A few hours passed since then. Both Ashlyn and Caeden were on their phones, scrolling through YouTube, while waiting for the other to text. Ashlyn lay on her huge couch, in her bedroom, lost in a world of imagination, wherein her crush was stress-eating chocolate icecream out of a huge tub, using a kitchen ladle as a spoon, regretting his life's decisions.
She wished she could switch her thoughts from the rejection to something - anything - else, not unlike how she could effortlessly swipe up to switch to the next short. But alas! Winters Technologies was not quite there yet.
"Ashlyn, have you seen your brother anywhere?" her father asked - an announcement from his AI Phone to hers. Two buttons appeared on her screen. 'Yes' and 'No'. She scratched her forehead for a minute, and clicked the latter.
She slipped her phone in her pocket and walked into her brother's room, though she knew she wasn't allowed to do so, and found her father inside, lost in a world of thought of his own.
The founder and CEO of Winters Technologies had managed to divert Ashlyn's thoughts. All she needed was news of her brother gone missing and all thoughts of Caeden, along with his huge tub of icecream went missing from her head.
"Dad..." Ashlyn started, biting her lip. She paused for a minute, slipped her hand in her pocket and pulled her phone out. She continued, "Family Sharing on our phones includes location."
At once, Ashton smiled softly. "Thanks Lyn, needed that... I was so worried I forgot what my own devices do. Could you track him for me?"
"He's at... Central Hospital..."
"Wait... WHAT?! I have to head there at once. Take care of the house, he's probably been admitted or something. I have to go look."
Ashlyn nodded. "Also, dad... disguise?"
"Oh, forget about disguises," he cried, "my son is in the hospital!"
|•|•|•|
The hospital was awfully silent, until a man’s footsteps shattered the silence. Ashton's footsteps.
He spotted Draco, and a blonde-haired woman sitting together and his facial expression changed from worry to anger. He marched towards them with an enraged pace and said, “What are you doing here? No– what are you doing with my son?”
The woman rose up quickly, wanting to protect herself, but just faced Ashton for the first time, eye-to-eye, after eight years. She had learnt to control her anger long ago. She took a deep breath, and narrated the whole story to him, of how Amira fell into an accident, and he, witnessing the incident, immediately called the authorities, who had brought her to the hospital.
“You know each other, Dad?” Draco asked.
They glanced at each other, then at him.
They didn’t know how to answer him. They didn’t know how to explain the secret that they had kept for so long. The secret that linked them all together. The secret that was hidden in Angelina’s book.
The secret that Draco and Amira were twins.
Angelina said, a bead of sweat trickling down her forehead, “We were business partners…” She nudged Ashton, clenching her teeth. “Weren’t we?”
“Yeah…”
“How can you be an inventor and she’s an author? That doesn’t add up…” he said. “You’re acting sus…”
Angelina and Ashton looked at each other, then back at Draco. They knew they had been caught. Finally, Angelina broke off the silence, and told him the truth, upfront and quickly - the only way huge secrets could be unraveled.
Draco was silent for a long time, trying to process this information. The information that he had a twin sister, a brother, and a living mother. The information Ashlyn was sworn into keeping a secret, and had successfully done so, for the longest time.
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