Page 69 of Girl Like Me

“Uncle put your gun away, they need to arrest my stepmother and brother now.”

He tucks his gun back away and I stand slowly, setting the gun on the floor and sliding it across to them.

“I’ll come and give a full statement since I’m being arrested for Milo’s murder but he isn’t dead and I can prove it. Also, I want it known that Carter was the one who beat me, along with my ex boyfriend Sebastian and Shandra was involved in covering it all up.”

Deacon calls in back up and my uncle moves closer to me. “I’ll send my lawyers down to the station for you whilst you’re being questioned. I need to go and get my brother home, Camilla is a piece of work and he should have known better.”

“Guys, my uncle needs to go now and you can call your debt paid.” I say and look between my uncle and Lissa. They both nod and my uncle leaves the room, pulling out his phone as he goes.

The local police show up, Carter and Shandra are both arrested and taken in. Lissa and Deacon are possibly going to be in trouble, I’m not sure how they plan to explain pretending to have a warrant and taking me from a facility without parental permission, but I will ask my father to help them sort it out.

“JD, you have to come down to the station with us and give a statement. I highly suggest that you don’t say anything until your lawyer is with you.” I nod and follow them out to their car.

We drive in silence until we pull up to the police station.

“Can you call Levi and the guys and tell them that I’m okay?”

She nods and takes me in, where I’m led to an interview room. My lawyer is in the room with me within minutes.

He advises me not to comment about anything that happened today so I don’t incriminate Lissa and Deacon. All I have to do is give my statement about what happened the day Milo was shot.

The police officers taking my statement grill me, one even tries to trip me up. After what feels like hours I’m released into my uncle's custody. He is waiting for me out the front by the steps.

“So you remember me, huh?” he says, lifting his sunglasses, a wide smile overtaking his face.

“I do and I know where Milo is. He always had a back up plan, that if something ever went wrong, a place that we could hide out that no one knew about.”

“Why didn’t I know?” he asks furrowing his brow. I can see that he is slightly offended that I knew, and he didn’t.

“I think it was more in case I ever needed a safe place, but I can take you there. It's in New Hope.”

“Isn’t that where your mother went to university?” I nod.

“And where some of her family lives. Milo reached out to them a few years ago and he made a connection with one of them. His name is Arden.”

“Yes, I do remember him,” he says with a chuckle. “He was a small, weird kid.”

We navigate into New Hope, my memories are back but I have to dig deep to find the place that I'm looking for. We finally pull into an underground parking area and drive in.

“There’s surveillance, so he knows we're here already.”

My uncle nods and parks the car. We climb out just as an elevator bings and opens but no one steps out. We step in cautiously, my uncle’s security joining us. Both men are massive, taking up most of the space inside. I consider telling them to wait underground but I know my uncle won’t trust Milo. Not yet, anyways.

Once the elevator reaches the top floor, the doors slide open and I sigh in relief. My heart beats a million miles an hour, here is the big test. Will I remember his face? Milo stands with his back to us and looks out the large glass windows overlooking New Hope. We all move towards him, he turns and my face lights up, I can feel it, I remember him, his dark brown hair and dark eyes and a smattering of freckles on his nose that he never grew out of. I run, closing the distance between us and launch myself into his arms. He wraps his around me and squeezes tightly.

“I missed you,” he says as tears fall down my face. “I take it you have your memories back?”

I pull back and nod. “I do.”

“Let’s sit so I can explain. Jarva you can call off your guard dogs, you’ll want to hear this too.”

“I think I want to hear why my right hand man wanted me to believe he was dead.”

“Just sit your stubborn ass down and I will tell you.” Milo snarks.

We all sit on the L shape sofa, the security standing to the side, eyeing Milo skeptically.

“I had been watching Shandra just like you had asked me to and I knew something wasn’t right. I had some intel and decided to confront her in the kitchen, to see how she would react and it turns out that she wasn’t happy with my discovery. Carter walked in the room after he heard his mum shriek and pulled a gun on me. We argued for a while, they were telling me of their plans when we heard Bristol coming down the stairs from her room. Shandra left the room but Carter started ranting about how he loved you,” Milo says, turning towards me. “And I lost it. I knew that you would have known about the vest you made me wear. But in the moment you went into shock and I decided to leave while they were dealing with you. I had hoped you would piece it all together and tell Uncle Jarva but when you hadn’t shown up here I had to find you…”

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