When Jade woke up, the first thing she noticed was that she was alone in bed, with a scarlet red duvet covering her. She blinked slowly, trying to fully wake herself up, but nothing seemed to change.
There was no difference between being awake and sleeping. It was just...quiet. Like a dream.
The bed creaked slightly when she sat up too quickly.
The clock next to the bed made her gasp. It was five in the morning!
Damn! Evie would kill her for being late for training!
Jade would never forget the last time Evie had scolded her for running late. She acted like a mad sergeant, but Jade was just starting to get used to her new schedule. Not that it was particularly bad, but there were certainly odd things about having your best friend as an instructor.
Jade immediately noticed a note on the nightstand next to a tablet that she read...
"I'm sorry I can't stay, but in my tablet, there is a song called 'Animatronic' and I would like you to listen to it. Love and kisses, Draco.” She smiled unconsciously, her voice even lost the sleepy air, "P.S. I like cheese." And she giggled.
The handwriting wasn't Draco's though; they were strange scribbles, very fast and deep on the page, so Jade knew that someone else had written that for him, probably Alex.
Jade was never good at reading Draco's cursive, let alone Zeth's, so the fact that Draco asked someone for help so she could understand what the note said had a bit of romanticism in it.
But still, they were his words, and she couldn't help but feel warm inside. It meant she was really important to him. Maybe even more important than she had originally thought.
Jade went straight to Zeth's room, listening to the sound of a frying pan and eggs in the kitchen, but she didn't think much of it.
Frank was probably already on his cooking plan. He had improved a lot since last year.
Upon entering the huge room filled with gold and jewellery, Jade found eight golden gift bags on the bed. Judging by the handwriting on the cards and the non-parallel position of them, Egor had probably left them here on Zeth's orders.
Seven of the bags contained the Monster Mash collector dolls, and boy! Were they unique pieces!
They were the same size as the regular editions and made from some sort of shiny plastic material with a metal plate on the black coffin-shaped box, right on top of their heads, and were equipped with metallic microphones, all with plenty of points of articulation unlike the regular editions, and with replicas of the clothes they wore in the music video for 'Circus' which was honestly one of her favourite songs.
Additionally, the dolls included an extra interchangeable head, each with Catrin's makeup and they also included extra outfits identical to those used in the music video for ‘The Place I Came From' filmed in Mexico..
The resemblance of the dolls to the boys was uncanny. They were identical except for the size. It was like the creators had shrunk Monster Mash.
They even had articulation in their fingers, hair that looked smooth and shiny, unlike the sculpted hair of regular editions, and damn! They even had eyelashes and glass eyes!
These dolls must have cost a fortune each!
Each boy was in scale with each other, and even Frank's prosthetics were chrome metal and not plastic like regular editions.
In the other bag, there was a beautiful pair of wooden-heeled ankle boots, black faux leather pants, and a blouse with diamonds embroidered on the fabric. And that golden jacket?! It was a complete and utter beauty!
And inside a little box, there was a gold chain with a cat's eye jade. She had seen that before! There were only four of these in the world!
She didn't know what to do with these gifts or why Zeth would send them, but she was glad they came anyway. She felt special and cherished just looking at them.
She went to the huge shower in Zeth's private bathroom, putting the song ‘Animatronic’ on loop while she showered.
There was even a tingling in her fingers and her heart was beating very fast.
She had grabbed some of the shower items she used last night, the ones Zeth had left for her under the sink in case she spent the night here, and settled in for a long, warm shower.
As she washed her hair, her body responded automatically and began to move to the beat of the song.
It was one of those she could dance to all day long.
The music was so intoxicating and maddeningly catchy that it had actually driven her to outright insanity, and she was pretty cool with that.
As for the actual lunacy of the song, it was frenetic.
But although the song was very good, Jade was also worried about the lyrics, wondering if Draco was okay. Perhaps he wrote this song in a dark moment, alone in the darkness, with his beautiful bloodshot scarlet eyes on the verge of madness. This was a masterpiece, though. And Draco always seemed to create the best songs in his worst moments.
“Call me Animatronic. Watch me dance and sing! I’ve been stuck singing this song for many years.” As Jade had already memorized the chorus of the song, she started singing in the shower. “Someone broke my bones. Can’t find my own way home!” She even grabbed her back brush and held it up as if it were a microphone, “There’s a tortured soul that cries inside of me! The dark side of me.”
The music on the tablet played its usual loop again, and again.
By the time Jade applied some conditioner to her hair, she had already memorized the entire song.
Then, once she was done, she went to get her new clothes.
When she entered the bedroom, she dressed up quickly.
“Take me back home, home. Can’t feel my bones, bones,” Jade sang the bridge of the song as she sat in front of a table with a huge triangular mirror to put on her earrings and take out the necklace Zeth had given her, “I am here, help me. Hear me now! Hear me now! Hear me now, help!”
Her heart warmed, and her cheeks flushed as she carefully undid the clasp on the necklace and slipped it around her neck.
The weight of the jade against her collarbone made her breathe in deeply and smile.
When she saw how elegant and rebellious she looked, she had to bite her lip to stop the tears from welling up in her eyes.
This was such a wonderful feeling!
She felt loved!
"Yeah-eh. Yeah-eh-eh! Yeah-eh-eh-eh. The dark side of me! Yeah!" While Jade was fluffing her hair with her hands in front of her mirror, singing, she noticed that it was now soft, and silky. "Wow, I look radiant today!"
Soon enough, she put on her ankle boots and headed down the hall to have breakfast.
"There's a tortured soul that cries inside of me! The dark side of me!" Jade sang at the top of her lungs as she passed Finn, Alex, and Draco's doors, moving her hips. "I'm just a friendly face, I sing and dance on stage." Something had filled her with energy because she even jumped outside Frank's door. "Deal with it, it's showtime!"
The smell of pancakes was intense, delicious, with a slight hint of something else Jade didn't know what it was.
"That smells delicious, Frank!" Jade said, holding the tablet in her hands and pausing the song. "Hey, Draco! I love the... Song." But when she looked up, she froze. "Who the hell are you?" Jade asked as a blonde in a black dress with an open leg and high heels sat at the table of the dining room, grabbing some toast from a basket.
The table was set with breakfast for two: Scrambled eggs, bacon, toasts, hash browns, pancakes.
There was everything for a nice American Breakfast.
"Oh! Glad you are awake, Jade. Don’t worry. Evie and I used to be close," the blonde said with her mouth full. "Come on, sit down and eat. We don't have all day."
"You haven't answered my question.” Jade looked at the girl strangely but opened a chair and sat in front of her. Was she... No, it couldn’t be her! Or was she? “Who are you?"
"Oh Jade! Why are you so defensive?" the blonde chuckled. "I don't think I've ever seen your face in person. You have nice hair."
"Thank you, you too," Jade took the cup of coffee in front of her, but before taking a sip, she lowered it. Maybe this blonde wasn't who Jade suspected, after all, it wasn't possible. Perhaps she was another former hunter and not the hunter she suspected. "Evie sent you to escort me everywhere, right?"
"Oh no, no, no," the blonde laughed, taking a bite of a pancake, lowering her knife and fork, looking straight into Jade’s eyes. "I actually came here to use you as my ticket to glory."
Jade froze.
So yes it was her!
The blonde the boys were talking about, the hunter, was here, having breakfast with her as if they already knew each other, as if they were friends.
"You're the..."
"Yes, Evie's stepsister. You know, this brings back some great memories," Kimberly said, "When Evie and I pretended to have a happy family. Did she tell you that story?”
“N-No, I don’t think so,” Jade stuttered.
“Well, she and I were granted a reprieve from the Hunter Academy and given an undercover assignment. We both acted as the daughters of David Prescott and Karla Harper and relocated to Hollow Woods. Evie was twenty-one, I think, and she was in her last year of college with Frank. You know, she had to make him fall in love so he could give her the location of his grandfather."
“Oh that’s... Interesting,” Jade could not hide her discomfort.
“I was aware that the family aspect was a simple ruse, not gonna lie, but I loved them all like they were my actual family. I was so sad when Evie planted the bomb and I realised we had to leave and return to the Hunter Academy.”
“So, you and Evie met there?”
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no. We were both kidnapped and taken on a cargo ship to The Hunter Academy when we were little girls. In fact, when they took us out of the heated metal container, and soldiers attempted to take me away, Evie went to my defence. I saw her as an older sister since then.” Then she began laughing, “Oh dear! She saved my life so many times! Once, I failed a fight test against her and do you know what Evie did when they were going to execute me?" The blonde asked between laughs and Jade, traumatized, shook her head, "She held the soldiers at gunpoint while I clung to her. However, on Vanessa Helsee's signal, Evie and I were sedated and placed in a prison cell.”
“That sounds awful,” Jade whispered and the blonde nodded.
“Oh it was worse when they threw us into ice cold water after fights,” the blonde took another bite of her pancakes, speaking with her mouth full. "Come on... Eat! I didn't make... Breakfast so you'd just sit there... Glaring at me."
"But you're going to..." Jade looked down and fixed her eyes on a knife.
"No-oh, don't even think about it," the blonde replied, took a sip of her coffee, and then put it down. "If I wanted to, I'd already..."
"You would have killed me already," Jade pointed to the hallway of doors. "When I was asleep."
"Exactly," the blonde said, intertwining her fingers and looking straight into Jade's eyes. Her blue gaze was intrusive and firm. "Did you notice that the note Draco left on the nightstand wasn't written by him?"
Chills made Jade tremble.
"Yes, I noticed. Draco writes in cursive."
"That guy's adorable. Maybe he knew you wouldn't understand his handwriting, so he asked one of his friends to write that," she said, taking bacon from her plate and chewing with her mouth open. "And that handwriting says a lot. A man, very sexual, ambitious, confident, quite firm and impulsive, unstable, with high standards... I bet it was..."
"Alex," Jade said, and the blonde pointed a fork at her, not in a threatening way, but in a way that expressed Jade's talent for this.
"Evie has already taught you graphology," the blonde said, clapping her hands once. "She's an instructor now, I see. Come on, chop, chop, we don't have all day."
"What did you put in my food?" Jade asked, and the blonde shrugged her shoulders.
"Salt and pepper for the eggs, a little sugar in the coffee," she replied. When Jade looked at her weirdly, the blonde nodded while chewing. "Fine! I admit it... I put a little cinnamon and... Oats on the pancakes... But that makes them special! Or are you allergic to oats?"
"I wonder when Blackfox and Evie will realise you have escaped," Jade raised an eyebrow and took a bite of her food, trying to keep her mind busy imagining what Evie would do after she found out this young woman had escaped. "How did you..."
"Get here? Well, they forgot to take off my bra. You don't want details, but I hid something there, lock picks in the fabric of one of the straps," the blonde dismissed with a wave of her hand. "Your boyfriends are filming something, and there was a cart of clothes nearby, so I took these clothes. I saw that there was a hanger and a sign that said they were for you."
Jade tilted her head. Clothes for her? Did the boys want her to appear in another music video? For Jade, it had been enough with 'You Can Suck My...' last year, and no one informed her about it this time.
"The point is, I asked a short man where you were to give you the clothes. He told me you were here, so... Here I am!" The blonde raised her hands, making a happy dance while sitting, chewing loudly. "I'm not going to hurt you. In fact, I came to talk. But you were snoring a lot, and I was fed up and hungry. I saw that they had everything here to make an American breakfast. You know something? It reminds me of when Evie and I had something of a family."
Jade was tense. She couldn't let her guard down.
Yet, the blonde seemed pretty harmless.
"You're quite the escape artist, I see," Jade said, and the blonde laughed loudly.
"I really don't know what they were thinking," the blonde continued. "They locked me in a room, four walls, floor, and ceiling. Did they think I was going to stay there forever? Anyway! Will you eat those pancakes?" The blonde smiled, and Jade shook her head.
"Thanks, but I'm not hungry."
"Your boyfriend knows something," the blonde took Jade's pancake from her plate and put it on her own. "I'm talking about the Ken doll."
"Zeth?" Jade looked at the blonde suspiciously.
"I think he knows something about my client that I don't." The blonde pointed the fork at Jade again.
"Why are you here?"
"Well, I want to be a millionaire again! Oh yeah, baby! No more minimum wages for me!" And then she made her happy dance again, "I will be the new leader of the Hunters."
"Hunters are no more.”
"Evie told you that?" The blonde chuckled. "Evie is a big liar. There are still several out there, some unemployed and others hiding in the shadows, murdering people like your friends. Why do you think Zeth is hiding everyone here?"
It felt like someone punched Jade in the stomach. She couldn't look away from the blonde. Her smile was bright, her blue eyes sparkling, and her pink lips slightly swollen. She didn't seem like the girl Jade was expecting.
"I have bigger plans, and this job fell from the sky," the blonde continued. "Now, I know the monsters hide here, but that's not what I came here for."
"Then what are you here for?" Jade was not feeling okay. She was trembling. The presence of this girl was menacing but also unsettling, paradoxical. "You already know about this place, you already know where the monsters hide. Why haven't you gone back to your hunter friends?"
"There are no friends in this business," the blonde replied as if offended. "Only bosses, people to please to make more money. So! I want to know where Evalon is, and Zeth and Draco know it. And I wasn't going to ask politely without a hostage!" The blonde said it as if it meant nothing, yet Jade couldn't help the small twinge of annoyance rising up in her chest. It only lasted for a second, however. "Those two old men left that place that has not appeared on maps for centuries. Surely they remember where it is. Can you imagine? I will achieve what Vanessa Helsee could never!"
"So you're going to use me to find a secret world?" Jade narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
"You know nothing yet, do you?" she replied. "I guess they haven't told you anything about Evalon. Now eat, I promise not to hurt you, just use you as a hostage. You will return home safely to Henry Steinfield at 3904 Venture Street without a scratch, I promise."
"So that's what you're here for," Evie’s voice said, and Kimberly immediately stood up with a knife in her hand.
Jade turned, just as Kevin became visible again by the front door...
His hair was neon blue, and he was dressed in a tailored suit of the same color.
"Kevin?" Jade raised an eyebrow, "What did you do to your hair?"
"Express makeover, Laska," he replied. Evie was holding him by the shoulder, with a gun in her other hand, dressed in a Black Widow-style black battle suit and stiletto heeled boots as always, with holsters for her weapons on her thighs.
"I should have suspected that it was all too easy.” Kimberly dropped the knife and raised her hands. “The cart of clothes, the sign on the clothes, the short guy who happened to be passing by... Do you think I can at least finish breakfast before you take me as your prisoner again?"
"I don't think so," Evie replied, but Kevin put a hand on her gun and lowered it. "What are you doing, Visbal?"
"Let me talk to her," Kevin said. "Alone. I know I can make her reconsider. Monster Mash is all about second chances, don't you think?"