I dragged Shayla by her hand and led her to her room irrespective of her resistance.
"Let go of me, you bastard!!" She yelled at me, using her sharp nails to dig into my wrist while she resisted my pull.
I ignored her tantrums and kept dragging her down the staircase. For some vague reason, I couldn't control my rage anymore. I can't really tell if it's the irritation I feel after knowing Anna is my sister or if it's the despair I feel from having to deal with Shayla.
Anyway, I now vividly understand the reason Shayla is quite rude and also too involved in adult matters. She happens to be finding out more than she should about the family… She knows too much for her age. Anyway, what less should I expect from someone from a complicated family like this?
The Shayla I knew before I left for school was never like this though! She was studious, compassionate, calm, and collected. But this bitch I'm currently dealing with—she's a monster.
I threw her on the bed in her room, then turned around to lock the door from the inside.
"Stop locking the door, you monster!" She spat, "I don't trust you anymore to be behind closed doors with you, Ronald! You'd better open it!"
Although the implied meaning of her statement nauseated me so much that I felt like puking, I just ignored her like she wasn't talking to me.
I walked over to her and squatted, staring immensely at her little wicked face.
"How long have you known Anna is our sister?" I asked my voice, amplifying pain and despair.
She chuckled softly.
She sat up, stared into my eyes, and obviously lied to my face, "I just found out today," she said.
I got furious, I almost landed a slap on her face, but my father's warning kept me in check.
"Tell me everything you know, Shayla." My voice was calm. I was trying to give her the best atmosphere to air her knowledge with me.
"Why should I tell you anything, Ronald?" She scoffed. "You are bigger! How about you go find out for yourself!"
She stood up, hissing after uttering those disrespectful words.
I gritted my teeth in anger, so loud… it also felt as though my blood was boiling.
"Save your anger for the right time, Ronald." She chuckled again. "You know I have all the cards against you. One statement from me can throw you behind bars for the remaining days of your miserable life."
Her words bewildered the soul out of me… did she just!!!
"Shayla, what exactly do you want?"
"Your humility, brother! You are too proud and egocentric for a filthy rat that you are!"
"Are you…." I had to stop myself from cursing her so badly.
But Wait!!!
Did those words just come out of Shayla's mouth?
"Shayla, this is not you! Since when did you become…"
"This has always been me, Ronald. But you were too blind to realise." She said with disdain as she hissed walking into her bathroom.
While squatting, my feet slipped making my butt kiss the floor. "I'm quite entangled in the web." I sighed.
Come to think of it, I'm sure there are still more truths out there in this family I'm yet to uncover.
A lot of unanswered questions still linger in my head. Like; at what point exactly was my mum switched?
I felt like going to sit her down for a long, interrogational conversation, but she'll be going through a lot of mental trauma right now to even want to look at me.
I guess I'd have to go find out myself… and I know exactly where to go look for answers.
***
A common saying goes; If you want to get the real truth, focus on the places you were told never to pay attention to.
And those places in question… I have a lot of them up my sleeve in this house.
My father's house is a gigantic mansion by the way. It's a three-story building with nine bedrooms. And right from the day we moved in here, there's one particular room I was told never to go into, and that room is—MY FATHER'S LIBRARY.
It's the room where he stored all his diaries, hospital documentations, life experiences in both audio and paper form… and most importantly, his so-called scientific discoveries.
'HIS SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES'—That was the major reason he kept that room away from family.
I have never really been interested in science, so curiosity never led me there.
Coupled with the fact that the room had extra security locks on the door—it would only open with either my father's face verification or his fingerprint—And I have neither.
So, apparently, I don't obviously intend to go through the door—I'll eventually break the window and go through it.
My dad's private room is on the last floor upstairs, so it was quite a drag reaching the window.
To get to it, I risked my life to climb through the balcony, I smashed the window with a hammer, and dangled through it with a thick rope I had attached to the balcony.
I landed in his secret room, my body full of bruises and scratches. My foot was bleeding a little bit, but I ignored treating it. I was ready to risk everything for answers… and here I am.
This is not where Shayla got her truths from though, because she can't get in here. I'm the first one in the family aside from my dad to enter his secret room.
And I can't overemphasise how grounded I'll be when he gets back here, but, even with that knowledge… I'll seek the truth!
I'll find out everything.
The part of the room I jumped into was clustered with shelves filled with books, albums and cassettes.
Beautiful!
I'll discover everything like a movie.
I really don't even know what I'm looking for, but I'm very sure there's some truth lurking around, looking for me.
The first thing that caught my eye was a brown envelope. And it caught my eye because it was the only brown thing amongst the pile of white documents.
Within seconds, I tore it open.
I shouldn't have torn it actually, but my curiosity lacked the patience to unseal it.
I scan through the documents within it, my eyes skimming fast like it was a marathon.
The document was filled with a bunch of formalities and signatures for something that seemed really important.
I continued searching, ransacking through the pile, looking for the main document with the headline.
And then I found it....
What!!!!
How is this…..
SHAYLA IS ADOPTED????