Once she had opened the front door Hebe found herself faced with the now gloomy home that belonged to only her, that would only welcome her because no one came over anymore. Ella rarely made visits to the dark home where the tiffany chandelier was now dusty because Hebe made no effort to clean it.

She walked pass the tiffany chandelier without glancing at its ugly sight and made her way up the stairs into the bathroom. After taking a warm shower she stepped out of the bathroom to stare at herself in the mirror that hung on the wall in the middle of the hallway. This was her…the Hebe that shunned everyone but Ella from her life. Even her family rarely tried to contact her after she had ignored them for months. She had rudely rejected their comfort, their offers to help her move, and their offer to move back in with them. Why was so grieved, so miserable? Her only answer was because Aaron never made it home on time to save the twins. She never realized that her problem wasn’t only her ex-husband, but her continuous rejection of her family which extended to her silent fear of Selina, which she never realized.  

Hebe abruptly turned around as if she had heard someone climb up the stairs. For some reason she stared at the top of the staircase, her eyes never moved from that spot. A minute passed and she finally turned away walking into the bedroom to wear her pajamas, then into the twins’ bedroom where she slept every night now.

The twins’ bedroom was a square room. Two twin beds were set next to one another, but the twins never slept on the separate beds. They always slept together on one of the beds, holding hands to sleep. The walls were covered with small cartoon cars wallpaper prints. A small wooden trunk with robot toys sitting on top of it sat underneath the four framed window filled with toys she and Aaron had spoiled the boys with. It was a perfect setting for children. Hebe turned the lights off and climbed onto the twin bed covering herself with the blanket.   

After her eyes closed a horrid dream played after Calvin’s story, which the brother had been the killer. In her dream her brother had come after her with a gun chasing her through the woods, a manhunt that made her feel as if an invisible hand was squeezing her heart. Hebe finally awoke in bed when she had been cornered and shot in her dream. She found herself sitting in the dark clutching onto the twins’ teddy bears.

Blood rushed through her body and she thought she could feel every drop make its way from her heart to her arms and brain. Feeling too shaken up and fearful Hebe figured she didn’t want to sleep anymore. She couldn’t explain the feeling clearly enough, it was like those dreams where an invisible being was chasing you and you tried running but never made it anywhere. You could only hear your heart beating in your ears and your throat clogged up. As she got up even her legs felt too wobbly for her to stand as if the energy had been drained out of her. Taking easy slow breaths, which didn’t seem to be helping, Hebe made her way down the stairs by clutching onto the wooden railing tightly.

It was 5 am when Hebe began brewing some coffee. A few minutes later she found herself sitting at the table with the cup of coffee in front of her. Hot steam drifted up into the air from the thick brown liquid. The only light that lit up the house that night was in the kitchen where Hebe found herself crying helplessly.

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Ella couldn’t help but feel guilty because she had told Calvin to tell that story. She was behind that scheme, that story. Though the story was true and she was just telling Hebe her opinion she hadn’t thought Hebe would react in such a strong way.

Hebe had blown up at her more than a million random times after the twins went missing and Ella was always helpless when confronted with Hebe’s anger. It was only then Ella had figured that what Hebe needed most was Aaron and probably the only one she needed most was him, but who knew she would refuse the comfort he tried to give her? Hebe was too stubborn…maybe because of the way she grew up. Her environment and her biological mother and step mother must have left large impacts on her.  

Hebe had vented her anger and frustration on Aaron, who had received the most damage. He did his best to please her in all ways, almost every time he was successful…but that was only when the twins were by their sides. Ella felt more than sorry for him, but there wasn’t anything she was able to do. Ella talked to him once in a while just to see how he was doing, but refrained from talking to him too much. Ella had tried to explain to Hebe about Aaron’s struggle with the situation and his point of view numerous times, but Hebe could only see her pain. Who would she listen to if she didn’t even listen to her?

During the past year Ella found herself helplessly helping Hebe with every step she took as if she were only a child. Hebe cried, she threw tantrums, she even blamed Ella once, the arguments they would have, and Hebe would apologize two days later. It had transformed into a routine for her. 5 months later was when Ella came to the conclusion that Hebe needed to try to meet someone new…at least someone that she could receive comfort from other than her. And that came out as a zero too.

Hebe was in a stand still. To Hebe the only day she lived off of was the day when she had chased the intruder out and came back to find the twins missing. That was all Ella was able to make out of Hebe.

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Jiro had just been a smart know it all assistant for the past 2 years under the chief who was leading an investigation about two missing twins. The news had just come to him yesterday night that the chief had been in an accident and to his luck he was chosen, over much argument, to lead the crew and continue the investigation. Just the week before there was a heated discussion about whether they should stop the search because the leads had disappeared. It was a secret meeting held between only those involved in the case. He had joined in on the discussion and stated that the investigation should continue. The family should have a right to know whether their children were still alive or dead. Their grievances would continue for the rest of their lives unless the children were found and wasn’t it that such investigations was a responsibility to the police? There were many more he had wanted to say but he had been cut off and the responsibility was now his. For once in his life he was feeling overly nervous about what steps to take. No one on his investigation team would listen to such an amateur or at least anyone who was of a lower rank. Jiro was already ready to face his failure head on.

If he hadn’t found any clues or any leads in the next 48 hours he’d be pressured to report to the mother that they had lost all leads on the children and it’d be impossible to track them down. Jiro didn’t want to do that. Just imagining the mother cry in front of him was something he did not want to see.

His superior, who worked under him now that the chief was in the hospital, had told him earlier that if Mrs. Tian did cry it wouldn’t be his fault.

“Women cry because they have no other way to vent their anger and it’s her fault for leaving her children behind while she went out to chase the so called intruder,” he told Jiro with a cigarette in his mouth, “who knows if that story’s true. It sounds like bogus to me. Maybe she had been out of the house while the twins were taken.”

Jiro didn’t know what to say and it wasn’t like he was those kind of people who let others trample over him. His pride had a lot of value to it and was the number one important thing to him, but he was not sure how to tell his co-workers off. A rule that flew around at the police station was that they should respect those older than them plus the senior workers who had been there longest. If he had snapped back at his superior in defense of the mother he would have been reported for smoking in the building or something worse. It was ironic that even though it was a police station where things were supposedly righteous, many things were unfair actually.

Because he had lived a helpless childhood he wanted to be able to do something about the  helpless when he had grown up. And now that he was finally an adult with authority he felt he had the power to make change even if he didn’t have that much power.

He stared down at the papers sprawled out on his desk. They were copies of newspaper scans and official police reports from the investigation held at the Tian house. Since they were only reports and did not contain any evidence they were pretty much useless to Jiro in the first place. He didn’t know where to start looking, where to start off at. Jiro rubbed his temples. He had been so smart when he had been under the chief, where had that intelligence gone? When he had been an assistant/cop/investigator he was in charge of searching for clues and evidence that would lead to the identity of the suspect. So, in other words instead of sitting at the desk in a the police station like many imagined him to, he usually went out with the squads on chases.

“Hey we just received a call about a fight, watch the station till we get back,” a man told him before running out the door with the others behind him.

But as usual during his night shifts he was usually left behind to watch the station with several older cops who only managed reports. He returned his attention back to the newspaper articles and felt a headache pounding in his head a minute later.

The police station had gone under a reconstruction last year and was now composed of bricks partly on the inside and the outside was mostly constructed of gray rocks. The air condition that had broken endlessly was now working amazingly. Old desks had been replaced with wooden ones along with chairs and shelves-almost everything old had been replaced with new items. The tiled floor consisted of squared patterns within each square and the light reflected off of it. Even the front doors were now automatics with a manual one at the side. Flowers had been planted outside of the police station which made it look more welcoming to others, but in Jiro’s opinion the flowers made the police station look like the city hall.  

Jiro had been spinning his pen between his fingers when he heard loud shouts coming from the door. From where he was sitting he wasn’t able to clearly make out what was going on. But leaning a little bit to the right he was able to see from the angle the other officer’s faces as they entered the room next door. Two men who were handcuffed followed them.