But…Now it was different. The premonition that Sahara had, about five months ago, was something that she had in her previous life as well. It was strange, because she had only felt paranoid in a car back then…

It had happened after she was even fine after a car crash. It was a few years after having had fallen to the roof of a car when taking off the seat belt and crawling through the window!

She had gotten over that…She had no problems getting into a car and trusted most drivers easily and…Well, it was a few years later that paranoia started and wouldn’t bugger off!

 

Strangely, over a few years of feeling that way, and only in a car, Sahara had a nagging feeling that something bad was going to happen to her.

And…In the end…That’s how she had died, so, Sahara had been right in her prediction…

Of course, Sahara never predicted that it would be in a police force ambulance car, but nonetheless it was a motor vehicle.

This time…It was more generalized, meaning it wasn’t just happening ‘inside a car’. Sahara had no idea what she should be afraid of, it comes and goes at least three times a day. And this feeling was what changed things for her. Sahara could no longer play with an immature, brat of a sister!

I don’t care anymore if she couldn’t grow up and live her own life! I don’t care if she’s jealous because our father doted upon me more! I don’t care that she’s still only a rank one cultivator! Her games were going to be stuffed up now, because I can’t take it anymore!

 

Actually, Gabriella seemed to be the only one to openly try and hurt Sahara…Samuel, her brother, was quite doting towards Sahara too, and preferred to try to learn from her instead of being jealous like his sister. Her ‘new’ mother was still friendly…Unless there was trouble between Gabriella and herself...

What Sahara had found quite early on was that Celeste would always take her blood daughters side, and never taking Sahara’s innocent side, making her remember that in other people’s eyes, Sahara was still just a commoner, an adopted child from the outside.

It was, in a way, true but also wrong. If they wanted to play the cards properly, Sahara was actually blood related and Celeste wasn’t. Sahara was also the same type of relation then that of Talon, well except that she was female, so she might even have more power than that of Gabriella…If only she hadn’t been born ‘unlucky’…

 

That’s why Sahara didn’t like power games, you just never know who really had the most. Some people were in the dark of some particulars and so it’s better to just do what was right and sleep better at night…Right?

It wasn’t like Sahara liked the idea of being called a ‘goody two shoes’ or ‘teacher’s pet’, it was more like…Life was just easier if one lived by the rules. The basic life…I know there’s some rules people don’t want to live by, but she was talking about the ones that are there for real reasons, you know. I’m sure she doesn’t mean everyone follow the rules when they are being abused or whatever…But you get it right? The doings of something that might put something on your conscious that make you feel guilty or regret…That makes you have to cover something up, secrets! It’s those things that Sahara wants to stay away from, she wants her conscious to remain free…Well, as free as possible.

 

Sahara’s new father…Oh, he was nice, he played with her and helped her, checked her work and they would joke around. Of all the people that surrounded Sahara, she had only opened up to Talon, who now knows that she’s an extremely bubbly and a laid-back person when she lets herself go. In fact, Sahara was to a point, sarcastic…

Just the smallest of things could become something to laugh about, like a number or scenery! Her imagination was really quite hard to keep up with sometimes too! On many occasions Sahara would laugh about an inside joke, to which Talon would not understand, all he knew is that Sahara was smiling and having fun talking about something, which in turn made him happy to laugh with her!

 

Talon wasn’t good at telling jokes, he knew that in his teens, he also didn’t know how to be sarcastic unless someone else was with him. There were times when Talon tried to be someone else, to be a bully or to be pompous, but it was obvious to him, after some time, that he had been trying too hard. Talon thought himself as boring, even sometimes wondering why Celeste loves him. Uncertain, yet reliable. Trustworthy, yet shy.

Sahara wanted Talon to know that he was perfect, just the way that he was…And Talon liked that she did that…Like that a lot!

Sahara was even positive that her father comes to see her at times when he is upset, so that she can cheer him up! She didn’t show that she knew this, but she did try extra hard to make him smile those times…

Samuel has started to see this side of Sahara too, but she needs Talon around for her to be like this in front of him.

 

Probably because Talon didn’t believe in her completely, Sahara still held back from showing herself completely though. There are times, especially after a fight or punishment, that she didn’t deserve, when Sahara stood away from Talon. Perhaps that was why Gabriella continued to do what she did? But nonetheless, Sahara couldn’t be close to Talon after Gabriella’s schemes, and she evaded Talon’s visits.

If he took her side from time to time, if he just opened up his eyes more or his mind to other things…Sahara might have been more opened…

She knew that Talon didn’t mean to be short sighted or to not want to lose his trust in his other daughter, so she couldn’t hate him, she just wished sometimes that he would just…See…That’s all…

 

 

Sahara had traveled outside the gates of ‘Rolland Estate’ now, but not by force…She had attended a few gatherings but found them boring. She attended some tea houses, but much preferred to just stay home to cultivate or to do Martial Arts.

There was another reason that she didn’t go out very much and that was that of her sister’s constant bullying. Gabriella seemed to have no limits when her friends were around, so, for quite some time, Sahara now stay clear of her totally. Even at home Sahara insisted upon never being alone with that girl!

Her name calling did make Sahara smile sometimes though, because she found some words that Gabriella had used, that she didn’t even understand them when Sahara had asked her if she knew what they had meant. She would then just call Sahara a commoner with no parents, leaving Sahara to laugh at her and walk away.

Shaking her head many times to Gabriella’s behavior, Sahara wondered often on how she could be so devious! Did her mother teach her?

Bullying couldn’t have come from the father or brother…So, Sahara had been stomped…Until a day after, when she thought of her friends, as one of them was just as devious as Gabriella.

 

Sahara tried to discreetly tell father, that perhaps Gabriella wasn’t in the right circle of friends, but he didn’t act out upon it.

It couldn’t be helped as he didn’t see Gabriella’s vicious side, but Sahara hated that she knew better but couldn’t do anything about it. It wasn’t like she didn’t want to help her, it was just the more she thought to speak out about Gabriella’s ways and trying to get them to see it so they can set her straight, only put Sahara in a bind!

If she were to say something that was boundless, she felt like no one would believe her!

She felt like Gabriella was this sharp sword and that if she held it wrong, it’ll only hurt her! So, all Sahara could end up doing, was nothing…

The punishment that Sahara was doing for Gabriella scheming against her, was not going out of her way anymore to help her out of this bullying state. She had tried to come to peace, she had tried to say something about her friends, and so her part was now done!

So, with everything, Sahara believed that she tried enough to straighten things out…Before she lost it, that is!

 

 

Yep, Sahara lost it! Not like a crazy person, it was more like losing her normal face, her ideals, for a moment…It just became too much to take, that’s all…

Sahara had been standing in her ‘house’ and looking around at all the broken pots, vases, books, furniture, clothes and some personal artworks. It was indeed the biggest scheme that Gabriella played so far! At that point Sahara hadn’t called it a scheme, it was the biggest ‘piece of work’, ‘mess’, ‘nastiness!’!

Sahara was officially upset!

 

Picking up her own picture, that had been now ripped, not only in half but in quarters, Sahara could feel her anger rising. She liked her work, she was proud of it, and seeing it like this…

It wasn’t just some kids painting! It was a picture of a tree, because she couldn’t do people, but the tree was really quite nice. Lined work that she had never done in her previous life, this had been all new and…And she had finished this, wanting to give it to Samuel for…For his birthday…

No respect!

This was her work, her area. She didn’t intrude much here, it was more like a small cupboard space under the stairs, compared to what Gabriella had!

Not once had she complained, not once had she tried to show the difference between what she had and what Gabriella had!

She wasn’t some spoilt kid that wanted to spend her first years on stupid crap that would keep dividing her and other people!

 

While Sahara was trying to calm herself down, trying to tell herself that whatever was broken might be able to be fixed or that it shouldn’t mean anything to her anyway…Talon had come, and he was so angry that he hadn’t let her speak at all, from the moment that he walked in!

“Why get that angry that you ruin your things!? Why?”

He had initially come here to relax, only to do the opposite, at finding such a disaster!

Seeing him like this, Sahara stayed silent. She was a little pissed off when he went straight to yelling at her!

Gabriella probably got someone to run to him and state that she had some kind of fit of rage and wrecked my own belongings in the process! Fuckin Bitch!

 

All this time, Sahara hadn’t played the blame game, especially since she didn’t care enough to find evidence to even do it…But at this moment, when her emotions were quite crazy, Sahara started to wonder if he’d even believe her if she had evidence to show him that she had been the one that’s been bullied against all this time!

“Why are you not saying anything! Why ruin perfectly fine things!”

His yell maddened Sahara even more, making her emotions spill over the edge, “Good question! Why is my stuff ruined!? You tell me! I’m getting sick and tired over this immature bullshit!”

If Sahara’s voice had been normal, it might not have freaked Talon out so much, but she had yelled out every single word! It wasn’t a child’s voice complaining and having a cry about their sibling, it was a mother’s voice that was pissed of with another parent because they couldn’t keep their child in check when it came to respecting others!

Before he could snap out of his stunned silence, Sahara had thrown her broken artwork to the floor and ran off, which only confused Talon more because that small act was indeed one of a child…A really upset child…

 

Talon had been flabbergasted, never seeing Sahara so angry before, ever! But another thing that made him stock-still, was the word that she had used. Never had he heard it before, and he tried to figure out what it meant…But, having done this, he hadn’t followed Sahara out and couldn’t believe that she had literally vanished!

Regret will flash through him, as he realizes soon when no one could find his little girl! And with Sahara running away like this, Talon really did think about what she had just yelled out to him.

 

Finally, he found himself questioning why these things always seemed to happen to Sahara. He seemed to come to see things at a time when Sahara was already in the middle of something. In the middle of a mess in her room, in the middle of clean clothes on the dirty floor, in the middle of a couple of people looking at her in what looked like horror. With her in the middle of everything and someone to state what happened almost straight away, Talon…What had he done?

He had believed what had been said about all those occasions…

Trust, he liked to trust people. He believed trust was something that would bring peace to his family, perhaps even the world…

Nothing had been such a big deal before, Sahara had just taken all the ‘blame’, without…Without saying a word…

It was almost like…

Thinking more about it, he felt himself see something that he probably didn’t want to see beforehand.

Perhaps…Sahara is innocent, all this time…But if she was, why had she not said a word to him? And that also means…That the real culprit…

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