NovelEnglishShortly after, Nick returned with an old cell phone.
"Luckily, it's still charged. | checked and found the video | took of Ivy."
Before Nick could continue, Elliot snatched the phone out of his hands.
Hayden leaned closer to Elliot, trying to get a glance at his sister.
Elliot opened the video and a chubby little girl appeared on the screen.
Ivy looked well-fed and happy in the video, and anyone would be able to tell how well she was treated. She laughed while shaking
the toy in her hand. She was sitting on a carpet. She smiled at the camera, and her bright eyes blinded Hayden.
Elliot instantly burst into tears.
Nick had not expected Elliot to cry and immediately handed a box of tissue to Hayden, hinting for Hayden to hand it to Elliot.
"Don't cry." Hayden shoved the tissue paper in Elliot's hands. "lvy might still be alive."
Elliot wiped his tears dry and said, "She's so adorable... She is so adorable... | shouldn't have been so mean to her."
"What are you talking about?" Hayden scowled. "She is adorable only because she's Mom's daughter." Hayden would not consider
Ivy adorable if she was not his sister.
Elliot gripped the phone tightly and watched the video of his daughter. His heart twisted in pain from his soul-crushing guilt.
When they left Nick's house, Elliot took Nick's phone with him, and once they returned to the hotel, he went straight into his room,
slamming the door shut behind him.
"What's wrong with your dad?" Mike asked. "He looks scary!"
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"He saw a video of Ivy before the massacre."
"What video? | want to see it, too."
"It's a video Nick had saved on his phone," Hayden said. "lvy looked really cute."
"All kids are cute when they are about a year old. Do you know why?" Mike considered himself experienced with children.
"lI don't want to know." Hayden could not possibly know what Mike was about to say.
"Because kids grow really fast after
the first year! Seriously, a
one-year od eats more than |
do!" Mike'thought back to the past)
"Back wien | took care of you ang’
Laylacthat fact dawned on me@
Wherever | fed you, you would eat
fs little piglet! You used to drink
hundreds of milliliters ofamilk every
day alongside your three meals. It
was horrifying to watch..." Content
belongs to novelenglish.net
"That's enough." Hayden's stomach sank at Mike's words. Though he still consumed three meals a day without skipping anything,
the amount he ate was normal.
"No progress tonight?" Mike sat on
the couch and sighed. "Your mom
calledbefore you cback,
asking us'te go back as soon as <
osaible he thinks that it would be
pointleds to stay if you have ©
expanded all this effort and are still
able to find Ivy. She dogsh't want
you to encounter any daffger here in
Ylore." Content belongs to
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novelenglish.net
"All those old twats are cowards, so I'm not afraid of them," Hayden said coldly. "They don't know where Ivy is, so it's true that
there's no point in us staying here any longer."
"How could a kid go missing just like that? Where is she hiding?" Mike rubbed his chin. "Could something have happened to her?"
"Yeah." Hayden did not want to be pessimistic, but the fact that they had yet to find Ivy meant that there something might have
indeed happened to her.
"Your mom has cto terms with it, but your dad hasn't." Mike shrugged. "What a fragile man he is."
"He is becoming more and more sentimental these days." Hayden thought back to how Elliot broke down in tears in Nick's house.
The memory still shocked him.
"It's normal, though. Your dad isn't young anymore," Mike said. "You are twelve, and after New Year's, you will be thirteen soon."
Hayden calculated Elliot's age in his mind and fell silent.
"Your morp toldsomething else.’
Mike trie¢this best to suppress his
laughter before lowering his vaice.
"She said that your dad messdged
her garlier tonight, saying that he
wishes that you will call him 'Dad""
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