Emily glared at him, "I'm not a quitter and I'm not running away from anything. I'm just being realistic, he could be dead or in some part of the world, it would be a waste of time to look for him."
"And what if you're wrong and he's right where you left him or even closer? What do you have to lose by looking for him?" Blake questioned. He furrowed his brows, "Don't you want to know the truth?"
"Of course, I want to know the truth but..." she trailed off, not sure exactly why she didn't want to find him.
"You're afraid," Blake concluded. "You're afraid of what you might find out or remember if you were to find him."
Emily knew he was right so she couldn't argue with him, but she was never going to admit it.
"If we find him, we can find out what happened to your aunt and clear your name once and for all," Anessa added with pleading eyes.
Emily sighed in defeat, "Fine, we'll look for him." She looked pointedly at Anessa, "But don't be disappointed if I'm right and it really was a waste of time."
Anessa grinned as she nodded profusely. She had a good feeling that they weren't going to be disappointed, so despite the odds of them finding one guy among billions, Anessa was quite hyped.
"So, I'm guessing we're not visiting your exorcist friend?" Blake questioned. Emily stared daggers at him and he held up in his arms in surrender.
Anessa nodded, "Yes we are and this time it's more important than ever to see her."
"For the last time, I'm not possessed!" Emily frustratingly argued.
Anessa clasped on her seatbelt, "Calm down, my friend isn't only an exorcist, she was gifted the gift of foresight."
Emily frowned as she plopped down in the backseat, "And how is that going to help us find Darniel?"
"She can see people's pasts, present, and future. You can't see your past, but she might be able to, so that's why we're going to her."
Emily's frown deepened as she recalled how the Decepticons planned to get information from Sam Witwicky's mind in the movie, Transformers. There was no way Emily was going to let any tiny robot try to cut her head open or push weird tentacle things up her nose.
She looked outside at the cars in the parking lot that slowly went by as they drove towards the exit of the underground parking lot. 'The car isn't moving that fast so I can jump out,' she thought to herself.
But as if reading her mind, Blake looked at Emily's frowning face through the rearview mirror, "Before you start thinking anything crazy, I already enabled child lock on the car."
Emily's plans were squashed, with child lock enabled, the door could only be unlocked from the driver's side.
She huffed and puffed her cheeks while angrily folding her arms. "I'm not a child," she argued.
Blake turned out of the parking lot of the apartment complex and went on the main road. He glanced at her from the mirror before returning his eyes to the busy road, "Then stop being so troublesome."
---
They arrived at where Anessa described as a secret location.
Blake rammed his foot on the brakes just as a little boy with his face painted as spiderman ran by with a balloon in his hand. A few seconds after a woman with three other children raced by after the little boy calling out for him to stop.
Emily erupted in laughter, she laughed so hard her sides ached. "The secret location is an amusement park?" she questioned through her laughter.
Anessa's face flushed red, she was embarrassed because she earlier talked so much about how private the meetings were between her friend and the clients. She even mentioned that the place was situated in an abandoned building people often rumored was haunted and stayed away from.
Emily pointed at a Halloween-decorated building labeled 'Haunted House' with an amused look on her face, "Is that the building you said people rumored was haunted?"
Blake pulled Emily from Anessa's side, "Stop teasing her already." Emily wanted to rebut but he clasped his big hand over her mouth.
Emily tried pulling his hand off, but what was her strength compared to his? Her curses came out muffled as she slapped his arm, but Blake still didn't pay her any mind as he talked to Anessa who was still red from embarrassment.
She looked up at Blake, "I was sure of everything I said earlier, I don't know when this place turned into an amusement park."
Blake hummed and looked around. Since he was very tall, he could see over many heads and took in the scenery of the festivities the amusement park had to offer. "I've never been to an amusement park before," he commented.
Anessa's brows shot up in surprise. Her parents had taken her to circuses many times when she was a child, so many times that she's already lost count and Blake has never been to one even once?
"Were there no amusement parks where you're from?" she questioned.
Blake shrugged, "I was in a car accident when I was younger and had some head injury that caused me to forget all my childhood, so maybe I've been to one before, but don't remember."
"Maybe you could ask your parents?" Anessa suggested.
"They died in that car accident."
Anessa's face fell, "I'm so sorry, I had no idea."
He smiled, "It's fine, I never said anything about it earlier."
"Do you miss them?"
Blake chuckled, "Not to be heartless, but I can't say I do. You can't miss something you don't even remember having."
Anessa frowned, "But have you never wished that you could remember them so you could grieve properly?"
"I was taken in by my aunt and she told me that my parents were bad people who tried to take their own lives as well as mine by staging a car accident after going into debt. My aunt is very good to me and she's the only mother I need to remember."
---
DollyRoma: In this chapter, we learned a bit about Blake's past, but things aren't always as they seem. ;)