“If you want to know the truth, then you need to wait, mi sobrina. You are not the only one that needs to learn the truth,” Gloria told her when Leticia contacted her in private.

She groaned at the fact that her aunt would not tell her the truth right now. Leticia wondered who else needed to know the truth about the 1985 Clare Point View Music Festival massacre? The former guitarist had to wait a little longer for Gloria to decide when she was ready. After couple of weeks into training her powers with her estranged aunt through the mirror interface, the woman finally decided now was the best time to tell Leticia what she wanted to hear. As usual, the former guitarist walked into the large prison visiting room for her daily training with Gloria.

She stopped in her tracks to see a blonde-haired, young woman with green eyes wearing a blue, solid-colored dress and her cousin, Dana, was here! Looking up at the woman, the former guitarist made a mental note of her outfit. At least, the high heels that the woman was wearing fit her look, and she guessed the outfit must match the girl’s personality. Dana sat right next to the woman, browsing on his phone, ignoring that Leticia entered the room. She wanted to say hi to him, but she did not know if her cousin was still mad at her.

Leticia seated herself right on the other side of the blue dressed girl, who noticed her.

“Hello, you must be Leticia Hernandez,” the young woman greeted, which jolted the former guitarist up in shock when this random woman said her name! 

“Um… who are you? How do you know my name?” She asked.

“My name is Cala. I’m a friend of Victoria, your older brother’s ex-girlfriend and… I think we’re cousins," The girl threw another bombshell on her.

Great.... Just what Leticia needed: another family secret being revealed.

“Pardon?”

Bewildered by the reveal, the former guitarist tried snap her attention back to the present.

“Let's get the introductions over with. Leticia, this is Cala, the cousin that my mom believed was dead for years and she was. Cala, meet Leticia, our idiot cousin, who dragged us into this mess,” Dana introduced Leticia rudely to Cala. He went back swiftly to his phone, focusing on nothing else after his inappropriate behavior.

At first, Leticia felt insulted by her cousin. So, she opened her mouth to say something harsh, until Cala got up from her seat and leaned over to Dana. Looking at her face, the woman’s face gave him a harsh glare, and she swiped the phone from Dana! Before the man could say anything, Cala spoke.

“This is not the time to put blame on each other, Dana. We may have met each other recently, but I am only here to help Leticia for my best friend only,”

“Can I have my phone back now?” Dana asked in a not-so-polite way.

“Be glad I’m no longer a vampire or I would have crushed it by now,” Cala growled, sounding almost feral as she tossed the phone back to Dana.

Leticia did not know what annoyed her most right now: finding out that she had a long-lost cousin, who previously had been a vampire too, or Dana still throwing a hissy fit at her. At least with Dana, his anger was justified since she screwed everyone up. As the former guitarist waited, the doors swung open from the other side of the room. Two vampire prison guards appeared on both sides of Gloria, who was wearing her beige prison jumpsuit and in handcuffs. Leticia soured when she saw her aunt’s jumpsuit, since it reminded of her brief jail days back in the Outsider society.

Gloria plopped herself into the chair at the table that the three of them were sitting at. The guards moved back to the end of the walls and stood over there, giving the group some privacy.

“I am glad that everyone is here, except for Benita’s long-lost daughter, that is. My dear sobrina, sobrino, and mija…” Gloria glared at Cala the most, which the young woman quickly avoided her eyes. “What I am about to tell you, I want the prison guards to hear me,” Gloria said cheerily.

“Who is Benita’s daughter? Wait, just how many unknown cousins does this family have?!” Leticia exclaimed.

Dana rolled his eyes at her, “Oh, forgot to mention, that one is one we never found, but she is out there.”

“I will tell you more about everything if the two of you shut your traps and let me speak!” The older woman snapped at the two of them, silencing them quickly.

The group got acquainted with each other. However, the former guitarist noticed Cala was nervous around her own mother. Gloria spent some time talking to Leticia, mostly for the progress of improving control of her powers. Embarrassed, the former guitarist stayed silent while the older woman criticized on her lack of progress. Her aunt’s face frowned, then looked away from her a bit, not even done with her rant.

“Such a shame, just like your mother; Esperanza always didn’t enjoy training her powers for improvement. The two of you are alike: Lazy and foolish. Just like your mother is foolish enough to run away and love an Outsider,” Gloria insulted Leticia.

“You’re one to talk when you did the same and abandoned me!” Cala roared, a spark of red in her eyes.

Gloria did not say a single word to the young woman. Somehow, Leticia figured Cala had more visits with her aunt compared to Dana and her. While she did not know the story between the two of them, her primary focus was to get more information out of her estranged aunt. At least, Leticia got a couple of things out of Gloria was her mother’s real birth name (Esperanza) and more about her mother’s side of the family history. For her question earlier about more cousins, Gloria told her that her other aunt, Benita a.k.a “Zarina” had a pink-haired daughter, who she had given up.

The former guitarist remembered Benita from her first meeting with the Rise of Light. With that information, Leticia put that in the back of her mind for the future. The former guitarist had a sinking feeling that Rine was that “pink-haired daughter” that her aunt was talking about. One brief question went through her mind: Why did Benita give her daughter up? Leticia theorized that answer, of course, the Rise of Light would want to use her! Pushing away the current thought, she needed more infomation from Gloria, since this woman was the closest person she can learn about her mother’s former life.

“Enough with the compliments about my mother and I. I want to know more about the Rise of Light. Why are they doing this? You say you were one of the highest ranking members of the group. What do you know about the 1985 Clare Point View Music Festival massacre?” Leticia asked, waving her hand away and ignoring her aunt's harsh comments.

Gloria licked her lips in anticipation, then opened her mouth. “I know a lot about that. I know your mother was a part of it. No, she didn’t do the killings or anything, but let’s just say, Master Farris needed something big to get the Outsider's attention on the Rise of Light...well, The Idealists which they used to be called. The Master wanted to show that Supernaturals mean business. He called it the first phase of 'The World Rebirth Order' plan, but he never really described what that meant. In order to get that attention, he wanted to, uh...Get all of them in place and kill some of them. Your mother and stupid godmother, Rose’s job, was to just perform their gig and let the group do the killing in the background.”

“Sapphire Black? Wait, what did you say again?” Dana wanted Gloria to backtrack what she said. The older woman repeated some phrases for him, then he replied, “So, are you telling us that my mom and, um... Aunt Esperanza’s band, Sapphire Black, were literally only used for this massacre?”

“Rose is my godmother?!” Leticia exclaimed.

“That was the plan: Farris wanted to attack something small first. The Clare Point View Music Festival is the biggest event in the area. Enough to get attention and attempt to expand our influence. Esperanza didn’t follow through the plan completely. Yes, Leticia, Rose is your godmother. I will say a poor one; I can’t say her sleeping around is a new thing. She has done it before and let’s just say, your mother was not too happy about that. I guess Rose didn’t change when she did, um... that with your band,”

“And how do we know you’re not lying about all this stuff?” Cala said coldly, her eyes back to normal.

Gloria moved back into her chair and glared at all of them. “Because I have nothing left to lose. The Rise of Light and the businesses that they associate with are tricky people to deal with. I know a lot of stuff that I shouldn’t have known. Even Veronique doesn’t know much about the leader’s big plan herself. Farris is simply a man willing to get his hands dirty a little to get followers, whether through conventional and unconventional means. He has an obsession with creating this ‘The World Rebirth Order’ plan. He claims that we, Supernaturals have a destiny to reclaim and cleanse this world to recreate for ourselves. The businesses that the group associates with the Rise of Light only want two things: money and power. They bank on people’s vulnerabilities and flaws to achieve their goals. So far, it works for them. Faris simply believes that the Outsider’s world is a broken one, and uses the current system to destroy their societies from within. That is why he has no problem working with shady Outsider business and political people. He is certain that the Outsiders will destroy themselves so he can start this ‘order.’”

The older woman paused for a moment, still keeping her eye on the group. She then crossed her arms and said, “My advice if you want to take them down? Be smarter about it. As for the Supernatural and Outsider governments, they seem way too happy with keeping things under wraps and the status quo. That is why they are always losing the battle. It’s fine if you don’t believe me, but I am is the best lead you got,”

“Time’s up!” One guard called.

Just when the guards came together to get her aunt to leave, Gloria looked at the group one more time and warned them, “If you want history to stop repeating itself, learn from the past.”

After that chilling tone, the three of them left the prison walls, keeping in mind what Gloria told them. Leticia felt a headache coming as she massages her temples, feeling even more stressed. The web between the Rise of Light and Crimson Music Group has gotten bigger. What the former guitarist knew was one thing: Everything ties back to Farris. This whole ‘World Rebirth Order’ thing solidified that Farris Barton was a madman in her mind now. Feeling someone nudging her hand, she looked up to see Dana trying to get her attention.

“You okay?” Dana asked.

Leticia nodded, but it was nice that her cousin cooled down a little. The group discussed their conversation they had with Gloria. They all agreed they have a lot of work to do before reporting back to everyone. Still, Leticia couldn’t shake off the feeling when her aunt said that her former manager, Rose, had done this before. Does that mean that Rose’s reckless behavior also destroyed Sapphire Black, similar to how she negatively impacted the Apple Queens’ reputation?

There was so much she did not know about this woman other than that she was her manager and teacher.

“So, what are you going to do now?” Cala asked.

Leticia sighed. “As much as I hate it, I need to find Rose. I may ask Darren since he is very close to her weird vampire sister, Mariuem. She would probably know where Rose is. Let’s just keep in contact with each other, okay?”

The three cousins agreed with the plan. Even though Leticia barely knew Cala, the woman was friends with her brother’s ex-girlfriend: They both agreed that they would help Victoria. It shocked the former guitarist that Cala told her that his ex-girlfriend has not given up on reaching Raphael. It has, at least, warmed her heart a bit that Victoria still cared for her brother, though she did not blame her if she ditched him. A car pulled up into the parking lot as she looked over to see that her ride was here.

Leticia turned to Cala and Dana, bidding goodbye before she got into the vehicle. For the entire car ride, she pondered on her next move on what she was going to say to Rose. The former guitarist hated the idea of meeting her band’s former manager, but Rose was the key to unlocking the inner secrets of the Rise of Light.