Zara was in an abandoned parking lot before the highway, listening to Hozier, because he was her God, and Panic! At the Disco, because she was panicking. She could go anywhere she wanted but where would she go? The road ahead was an uncertain one and the one behind her was full of grief.

She called her aunt once more, praying to her Saints that she would pick up and give her a reason to turn back....to go somewhere she knew. "Zara?"

Zara closed her mouth to keep her from sobbing. "Aunt Jean?"

Her aunt sighed in relief on the other end. "Where are you, my child? Where have you been all this while! I've been-"

"Worried? That's what I should say!" She talked back to her for the first time in her life. "You haven't answered any of my messages. You haven't picked up any of my calls. Where are you?"

"I'm right outside New York, Zara. What do you mean you know who you are?"

Zara's chest restricted her voice. "I'm not Zara Medina....am I?"

There was a silence that took over which worried Zara into thinking that the call had gotten cut. "Meet me in the coordinates that I'm sending you. Now. Stay away from the city and stick to the shades of the trees."

And the call got cut.

Zara had no time to process what had happened. Was her aunt being dramatic? But why would she do that? She got a new message from an unknown number but the way it was signed with "Aunt J", she knew she could trust clicking the link, which took her to Google Maps.

The coordinates were beyond the highway across the city, outside the borders of New York. It was a wooded area and she noticed one particular image of a building - the Temple that Penance, the same temple that was owned by mafia gangs. Was her Aunt a party to this?

Keeping her thoughts in control, Zara made her way to the location.

⧪

The clouds started to gather together, making it dark to see even if it was only noon. A soft thunder broke through announcing a storm's arrival. Nothing made sense anymore to Zara. Her name was Zoya. Just that fact was hard to process.

She had to block Adrian's voice from her mind but she could only think of how he had tried to come into the garage to stop her. Why would he have wanted to do that? The truth was out. Everything had been a facade all along. He was keeping her safe because she was the leader of the enemy gang, even if she hadn't known that at the time.

Zara was bracing herself for the next interaction. She hadn't seen her aunt in months and she was going to a place that was also a graveyard of sorts. Would she be strong enough to face the truth?

It took her about an hour to reach the location. She put the car in park and walked out into the wooded area that surrounded the one gate in front of her. She checked the map once again but it indicated that she was in the right place.

She took her bag out and walked towards the double-barred iron gates. Beyond it was the graveyard that she had been fearing to face. She looked back at the jeep that could take her anywhere that she wanted, but her aunt had specifically asked her to come here.

There must be a reason, right?

She opened the gate with a trembling breath and took a few steps inside. She started to read the names on the gravestone, as if she was in a military alliance yard, one by one as she made her way inside....until her eyes fell upon one particular tomb.

May Ferrara.

Zara's knees buckled and she fell to the ground before the grave. Her aunt called her a mayflower for a reason. "Mother...." She whispered.

She remembered her mother's smile against the sun that had blinded her. She could hear her father's laugh and smell his cologne. Thunder clapped twice and it started to rain, but Zara did not move from where she sat, staring at the engravings on the stone head.

"Beautiful Daughter, Loving Wife and Caring Mother."

It was all too real.

Zara remembered what she had heard the time she had been knocked out by drugs. She had seen her mother. They had been driving somewhere. That's where her love of cars came from - her father.

It was all too real.

She remembered how her mother turned around to tell her that they would be stopping to eat soon and that Zara wouldn't have to be confined in the car anymore. "We only have to get someplace safe." She had told her.

It was too real.

The memory came back to her as if a punch to the gut. Seeing the gravestone only reminded her of the fact that her parents were dead when she wasn't. They had given her everything and she couldn't even remember them apart from the abstract images that her subconscious memory held for her.

A hand clamped her shoulder, but it was a familiar hold. Zara looked up at the person holding an umbrella for both of them. "I'm so glad you got here safely."

"Aunt Jean."

Zara stood up, careful not to slip over the water, and hugged her aunt. "Aunt Jean!" She couldn't hold back her sobs to come back to the embrace of her family. "Aunt Jean....what's going on?"

Aunt Jean pulled back and wiped the dripping water from Zara's eyebrows. "I'm not your aunt."

Zara frowned. "What?"

"We have a lot to talk about but let's not do that here. There's a safe house nearby. We'll be secure there."

Safe house. Secure. I'm not your aunt.

"What the hell is going on?"

"I'll explain everything but first, come with me."

Aunt Jean tried to reach for Zara, who pulled back from another person that had been lying to her. Only this time, it had been a lie for all her life. "You knew." She spit out the same words she had told Adrian.

"Listen to me!" Aunt Jean shook Zara's shoulders, if she could be called her aunt. "We're not safe here. You have to come with me right now. I'll explain everything." She turned her back on Zara and started to walk down the path.

But Zara's legs were stuck to the place. "You're....not my aunt?"

Aunt Jean stopped in her steps and turned around. "I'm not your aunt."