Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight by Andrews, C. (popular books to read .TXT) 📕

her daughter?“ I asked. ”Dr. Foreman is married? Where is her husband?"

“I don't know if she's married or not,” Gia said.

“You don't know?”

“We don't know. Is there something wrong with your hearing?” she shouted at me.

“Well, how do you know she has a daughter?” I came right back at her.

“We know.” Gia paused and looked at Mindy before turning back to us. “Whether she was married or not isn't the point. Posy wasn't her actual daughter. She was adopted and you don't necessarily have to be married to adopt someone.”

“Adopted?”

“Adopted?” Mindy turned to mimic me. “Yes, adopted. You ever hear of it?”

“Mindy was adopted, too,” Gia revealed.

“Oh. Well, I still don't understand it all. What was Dr. Foreman's daughter doing here?”

“What's good for the goose is good for the gander,” Mindy sang.

“What?” Teal asked, stepping forward. “What are you saying?”

“It's what Posy used to say after Gia found out she was Dr. Foreman's daughter. Right, Gia? It means whatever was good to do to anyone else here was good to do to her. Right, Gia?”

I looked at Gia, who wasn't answering.

“So she was here as a ... a student or whatever we are?” I asked.

“Yes, one of us lost souls,” Gia said. “Posy was, shall we say, a bit of a disappointment to her brilliant mother.”

“Sort of what all of us are to our respective mothers, real or otherwise,” Mindy added, her words dripping out of the corners of her mouth.

“This is still very confusing,” Robin said. “Why would Dr. Foreman have her own daughter, adopted or otherwise, in this place?”

“You are thick,” Gia said sharply.

I saw Robin's face show crimson, even through her now deep tan, “I'm thick?” She started toward Gia, her hands clenched into fists. “You want to see how thick I am?”

“Stop it!” I cried at Robin. “Look, I'm not as smart as you are, Gia, but I can see that ripping us apart is what Dr. Foreman wants.”

Gia relaxed her shoulders and looked at me and then at Mindy. Then she sat on her cot.

“Probably,” she admitted.

“Why?” Teal asked. The three of us were around Gia and Mindy now.

“I don't know everything either, but I know she doesn't want us to be strong, and if we all got along and protected each other, it would be us against her.”

“Exactly,” I said. Gia looked up at me. “She had us tearing each other apart pretty good in there. It's exactly what policemen like to do when they arrest you and start to question you. They get you fighting among yourselves and pretty soon someone gives someone else away and it all falls apart.”

“How come you know so much about all that? How often have you been arrested?” Mindy asked me, her face scrunched up with both disgust and curiosity.

“Enough,” I said.

“Where is this Posy now?” Teal asked, still thinking about her. “And what kind of a name is Posy? I can't see Dr. Foreman naming a daughter Posy, can you?” she asked me. “I would have expected something more like Hortense.”

“Posy named herself Posy, I think,” Mindy said. “Isn't that what you said, Gia?”

“Yes. I can't remember Dr. Foreman calling her anything but 'young lady.' ”

“You never met this Posy, Mindy?” I asked.

“No. She was already gone by the time I arrived. Gia told me all about her.”

“Well, what happened to her? Where is she? Did she graduate or something?” Teal asked Gia.

Gia's laugh was thin and maddening. “Graduate? Yes, I guess it is a sort of graduation when someone gets out of here, if she gets out of here.” She was silent a moment; then, after glancing at Mindy, she turned back to Teal and said, “I don't know.”

“Why not?” Robin asked.

“We can't be sure, right, Gia?” Mindy said.

“What does that mean? Did Posy tell you something?” I asked Gia.

“It wouldn't have mattered if she had. When she was first brought here, she told Gia so many different things, it was obvious she was a habitual liar.”

“Really?”

Gia nodded. “For the longest time, I didn't know she had any relationship to Dr. Foreman at all, much less being her daughter. She never called her or referred to her as anything but 'Dr. Foreman,' and I never saw anything warm between them, anything even to suggest they had once lived in the same house.”

“Tell them what she did say, Gia,” Mindy urged.

Gia looked at her and then turned to us. “Posy would talk about her parents as if they were the most wonderful people. They had everything imaginable and they loved her and were just heartbroken over the fact that she was here. In the beginning I didn't know she was lying. She made it all sound believable. I mean, she had it down to the smallest details, the colors of her bedspread, the dolls her father had bought her, her secret magical place in their beautiful big home that she shared with an adorable little sister, I think she called Tamatha.”

“Amazing,” Teal muttered.

“All of it was her fantasy,” Gia said. “Nothing more than her long wish list.”

“Gia says she was a habitual liar or something. We're not even sure about the bad things she had done, exactly why she was here, right, Gia?”

Gia nodded. “Sometimes it seemed to me she was here only because she couldn't tell the truth.”

“Well, then how do you know she was telling the truth when she told you she was Dr. Foreman's adopted daughter?” Teal questioned.

“She never actually told me she was,” Gia said. “I told her and she finally admitted it.”

“Tell them what she said then, Gia,” Mindy urged. It was weird to me how she enjoyed hearing about it all so much, as if she really enjoyed reliving Gia's experience.

Gia laughed. “She said she didn't tell me because she didn't want me to think she was getting any special treatment. That was a good laugh. If anything, I was getting special treatment, not her, but she always had to have a rosy excuse for everything,” Gia said bitterly. “Rosy