Born to Fight

Chapter 12

Celeste

A few days after Billy had come over at Josh's request, and I had had Josh's bombshell dropped on me, I woke up and after doing my morning routine, Loki and I made our way down to the kitchen to get some breakfast.

When we walked into the kitchen, I was surprised to see Jamie, Billy, Josh and a girl sitting at the table talking quietly among themselves. Loki who was following on my heels stopped and observed the group,  seeming to be as curious about what was happening as I was. The girl had blonde hair, pale skin and green eyes. She was sitting right beside Josh. The four of them all looked at me and stopped talking as soon as I entered the room. I could see the blonde was curious about me. She was checking me out like I was the most interesting thing she had ever seen. I am not going to lie, I felt like a bug under a microscope.

Josh smiled at me and waved a hand towards the blonde girl, “Celeste, I would like you to meet my younger sister, Lilly,” he said.

I looked at the girl and silently inclined my head in acknowledgement.

“It’s nice to meet you, Celeste, I have heard a lot about you,” said Lilly with a big smile on her face.

“I wish I could say the same,” I replied. When I saw the confused frown on Lilly’s face I added, “I mean... I haven’t... heard... anything about you.”

I looked to Jamie seeking help on how I was supposed to deal with this situation. I wasn’t used to dealing with things like this and I was finding myself way out of my depth. But to my surprise, no help was forthcoming. On this occasion Jamie seemed content on allowing me to fly solo.

“Celeste, I need to talk to you,” said Billy.

“What about?” I asked, not knowing what he could possibly have left to say to me.

“We have taken care of the house for you,” he said.

“I’m sorry, you did what?” I asked, feeling the anger rise within me. Who the hell did these people think they were?

“We packed up the house up for you. The boxes are in the garage. We sold the furniture and put the house on the market with the help of your mother’s lawyer,” Billy clarified.

“Wait a minute. So what you are saying is you went through my stuff, and packed up everything I owned, without consulting me on the matter first?” I asked, shocked by what I was hearing, "Who the f**k do you think you are? What the hell gives you the right to do that?"

“We didn’t think you would want to go back to the house considering what happened there,” Josh said.

“You people had no right to go through my stuff! You had no right to sell my stuff either for that matter!” I shouted.

“You people? Excuse me, but we are your family?” said Lilly looking at me angrily.

“No, you’re not my family, you are nothing to me. Are you really that stupid? You people are strangers to me,” I told her, keeping my voice low.

“Keep it up and you are going to be all alone in this big world,” said Lilly in an angry tone.

“Keep pissing me off and you are going to end up on a freaking milk carton blondie!” I retorted coldly.

“Celeste, as Lilly said, we are your family,” Billy stated calmly.

“No, you’re not! You are nothing to me. You will never be anything to me! All you are is a problem I do not need! Now, just do me a favor, and stay the hell out of my life! You managed to do that just fine all these years, So go back to doing that and we will be all good!” I shouted at him, before walking out of the room.

I made my way out to the garage with Loki. I looked at the boxes they had piled up in there. This was the contents of my old life, now reduced to packing boxes. The thought of Billy, Josh and Lilly, strangers who felt they had a connection to me, going through my cupboards and my home touching things they had no right touching. God only knows what they had thrown out or gotten rid of without my consent! What had Billy taken for himself? It made me angry. The whole situation made my blood boil. They had invaded my privacy, whether they wanted to see it that way or not. They now knew so much about me. But I still knew relatively nothing about them. Why would they think I would be fine with them doing that? Surely Jamie would have known I would resent them going through my stuff. Had he helped them? I felt so betrayed by him right now that it hurt. He was my friend. So why wasn't he on my side with this?

I had lain awake for the longest time last night going over everything that had happened since my mother had died. I had made my decision on where I was going from here. I had been going to talk to Jamie about my decision this morning, but now, I had decided I was going to go it alone. I had decided last night that I was no longer going to be the fearful girl I had been since that night when my mother had lost her life. I was going to be the girl my mother had raised me to be. I was going to fight back. If the people that had killed my mother were coming for me, then Loki and I were going to be ready for them. I would sort through the boxes from my house later. Right now I had something that I had to do. Loki and I had to get back into training. We needed to be combat fit, both mentally and physically!

Jamie

The moment Celeste had walked out of the room, Lilly put her hands' palms down on the table and looked over at her brother. “Well, that could have gone better. What a spoilt little b***h! You would think she could have at least been grateful we had helped her out,” she muttered.

“Don’t judge her too harshly. She has believed for so long that her mother was all she had. Now that her mother is gone, she had resigned herself to the belief that she is all alone. We just need to give her some time and let her know that that is not the case,” said Billy, looking at his daughter.

“And how exactly do we do that. She is not exactly welcoming us with open arms, now is she?” asked Lilly looking a little annoyed.

“Lilly, come on, she was upset about the house, give her a break would ya?” said Josh looking at her.

“We were just trying to help. She could have at least said thank you. It wouldn't have killed her to say thank you,” said Lilly belligerently. 

“Yeah, well, I am guessing she saw it as an invasion of privacy,” said Josh.

“What does she think? That we only did it, so we could snoop through her things?” asked Lilly looking incredulously at her brother. 

“I don’t know Lilly, but just think about it for a second. If you were Celeste and we went and boxed up everything you owned, sold all of your mothers furniture, and put the only home you have ever known on the market, without talking to you about it, I might add. How would you be feeling right now?” asked Josh calmly.

Lilly just looked at him in silence, but the answer was clear on her face. She would be feeling the same way Celeste was. Lilly glanced around the table and let out a deep breath. “So, what do we do?” she asked.

“We are going to be patient and let her know that we are here for her. Celeste will realize that she is not alone and that we are here. We can’t rush her. We need to let her come to us when she is ready. Right now, she is grieving, and that makes it harder for her to accept us into her life. So, patience, understanding, and a bit of empathy and compassion will work wonders in this situation. That is what we are going to do, okay?” replied Billy, looking at her.

Lilly 

Hearing what my father was saying, I nodded and leaned back in my chair. I really hoped that it wouldn’t take long for Celeste to warm up to us and allow us into her life. I was looking forward to getting to know her. It was good to know that I wasn't going to be the baby of the family anymore. I glanced over at Josh and my father and figured that from the looks on their faces, I wasn’t the only one who was keen to get to know Celeste.