Twelve-year-old Stephanie sat on an uncomfortable gritty grey-blue plastic chair, in a drab-grey room, with faulty horizontal blinds that only opened halfway and left the other half undrawn. The carpet was an old gross butterscotch yellow with numerous dark brown stains, probably coffee. And it was dusty too. There were some toys for children in the corner. You know, those cheap plastic affairs that were there for courtesy, not really for the fun of the child. Not that Stephanie was a child and would ever even want to lay her hands on those so-called ‘toys’. She was twelve going on thirteen. And she had been so excited to get the landmark ‘teen’ in her age. Dad had promised her a family trip to the cabin to celebrate. Stephanie loved the cabin. She loved the old oak tree she used to climb. She loved the homey smell of the cabin because one of the first things mom would do is to bake cookies to ward off the months of disuse. But now…

Stephanie sniffled a little and felt the bear of a man stiffen in his seat, like he was afraid he would have to comfort the ‘poor orphaned girl’. Stephanie scowled at that thought. Like she would even let him near enough to comfort her. Any niceness he showed would be out of pity, and pity always only ran skin-deep. He didn’t really care for her. Not like mom and dad had.

Stephanie looked up a little through her eyelashes, still keeping her head down. The desk the man was sitting behind was a gross poop-brown and the binders were dusty with a few hand and fingerprints of cleanliness. There was a picture of a family on the poop-desk.

A father. A mother. A son. And a daughter.

Stephanie’s family looked better in her opinion. No. Scratch that. It was fact.

She didn’t like the man in the picture. He had a hard look in his eyes. The same look Uncle Richard’s wife had when she was trying hard not to hit Stephanie for touching her stupid boring flower arrangements and ugly antiques. But then again, why look at the picture when the real life specimen was here in front of her eyes? Too close for her liking?

The mother was not as pretty as her mom either. Mom’s eyes were prettier, her smile brighter, her hair softer-looking. Plus the other woman looked…fat. The boy looked like one of the bullies in Stephanie’s class. Already she felt she didn’t like him. Plus, Stephanie was pretty sure Jaxon could beat him up no sweat. Jaxon was a good scrapper.

The girl…the girl looked nice enough. But her smile was too fake. Smiles that showed too much teeth and looked too darn bright, almost too bright to be true…usually were exactly that.

Too good to be true.

Mom used to read her ‘Danny The Champion of the World’, and in it, Danny had once said that a person who smiled with just their mouth may not be trustworthy, and Stephanie had noticed that most of the girls that hung around Dominic smiled with their mouths.

She didn’t like them much. They thought she was just some poor orphan child Dom’s parents had adopted from China anyways.

Ignorant doofs…

A person who smiled with their eyes…now that’s hard to fake. Eyes led you to someone’s deepest thoughts. What had mom called them? Oh yea…windows to the soul. Stephanie didn’t quite understand what that really meant, but she did know that she liked a person whose eyes flashed and twinkled when they smiled at her. It made her feel warm and fuzzy and…special. Just like how mom made her feel. Mom smiled with her eyes.

The man in the desk cleared his throat importantly but Stephanie was not afraid. Nor was she the least bit intimidated to want to listen to him. If you have something important and good to say, people will naturally listen. If not, no matter how important you made yourself sound, it would just fall flat. Dad taught her that. And he would know. He’s a university professor. People listen to him everyday.

Or…he was…

Nevertheless, Stephanie tried really hard to always have something nice and good to say. But sometimes other people just made it really difficult for her to say something nice, like those stupid boys in her class who liked to talk to her in a ridiculing Chinese accent because they thought all Asians came from China. Then they’d make those stupid stereotypical thread-sized ‘Asian eyes’ and make those idiotic gong sounds.

Stupid.

And Stephanie had a bit of a temper sometimes so that made it harder to do as dad had said. But she did try. She really did, and more often than not, she really did have good things to say. Just not to people who didn’t deserve it. So she usually ended up just not saying anything.

Just like with this man.

The man cleared his throat again, clearly wanting Stephanie to look up at him and give him ‘her undivided attention’ like her teachers always wanted them to do. Stephanie didn’t care. Until they let her see Lexi-belle, she could care less if they threatened her or bribed her with candy.

She just wanted to see her sister.

“Stephanie?” the man rumbled, making a horrible attempt at being ‘nice’ and drawing her out, except he really didn’t know what he was doing because no one calls her Stephanie except mom, dad and Dom. Jaxon calls her sprout and other names that generally made fun of her shorter height. Anyways, who was this man to call her that? All her friends called her Steph, and that should be all he was allowed to call her. Jerk.

“Stephanie,” the fake kindness was gone now, as she knew it would be. Impatient, just like the brute he was. His voice was grating and harsh, so unlike dad’s. Dad’s voice was gentle and soothing as he sang her and babygirl to sleep every night…

Stephanie, you have to stop thinking about dad. You have to stop thinking about any of them! Focus! Focus on getting babygirl back!

“Stephanie I know you can hear me.”

“I want to see my sister,” Stephanie said without looking up.

“Your sister is with her grandmother.”

“I know that! We were headed there to pick her up you doofus!” this time she granted him eye contact…but in the form of a glare. She was not afraid of this man. Dad could be so much scarier when he was mad. But dad was only ever mad when he needed to be. When Stephanie or her brothers had misbehaved and needed dad to tell them right from wrong. Dad never hit them. He sat them down and very seriously explained to them what they had done wrong and why it was wrong. When Stephanie was younger, she never understood these ‘crossroad talks’, as dad called them. A choice between crossroads of right and wrong.

She would just understand the fact that she was in trouble. She could never really sit still enough for her to be able to process everything dad so patiently tried to teach her. But as she got older, she began to understand what dad was trying to do, and she appreciated that he never tried to beat her and her brothers into submission or ‘understanding’ as some of her friend’s parents did. In a way, Stephanie thought dad’s serious and grave face when he talked to her was scarier than if he had hit her. Hitting someone was usually done out of rage and anger and didn’t require much rational thought behind it. But what dad did…it meant she really had done wrong and her dad had every reason to be mad and disappointed in her.

That was a scary thought.

Dad being disappointed in her.

Thank goodness he never was. And he always made sure Stephanie knew it.

“Young lady! The Chief of police will not be spoken to in that manner! Didn’t your par–”

“SHUT UP! DON’T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT MY MOM AND DAD!” Stephanie had screamed at him before she could stop herself. That was her anger talking. But honestly, he had no right to talk of her parents and tell her they hadn’t taught her any manners. Because they had. It was just Stephanie couldn’t control herself in that moment. Her own failings. It should not be allowed to reflect badly on mom and dad. It wasn’t their fault. And just because they were gone doesn’t mean this jerk can talk bad of them. No one should have any reason to say anything bad about her parents. No one.

The man stared at her, surprised at her outburst and her complete lack of fear for him. He sighed and his eyes softened. The girl had lost both her parents in one night. And from the condition they found her in, all covered in blood and gore, she had seen the horrible state of her parent’s bodies before she had made a run for it. He tried again. Softer and gentler this time.

“You’re still to young to take care of your sister. How old is she?”

“Lexi-belle’s four, almost five. Shouldn’t you know that? Doesn’t it tell you that somewhere in those files you’ve been reading?”

The Chief in a breath. This girl was quite trying. Hardheaded. Unlike most of the other children he’d dealt with in these cases. Most of them would just cry and cry and cry and you wouldn’t be able to even get one darn word from their mouths. But this one… This one was hardy and headstrong, stubborn like a prized bull with a fearlessness of a matador to match. She had not cried one tear since she had gotten here, only obstinately demanded to see her brother and sister with single-minded conviction. Completely not daunted by her abandoned state or his presence, which was usually enough to scare the pants off most children. Even his own.

He suspected that she would break down sometime later though. Kids usually stuffed trauma away and it didn’t resurface until later, when it had festered and become something more twisted and harder to treat. The Chief hoped that when that happened, the girl would have someone to hold her up and care for her. She deserved at least that much if not a lot more.

“Well it’s safer to keep her with her grandmother for now. But you will see her soon when your brother gets home.”

“Dom is all the way in Afghanistan. How in the world do you think he’ll get home from active duty?”

“We’ve already sent for him. He is the official guardian of you, Lexi, and your brother now.”

“My brother has a name. He’s called Jaxon. Don’t make him into one of your nameless John Does. And when can I see him?”

And once again, she surprised him with her collective calmness to even be able to carry a conversation with him, much less one with such biting wit and rationality.

“He’s not out of surgery yet, last I heard.”

“I hate this place. And I hate you. I’d rather be anywhere than here.”

Ahh…there’s a little bit of her childishness shining through. The Chief was actually comforted by that. This tragedy would certainly rip this girl’s childhood and her innocence to shreds, he was happy to see at least a little shadow of childish immaturity and infantile simplicity had been retained. He hoped she was not too scarred and damaged, but he knew that was unlikely. So he hoped for the next best thing: he hoped that with her hardy resilient character, she wouldn’t be brought down to nothingness after all this was settled.

“Look Stephanie wh–”

“Don’t call me that! Only my family calls me that.”

“Ok, fine. What do you want me t