MC bristled and hurled her phone against the wall and watched it bounce off and fall onto bed.
She didn't even care if it was whole.
She was so fed up with his attitude.
She didn't even know where he was getting it from.
She was sick of his egoism and lack of consideration for other people.
For her.
She was so very done with his audacity, with the way he believed he could make crucial decisions for her, even those concerning her, without as much as consulting her.
And, to his misfortune, she knew, or at least believed she did, where he was hiding at the very moment—because of COURSE he didn't trust her to stay in her own house and not run off to Duskwood. Even after he'd made her promise, again, against her will, not to go. He had to have found a hideout near her own living space and had to keep an eye on her like on a little child.
It annoyed her to no end.
She wasn't a little kid to be watched like that.
She wasn't to be played with like that.
And she wasn't to be controlled like a mindless doll.
It had been an accident, really, her finding out about his hideout. There was a house across the street, one that was never occupied. He believed the very last tenants were there when she was little. Nowadays, the windows were always dark, there was no smoke coming from the chimney in winter. There was never anyone entering nor leaving the house, no cars coming, no deliveries. So, she was rather certain it stood empty. After all, she had a clear view at it from her window. She tended to look out at it whenever her thoughts were too much, absentmindedly observing her surroundings.
It was calming in a way, seeing a building so peaceful and so serene.
Yet, she starts seeing signs of life inside it.
The first few times, she'd thought it was a trick of her mind or an illusion. After all, she'd only ever caught movement in the corner of her eye. I could have been anything: a stray cat, a bird flying by her own window...
Or her paranoia.
With the threat of carnage from the Man without a Face and the fear it induced, it was possible, right?
But then, she saw a silhouette of a person. She was certain there was someone in there; in fact, that someone was standing in the window on the second story, and her gut was telling her they were facing her. However, a mere blink later they were gone before she could take a closer look.
Still, paranoid it really had been a someone, not an illusion, she'd closed the curtains for the remainder of the day.
The only reason she hadn't called the police was that if it really had been Jake... she would've handed him over on a silver platter. And, no matter how angry she was at him...
She didn't want that.
In the beginning, though, she had no idea who it might be. Maybe a homeless person looking for shelter? She would have understood as it was getting colder. However, she started to have suspicions as to who it might've been when the hacker started asking her very odd and specific questions, like:
MC was taking out the trash and, on her way back home, she tripped and fell over a child's toy. In surprise, she jumped back up and saw her elbows were bloody. With a hiss, she moved her arms and felt them sting.
"Miss! Are you okay?" A child's voice rang in her ears and she turned to two small boys. They seemed frightened and were staring at the blood like hypnotized.
"I'm fine." The woman hid her arms behind herself. "Whose ball is that?"
"Mine. It's mine, miss." The smaller boy whispered and started to cry. "I am so sorry, please, don't tell my mother."
"Hey, no need to cry, bud." She crouched and smiled at him. "Just be careful with it, eh?"
"I will." The boy sniffled.
"Thank you." The other one said and grabbed the ball. "We would be in so much trouble if you told on us... Let's go, Joe."
They hurried away, as if afraid she could change her mind and have a word with their parents.
MC shook her head and stood up; yet, she hissed when she moved her arms. The skin stretched during movement and the wound stung. Slowly, she inspected the elbows and saw with relief it was nothing serious, just scratched off skin. Nothing a disinfectant couldn't deal with.
Yet, the very moment the woman stepped into the house, her phone vibrated. She automatically picked it up and saw the text that arrived.
J: Hey, MC. How is your day? Are you okay?
The question was strange, but she tried to brush it off and continued on as if nothing was amiss.
The next one arrived the next day when MC was leaving to go to a supermarket. She needed groceries and online services were not working. There were apparently too many deliveries and there were no free workers.
Barely had she sat in her car that, like a sign from heaven, her phone signaled a new message.
J: I was wondering... What are you doing? Are you safe in the house?
The timing, for the second time, was surprisingly accurate. Too accurate for it to be a coincidence. MC glanced at the empty house, but couldn't spot anything weird.
She ended up going to the market, anyway.
And the latest one that she'd gotten sounded like that:
J: Are you feeling a bit better now?
J: Did you remember to lock the door and secure the windows?
At first glance, it seemed innocent enough... but how could he have known she was feeling down when he'd texted her? Yes, she had been moping all day, wandering around the house with no goal... But she hadn't told him anything when they had been talking. Or, how on earth did he know that she hadn't locked the house yet, despite it being past the time she normally would have?
No matter how scarce the evidence was, she was certain by then what was happening and who the uninvited guest in the house opposite hers was.
Jake.
She felt her blood boil, all frustrations with him resurfacing.
How dare he watch her and dictate what she had to do?!
At that point, her mind was made up.
So, the moment the last text arrived, she stood up and sent a furious glance at the house. She dressed in yoga pants and a sweatshirt, went down the stairs, and stomped out of her house through the front door without bothering to lock it or to grab a jacket.
Her phone buzzed, but she ignored it. There was no way she was getting distracted. She rushed across the street to the supposedly abandoned house and easily opened the front door. Without thinking, she entered, not bothering to knock and give whoever was in there enough time to escape safely.
She didn't even think how odd it was for the door to be unlocked. It was a private house, after all, surely the previous owners had secured it to prevent intrusion? It meant the lodger was skilled at picking locks. Also, if the hacker was indeed hiding there, wouldn't it be in his best interest to keep the entrance locked up? To prevent situations like the one she was the cause of at the moment?
Still, with no time on her hands, MC almost ran upstairs to the room she'd seen a person in. Her heart hammered in her chest, but she didn't let herself breathe overly heavily. She'd already alarmed the person of her presence anyway, why would she betray her whereabouts so easily, too?
She spotted one door that was ajar. There was faint light coming from there. Taking a chance, she threw it open and froze right in it.
She gasped; she had been right.
Funnily enough, her brain registered a source of brightness first. The light was coming from a night lamp; apparently, the house still had running electricity.
Three seconds later, her eyes locked on the other oddity in the room.
There was a hooded figure, floored in shock, right in the middle of leaving through the window. One of their legs was already out and they were clearly about to slip out onto the roof.
Luckily, they were holding a laptop and some other devices, which had slowed them down; they hadn't had the time to have disappeared before her bursting into the room.
Their confusion and surprise at being caught gave her strength...
As well as angered her.
So, she took a deep breath.
"You!" MC screeched and pointed a finger at them. "Stop! Don't you dare move! Come back here!"
The figure hesitated, but then, after a short inner debate, soundlessly slipped back inside.
The moment they stood straight, even holding all the tools, their body build didn't leave room for doubts. It was definitely a man.
He didn't step away from the open window, though, and she had no doubt he was ready to jump out at any second.
His willingness to escape reignited her ire.
"How dare you!" She exploded, the frustration within her finding a crack in the carefully built wall around her bitterness and destroying it with a spectacular crash. "How dare you order me around, decide for me! What is right or wrong?! How dare you assume you know what is best for me, for us, for the investigation?! Are you really so conceited that you believe you can play God?!"
She took a breath, expecting... well, anything; yet, there was no movement, not a sign of life from the hooded man. He was like a mannequin, still and unresponsive.
She felt desperate for a reaction.
"You think I can't make a stupid decision like whether to talk to Alan Bloomgate and not say too much? Do you really think I'd put you in danger?! You didn't even talk to me! Not about this, not about the fucking video call with Hannah, not about your pursuers until I forced it out of you! Or rather the situation did! Because you were scared that, what, I'll leave the whole investigation, right?! You think so little of me!"
Finally. He stirred.
"You just assume things and then, the outcome is horrific! The attack on Jessy? Then Richy? Then Thomas and Jessy, almost losing their lives?! Those are all examples of the assessment you made by yourself and, look at that, it led to assault and danger!"
Her chest was heaving under her heavy breath. Her cheeks were red and her eyes narrowed.
And yet, he was still standing still. That wasn't what she'd expected. That wasn't what she'd wanted! Why wasn't he reacting? She'd come to hear his reasoning, and reasoning was what she'd get!
"Are you going to say anything at all?!" She challenged when it became clear the man wouldn't do as much as budge.
And, surprisingly, it worked.
The man took a step towards the bed, slowly put what he had in his grasp on it, and turned his back to her. He carefully shut the window. Once the curtains were also closed, he turned back to her in part, he turned back to her partly, as if to check whether she'd cooled off a bit.
MC flipped the light switch without asking.
He flinched.
She crossed her arms on her chest, waiting. Her breath may have calmed, but her eyes were still flaming.
"Do you mind..."
"I do."
MC knew he'd wanted to ask about the light.
"How did you know?" His voice was quiet. Uncertain.
"Maybe you're not as secretive as you thought". She huffed, not impressed.
He seemed to cringe. "I... deserve it. All of it."
"Like hell you do! What were you even thinking?!"
"I suppose you still don't see it my way, but I only ever did everything to keep you safe."
Instead of calming her, the statement reignited her anger. She threw her hands up and paced.
"Good job! Now, I have a psychopath coming for me! And all of my friends!"
"Perhaps you didn't hear me. I was keeping you safe."
"Oh, right! Because the others are just a means to an end! And what about blocking the police? Do you really think it's supposed to keep me SAFE?! I look like a suspect! I'd be surprised if they hadn't already decided I was the culprit! So, maybe stop stalling and tell me why you did that?!"
She turned back to him... and froze, startled.
He had come closer while she was turned away from him.
Yet, not eager to lose her offensive stance, she refused to take a step back.
"I couldn't allow Bloomgate to access your location. If you replied, he could check where you are easily. It was the same with the phone call; they were tracking your location when you picked up. Fortunately, the call was short enough for us to remain untraceable." His voice gained an icy tone. "See. A perfectly fine reason. You are acting unreasonably."
"Un— unreasonably?!" MC screeched again and stepped up to him, looking up into the hood. "UNREASONABLY?!"
"Yes." He answered.
"You... you insensitive—"
"Stop yelling. My ears are ringing." He jerked back.
"Of course, it's all about your comfort." She exclaimed. "You don't even have the guts to face me!"
"It's not—"
"Is ANYTHING you said true? Is anything about you real?! Because I've started to doubt you, Jake!"
A heavy silence fell between them. She wasn't even remotely done yelling at him, but, to her annoyance, she realized her cheeks were wet.
She wiped the right side of her face angrily with the back of her hand.
"You told me to trust you. I did. But I realized a while ago, you never trusted me."
"MC..."
"You don't trust my judgment; you don't trust my intelligence. You don't even trust my promise and came to watch me like a hawk, to make sure I didn't go where REAL people need me!"
He jerked back as if she'd slapped him.
"You don't even trust me with the truth about anything, so how do you expect me to help at all?!"
"I do trust you." He said sharply.
"You don't! And you made sure to prove it!"
He remained quiet for a few heartbeats.
Then, he said blankly:
"Why are you here? Did you come to scream it all at me and leave it all behind? Leave Hannah behind?"
Hurt crossed her face and she fumed.
"You're an asshole, you know that? Guilt-tripping me to continue to help you. Say, does it get you off? Using me? Playing me like an instrument, manipulating me to do as you please? You needed a toy, and you got an easy one—"
"Enough!" Suddenly, the man yelled back and yanked off his hood, fully revealing his face to her.
She hated how her breath hitched at that very moment.
He was... she had no idea what she'd expected. She was already heavily attracted to that man, but the unexpected sight of him knocked her off her feet. He was a young man, quite handsome, currently furious. His eyes were blazing and his mouth was turned down in a grimace.
There was one fleeting thought that went through her stunned mind was: huh. He hadn't lied about the color of his hair.
She was so shocked that she almost missed a long scar going from his left temple and lower to his jaw, over his neck, finally disappearing under his collar.
Then, she realized he had been and still was talking hotly, his face twisted in evident anger.
"—stand you are furious, but you went overbroad."
MC blinked, not having listened to him. So, she decided to tell him the truth about how she felt.
"I don't know if I can believe you." She said quietly, calmer now.
"I can't force you to." He frowned. "But I need you to know... I never lied to you. I never purposefully deceived you and truly only had your well-being in mind."
She snorted, disbelieving, and turned away from him.
"You say I don't trust you." Jake tried again. "And yet, you're the only one who knows my face now."
"But I am not, am I?" MC couldn't help but say bitterly.
"Fine. The second person who knows my face."
"Because, again, you had no choice but to give me something real!" MC spun to him again and hissed. "Because you didn't manage to slip out the window before I caught you! Because I am not as stupid as you believed me to be!"
"You're anything but stupid. And I'd have never trusted you with Hannah's cloud, everything you know about me if I didn't trust you."
"Ah, yes, because I know so much about you." She said sarcastically.
Jake couldn't deny it, so he gritted his teeth only to say wryly:
"It is still a lot to me. I never gave you any different idea about myself. I always boasted about my skills, I never tried to hide my flaws, and I meddled into affairs, from the very beginning. I threatened your friends. I did anything I could to get my way. Since when did it start to bother you?"
MC bristled, but said nothing.
He was right.
It was her who created a much purer image of him in her own mind, a romanticized one, and got disappointed the man wasn't perfect.
She'd yelled most of her frustrations at him, but he'd been right: he had always been that way.
She'd just had enough of not being considered in all of that. Of not being taken into account.
Right then, all her anger dissipated, and she felt so tired. She exhaled and covered her face with her palms. Meanwhile, Jake was quiet for a long while, staring at the woman as she was calming down.
Finally, the man sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes.
"You yelled all your frustrations now. So, why are you still here?"
"I, I don't..." She swallowed. "know."
"Don't you?"
Silence.
MC put her hands down and glanced at him.
"You know," He started rather gently. "that's not how I imagined our first meeting at all."
MC brushed her hair back, looking down at the floor. "Neither did I. You may remember the way I described it earlier."
"I remember. I would have preferred it that way."
"Me, too."
They stared at each other for a moment before Jake cleared his throat.
"I think you made yourself pretty clear, though."
She nodded hesitantly.
"Um, I..." She mumbled. "I just wanted you to know... I meant it when I shared my fantasy with you. In spite of... what I might've said tonight."
He gave a shuddering breath.
"I know. But you don't trust me. Said so yourself. I... MC, I cannot risk it like this."
She nodded.
"However."
MC stiffened.
"I will do anything to prove to you that I care about you. I will make you trust me again."
She scowled and was about to comment, but he beat her to it.
"Damn. That wasn't the best wording, considering the situation... what I mean is I will prove to you—"
"I know what you mean." MC interrupted and sighed. "I... care about you, too. So very much. Which is why I want to believe you and will give you one last chance. But be careful. Don't muck it up. You're on thin ice."
Jake nodded slowly.
"For all it is worth, I am sorry."
"You're not. It's fine, though. It's not like you ever pretended to be a knight on a white horse." She rolled her eyes. "Look. I am exhausted. If you're staying here for the time being..."
"I am."
"I don't want this to be our last meeting."
It cost her a lot to admit that, and she shuffled her feet, uncomfortable.
"Me neither. I..." Jake gulped. "Look. I know it's a lot to ask of you, especially that I do not know how much time I still have."
Her heart sank. So, he'd be leaving soon?
Stupid, she told herself. Of course he would be. He was still being pursued.
"Give me two days. Just two full days. I... I will tell you everything, answer all your questions."
"Not only what I 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 to know?"
"No. Not this time."
She nodded and gave him a very small smile.
"I take your word for it."