 

"I found the articles.. Is it true?" I whisper tears pooling my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I could hear a sigh over the phone and then silence. 

"you don't understand, there is so much more to this story" she replies after what felt like ages of silence.

"Is Paige with you?" she asks after I don't speak, she probably thought I was too mad to say anything but in truth I was trying not to cry. 

"yeah she is" I whisper my voice slightly cracking. 

"Im sorry Aofie I never meant for anything like this to happen, Im going to have to go off the grid so you might never hear from me again.." she tells me her voice sounded full of emotion making my heart break.

I knew what she had did was wrong but she was still our mum and the thought of never seeing or hearing from her again shattered me. 

"You will understand why I did what I did from Luca when he finds out who I am, I need to go incase someone is tracing my calls.. I love you girls, you were everything to me" she speaks, every word felt like a knife to the heart. 

All I had ever wanted was our mum to love us and care for us and now neither of us would see her ever again.

"I love you" I tell her my voice trembling with emotion as I listened to the line go dead seconds later. 

"Fifi? who was it" Paige asks again as I remove the phone from my ear. 

"Just Thea" I smile swallowing down the strong emotions that were begging to be released. But I knew I had to be strong for my little sister. 

I so desperately wanted to know what she meant by Luca would know. But I wasn't going to share the information I had just discovered, I wanted to find this out for myself.