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She’d always been reckless.

From the day she was born, it was said that she had been hell to handle. Her mother had given up by the time she was two, claiming that she was either to be put up for adoption or her father was going to have to do it. Of course, looking back on it now, Trinity didn’t understand why he bothered.

After all, she wasn’t his.

It wasn’t that much of a secret, really, but it had been something that had shocked her still when she’d overheard him calling her mother a cheating, lying whore. It had only been a few days before the Disappearing Act that had led her to Harper Rock, and her mother had started screaming, claiming that if he had been better in bed and paid more attention to her, she wouldn’t have had to cheat. It was the same ******** that they always fought about, because her mother had a hard time keeping her legs closed. Especially when it came to exotic, strong men. It hadn’t taken her more than five minutes after her father had left for her to gather her bikini and storm past where Trinity was sitting to find the Pool Boy.

Within ten, their screams of pleasure could be heard throughout the Ford Land.

Now, months later, she sat at the post office, waiting for the bustling young woman behind the counter to bring up her name. “Are you sure you had someone call you, dear?” The sudden question snapped the blonde out of her memories, and her eyes refocused on a bright, yet worried smile. It wasn’t the first time she’d been looked upon with pity since entering. Granted, she had been sitting in the back of the line trembling like a drug addict. How could she not? It had been packed for a Friday night, something that had seemed to surprise even the workers as they all fought to keep up with the deliveries.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Trust me, I wouldn’t be out here if they hadn’t,” she muttered, her fingers pressing to her temples to ease the increasing ache. She couldn’t see out of her left eye, and the thoughts in her head weren’t her own. The woman in front of her was worried, wondering if she should call someone. She saw herself through the workers eyes; disheveled and rumbled, her wrinkled black Game of Thrones t-shirt stretching too tight across her form and her plaid skirt with holes in it from her trip through the sewers. The woman inspected even her shoes, the knee high converse covered in blood and mud. “I fell,” she said simply, her words pushed past her lips in a strained tone.

“Mm.”

That was her only reply, a simple ‘mm’ as the woman continued to watch her out of the corner of her eyes as she tapped her nails against the keys once more, trying to bring up her name. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing here for a Trinity Ford,” she replied kindly, though there was a hint of aggravation to her tone. Of course there wouldn’t be. She hadn’t used her real name, and if she hadn’t been assaulted by everyone else’s thoughts the second she walked in the door, she would have remembered that. “Jameson. Trinity Jameson,” she muttered, ignoring the irritation as the woman rolled her eyes.

“Oh, yes. Here it is. That’ll be twelve fifty.”

As she slid the thin manila envelope towards her, the blonde tossed a crumpled twenty onto the counter and backed out, ignoring the calls for her change. It was nothing to her. All that mattered was the package that she held firmly in her hands. It felt as if it was burning her, and she was afraid for a minute that she couldn’t handle the information inside. It wasn’t a secret, was it? She’d heard it herself. The words ‘she is not my ******* daughter’ had fallen from her father’s lips. There were two ‘she’s’ in the family, of course. Her, and Annabelle.

Perfect Annabelle, with her chocolate locks and small frame. She fit her father perfectly. Unlike her. Where Annabelle was lithe and flexible, Trinity was buxom and round. Where she had hair the color of rich chocolate, Trinity sported locks of honey gold. They were as different as night and day. Her sister had graduated with a perfect GPA, had been valedictorian and prom queen. Trinity had barely scraped by with a 3.0, volunteered for nothing, and spent most of her time in the principal’s office or in the back of a boy’s car. Who, then, was the odd one out?

Clutching the envelope to her chest, she made her way down the quiet streets, thankful for the lack of commotion as she tried to collect her thoughts. She knew she was safer doing this in the sound proofed bedroom of her apartment, but she couldn’t face her boyfriend, not while she was balancing on the tightrope that was her life. He wouldn’t understand that it was important to her. He would, somehow, find a way to blame himself for whatever her reaction might be when she read the report. She adored the man, but he wasn’t a good shoulder for support when one’s life was crashing at their feet.

Instead, she found herself a quiet park bench to settle herself down on, skull and crossbones bag falling to her side to prevent anyone from joining her as she stretched out. Her tired, amber eyes studied the neatly printed label with her name on it, fingers brushing over the white plastic as she shook her head. It was so simple, the envelope that held the answer to all of her questions, yet it was so dangerous. If she wasn’t his daughter, she stood to inherit nothing, but it wasn’t about the money. Somehow, she knew without a doubt, he would never take her from his will. No, what was dangerous about the answers inside was the fact that he would cease to be her father, and instead, be the man that raised her when apparently no one else wanted to.
Did the answers within the envelope really matter? Shaking her head again, tucked her finger beneath the flap and slowly peeled it from the seal, her eyes closing. It wasn’t as if they were her family anymore. She had a new family. She had Daradasi. She had Tate, Mora and Judas. She had Aksel and Olive. She had a different life, and life that she could never leave. Yet, the burning desire to know how much of her past had been a lie was all consuming.

Biting into her lower lip, she pulled the single sheet of white paper out and unfolded it, the sound of it rustling in the wind something akin to an avalanche in her mind. Clutching the paper tight in her hand, she peeked open one eye to read the neatly typed results, followed by the diagram.



Clutching the paper in her hand, she felt a tremble race down her spine as she bowed her head. She had known it all along, and yet it was still like a sledgehammer to her heart. It was a question she had desperately needed answered, but now it had raised another one.

If Lucas Ford wasn’t her biological father, than who was?

For someone that had been so adamant in finding her, her mother was doing a good job in dodging her calls now that she wanted to be found. Thinking back on it, she probably shouldn’t have fired off those accusations onto her voicemail. That was surely the reason Meredith Ford had taken to avoiding answering the last fifteen phone calls. It was no surprise that she tucked her head in the sand when she was caught, but Trinity wasn’t about to have it. She needed answers, and she needed them soon.

Shaking her head, she picked the phone from the counter and pressed the speaker button before dialing her mother’s number once again. She didn’t expect an answer, and by the sixth ring, she was prepared to hang up, until she heard the soft-spoken voice come over the line. “Bella? My darling, are you alright?” Leave it to her mother to pretend that nothing was wrong. Hell, she was probably going to act like she hadn’t even heard the phone ring or received the voicemails. It was how she coped with situations – she ran and pretended they were non-existent.

“I’m fine, mom.”
“Where the hell have you been, then? We have been worried sick. You need to come home—“
“I’m not coming home, so don’t even bother demanding it.”

Her tone was short, and her mother’s sharp intake of breath was all she needed to hear to know that she was gearing up for a lecture. Before she could manage it, Trinity took her off of speaker and tucked the phone between her face and her shoulder and spoke over her.

“Who is my father?”
“--- I… What kind of question is that, Trinity Skyye? Lucas is your father.”
“No, he’s not. I have the tests here to prove it. Come on, it’s not like you hid it well. Annabelle and I are nothing alike. Besides, I’ve never fit in to the intellectual and the beautiful. So, I’ll ask again. Who is my father?”

The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. If it hadn’t been for a rustle in the background, she would have been certain her mother had hung up on her. She could practically hear the wheels turning in Meredith’s head as she tried to find a way to lie her way out of another confrontation. Idly, she wondered what it would be this time. Guilt, deceit, or manipulation. As she tapped her nails against the steel black of her counter, she waited for the older woman to make up her mind.

“Is this why you left? Because you think I am some kind of whore?”

Ah, so we're getting a mixture this time. Well played, mom.

“It’s not why I left, and I don’t think you are, I know you are. Remember who you’re talking to, Meredith. It’s not like I haven’t caught you with your heels in the air. I still have the diamond bracelet you bought my silence with. I’m sure you remember it, mother dearest. The one with the hearts? It's the first among many silent pay outs.”

“You little *****. If you think I’m going to tell you anything, you’re sorely mistaken. Either you come home this instant, or I’m sending the investigators to find you. Your father is worried sic—“

“He’s not my father.”

Before she could continue to listen to the tirade, she quickly ended the phone call and let the cell topple to the floor. She had dreaded speaking to her mother, but she had hoped that beneath the solid ice, there would be something inside of her that would help her find out the truth. Instead, she had been let down again. It was something she had grown accustomed to since she was old enough to know better. With a soft growl, she slammed her fist into the counter with enough force to make Othello jump at her feet, his tiny paws patting at her ankles before he took off the curl on the couch. “I’ll figure it out, Othello, don’t worry.” Yeah, not like he cared much. As long as he had his puppy toys and his food, he didn’t care about anything. His life was so much easier than hers, and the fact she was envying a dog was enough proof.

No, she would figure out who her father was. After all, she had all of eternity, didn’t she? Her mother was nothing more than a step in the wrong direction. There was always going to be dead ends, and the Ice ***** was just going to be her first of many, she was certain.

Her life had always been a jumble of puzzle pieces that had never fit together. She had spent her entire youth trying to cram the pieces into place by mimicking everything her older sister had done. By the time she had reached high school, she’d given up the charade and gave in to her true nature. Her first day of being a freshman, she’d been caught in the boys bathroom making out with a senior with a cigarette dangling from one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. That was the first time she’d ever seen shame when her father had looked at her, and it was the first time she realized she didn’t care.

It was also the first time he’d ever raised a hand to her. By the time she had gone to bed that night, there hadn’t been a single place that could be hidden by clothing that hadn’t been bruised. The next day at school, her teachers looked at her in worry as she struggled to sit – that was, until the found her beneath the bleachers smoking a joint with the football team. When they called her father that time, he hadn’t even waited to get home before slamming his fist into her ribs.

He’d always held her at arm’s length, but when she started acting out, she had seen the rage and despair in his eyes. He told her he loved her, and that he was simply trying to ‘beat’ the ‘bad’ out of her, to make her more like his perfect Annabelle, but she saw it for what it was. She was the outcast, the one that didn’t fit in. She was the real life version of the Ugly Duckling, and she had no intentions of changing. She simply spit the blood out at his feet and smiled before going on about her life. It never dawned on her that he was facing demons every time he looked her in the eyes.

Not until now, at least.

Staring at the crumpled results in front of her, she drummed her fingers against the counter. She had found herself back in the same place as she had been when she spoke to her mother. Now, it was two days later, and she hadn’t heard a single word. She had a noose around her neck, and it was slowly tightening as she fought to figure out her next step. If Meredith hadn’t told her the truth, what made her think that Lucas would? He had done his best to keep her from falling out of line, without even realizing she had long since crossed it. He had beaten her, taken her pride, and made her life a living hell – but he had also refused to give her up when her mother had demanded it.

He had refused to let her go without food or shelter. He gave her as much money every week as he gave Annabelle, but instead of kisses and encouragement, she was met with fists and sad smiles. Had he pitied her, because she wasn’t his blood? Had he hoped he could beat his blood into her? She supposed she would know, if she would just pick up the phone, but she couldn’t. Her fingers shook as she gripped the page tighter in her grasp, and the words swam in her vision. Shaking her head, she finally tipped her head back and lifted her phone, shaking fingers pressing his name on the contact list.

He answered on the first ring.
“Trinity? Where are you? I swear to god, young lady, I’ve had enough of your antics.”

Of course. There was no care, no worry. He was simply angry, fed up, and accusatory. He had every right to be, but it didn’t hurt her any less. With a soft sigh, she let the silence on her end drag on for a few seconds as she dug her teeth into her lower lip. “Trinity?”

“I’m here, da—Lucas. I’m not calling for a lecture. I’m calling for answers. Have you talked to mom?”
“Of course I have, and you accusing her of being a whore is Ludacris and another sad cry for attention. Just come home.”
“It’s not a cry for attention! I overhead it myself before I left. I believe your words were ‘there’s no way she’s my daughter, Meredith. We both know you’re a cheating, lying whore!’ Do I have it about right?”

When nothing but aggravated and stunned silence met her, she barreled on, her hands shaking as she pressed against the counter. He was thousands of miles away, and his voice still had her trembling like a little girl waiting for the next blow. Growling quietly to herself, she shook her head and ran her fingers angrily through her hair. She wasn’t that little girl anymore.

“I asked her who my father was, and got no response. So tell me, Lucas, who is he? Where can I find him?”
“I can’t believe you would do this to us. We gave you everything, Trinity! How could you be so ******* selfish?!”

Her throat closed up when his voice grew louder, the loud baritone slamming through her skull as it brought tears to her eyes. Her knees buckled and the phone fell away from her, but she still heard him as clear as day as he continued to shout his accusations at her.

“Stop yelling, for crying out loud, and I’m not selfish. It’s not selfish to want to know the truth of my existence, is it? No, what’s selfish is knowing that your wife is a slut, and still forcing your ‘problem child’ to believe that there is something wrong with her, when really, it’s the fact her mother can’t keep her goddamned legs closed for ten seconds!” This wasn’t going anything like it was supposed to. She hadn’t wanted to fight with her father, but she had to have known he was going to be upset. He was always upset when she did something wrong, and running away after her eighteenth birthday had been more than wrong in his eyes.

“Trinity, I’m not going to tell you again. Come home, or I swear to god…”
“If you can’t even give me a simple answer, Lucas, I have no reason to come home.”

Without another word, she ended the call and hung her head. She knew she had pushed their limits, and she wouldn’t be surprised if private investigators started banging on every door in Harper Rock just to find her. They could afford them, and they could afford the best. It was something she was going to have to warn Aksel of – at some point. For now, she crushed the phone in her fist when it began to ring again, and dusted off the pieces of plastic into the trash as she reached out to link her mind with her boyfriend’s, sending him a quick message before shutting the link down.

I broke my phone. I’ll explain later. I’m going to go get another one. I’ll see you at home.

Her father had been dead end number two. The only options she had now were to do research or hire her own investigators, which would be too risky. No, she’d have to do it her own way. Finally, her skills in hacking were going to pay off.

The second she stepped foot into 8D mall, she regretted it. The crowd was large, and the sounds were enough to push her to her breaking point. It didn’t help that she was already filled with turmoil, the last thing she needed was some strangers problems assaulting mind. Quickly, she dipped her hand into the front pocket of her tote and pulled out her iPod and earphones. Placing the buds in her ears, she pressed the ‘play’ button and did her best to drown out the thoughts with her favorite playlist. She hadn’t thought of this trick before Aksel had suggested it, because to her – music was the same as sound, especially when it was tucked safely next to her eardrums. However, for some reason, it had done the trick. She lost herself in the music and barely heard anything else.

However, it hadn’t stopped her from suffering the other consequences. She felt the warmth of her blood as it dripped from her nose and quickly wiped at it with the back of her palm as an elderly woman began to walk towards her, napkin in hand. Shaking her head no and mouthing a thanks, she ducked her head and made her way past her to the nearest electronic store. Slipping quietly inside, she skipped passed the Samsung counter and headed straight for the Apple products. She had promised herself that she would try the iPhones when she had the money for it, and her clinic had picked up the last few weeks. Grabbing a box from the back, she headed for the counter and slid it on.

The man behind the register couldn’t have been much older than her, and she saw his lips as they began to move, but his words were lost on her. Rude? Perhaps, but she wasn’t about to risk being attacked by the tsunami of voices inside of her head just to hear him try to sell her more than she what she was already buying. As he narrowed her eyes in annoyance and rang up the items, she pulled out her wallet and reached for the cash she kept tucked safely away. Ignoring the gaping look he was giving her, she pulled out six hundred in cash and grabbed the items before he could put them in a bag. Casting a wave of her shoulder, she dropped the box into her messenger bag and headed for the exit.

Usually about this time, she’d be doing something to piss her father off more. Piercings, tattoos, hair color – anything to get a reaction out of him. Hell, to her, him beating her was far better than him ignoring her, right? Just as the thought entered her mind, she passed a salon, and came to a stop. She still had a couple hundred sitting on her. It shouldn’t take too long for her to do what she wanted. Grinning to herself, she made her way inside and grabbed a few boxes of professional blue dye and waved them at the girl sitting in the salon chair. When she saw her raise a brow, she slid her a hundred and took her place in the seat, head tipping bag as Ellie Goulding began to blare from her play list.

The woman had asked no questions, and she remembered Tate mentioning something about people in 8D being like her. Immortal. Perhaps she understood that she didn’t wish to talk, nor did she wish to hear. It was hard enough ignoring the voices over her music, she knew she’d have no chance if the sound stopped. So, she was grateful when the woman left her to her own devices as she set to work, rinsing and washing her hair before massaging the dye into it. As Trinity settled into the seat, she kept her eyes closed and set to work. It was easy to do two things at once being the level of Telepath she was, and one of the greatest powers she had was not needing to use a computer to access the internet.

As the beautician worked on her hair, she tried to access the more hidden of files in her mind. It was easy to break passed a few security walls, but when she tried to search for her birth certificate, she came up short. There was no evidence she had ever been born. There was no record, no hospital visit, no bill; not a single thing. Knowing that had to be some kind of mistake, she frowned. She had her certificate in her bag. Well, what she thought was her birth certificate. Could it have been a trick? Another lie delivered to her by her mother to cover up whoever she had slept with?

Why was it such a secret? She knew her mother, she knew that she didn’t sleep with random people. She was a whore, but not the kind that couldn’t remember one face from the next. No, she usually slept with people that her father worked with. His business partners, the help he hired for their many homes, his security team. She kept to the big names, the ones that still had money under their belt so they could spoil her. For some reason, she thought being a slut meant that she’d still get prestige. Shaking her head subtly, she chuckled when she felt a soft smack to her arm. Peeking open an eye, she saw the woman glare at her playfully and winked at her before stilling herself once more.

Instead of trying to find the answers again, she allowed herself to relax and think of the conversations she’d held with her parents. It had been the first time she’d spoken to them in months, but she knew them. They hadn’t seemed as much as angry as terrified when she asked about her real father. Lucas had a tremor to his voice, and Meredith had seemed near tears. What kind of reaction was that? It went deeper than a child accusing her parents of infidelity, and dipped into the realm of terror. Had her mother slept with someone dangerous? Someone that could hurt them? They could just tell her that. She wouldn’t look if she thought any harm would come to any of them, but instead they chose to raise more questions in her mind. She couldn’t –not- search for the truth, even if it seemed like she wasn’t going to find any answers anytime soon.

When the beautician patted her on the shoulder a while later, she slowly opened her eyes and sat up straight in the chair. Her long golden curls fell around her shoulders in cleanly washed waves, but beneath was the undertones of royal blue. She had a few new highlights in a lighter blue that framed her face and brought out the unique amber of her eyes. With a grin of satisfaction, she tipped the woman a hundred and hopped from the stool to leave. Her father might not be able to see her latest transgression, but she was going to enjoy it anyways.

By the time she had stepped outside of the mall, it was nearly time for day to strike. The sky had lightened and the street lamps had turned off, making way for the beginning morning light. As her music continued to play, she hooked her bag over her shoulder and headed back for Veil Towers, knowing that if her boyfriend wasn’t home yet, he would be soon. He hated when she pushed herself too close to daylight hours, but today had been something different. She had been pushed for answers, answers that she wasn’t getting and answers she worried she would never have. Who was her father? Why was there no proof of her birth, no record to lead her in the right direction? She was completely lost, and she had no sense of direction. For all of the schooling she had pushed herself through, all of the knowledge she had crammed her mind with after leaving home, all of the countless clinic hours and desperation to prove herself that she could do and be anything, she had come up short on something as simple as finding out who had helped in her creation.

It left her sick to her stomach. Gritting her teeth, she bent at the waist and pressed her hands to her knees, her head dipping down as she fought the emotional nausea that crept into the pit of her stomach. She had no answers. She had no one to ask. The two people that would know refused to tell her, and she knew that Annabelle would be as lost as she was. Hell, Annabelle was so innocent and perfect, she believed that Trinity was her sister and that their mother was a saint from Heaven above. She never blamed Trinity for anything she did, and she was now blissfully unaware and married to the biggest mistake of her life. If Annabelle knew the truth of what transpired between her and Antonio, it wouldn’t matter if she was blood or not – she would drop her from her life faster than she could blink.

No, she couldn’t risk calling her and asking her for help, even if she could offer some. She was on her own in this. Trying to shake the feeling away, she straightened up and pressed a hand to her stomach as the tension subsided. When she was able to walk again, she turned up Bang Bang on her iPod and slipped through the glass doors of the tower just as the elevator was shutting. Rushing quickly to catch it, she slid inside and pressed the button for the eleventh floor as she tipped her head back and thought of the last few days. She hadn’t bothered to mention a thing to Aksel, and she knew he was worried out of his mind with how she’d been acting. Maybe he could help her find the answers she needed.

If not, she was certain she was going to go insane. As the door opened for her floor, she smiled at the other occupants and slipped out, dangling the keys in one hand. Reaching into her bag, she shut off her iPod and was instantly met with the whining sounds of Othello on the other side. Clearly, her boyfriend hadn’t made it home to feed him yet. Swinging open the door, she frowned when she saw a single sheet of paper on the floor, as if someone had slipped it under there while she was gone. Dropping her bag to the floor, she hoisted Othello up with one arm and picked the paper up with the other, the two simple, red typed words causing her stomach to drop and the world to shift beneath her feet. Someone, somewhere knew where she was – and they also knew what she wanted.

This concludes the first part of Trinity's search for answers. The next part should be sometime soon.