Vesper was leaning against the wall that was parallel to Aliyah’s desk. Even after being in Aliyah’s company for so long, she still did not want to risk sitting down. She would not know what the chair would do if she did sit down. Vesper still had not let her guard down.
When she had called Domini into the room, Vesper was not surprised when Domini chose to lean against the wall next to her as opposed to sitting down. Domini had been with the government for far longer than Vesper had. As a result, she was far more wary than Vesper was. It was not hard for anybody to notice that- and easier still for Vesper because she had known Domini so well before.
But not as well as Celastrus had.
That was true. Domini had been closer to Celastrus than Vesper, even though she had been assured many times before that that was not the case. They might have been best friends, but Celastrus and Domini had been friends before Vesper had come into the picture. Besides, Celastrus and Domini had had more in common than Vesper had. Maybe not very much, but it was enough to make a difference.
Vesper was not focusing one bit on the conversation that Aliyah and Domini were having. She did not want to participate, lest she gave away things that Domini was not supposed to know at the moment. Sometimes Vesper wished that she did not have to keep so many secrets, especially from Domini. There were many things that Domini deserved to know, but more than half those things were top-secret. It had taken Vesper awhile to convince Aliyah to tell her those things.
And Domini had even more a right than Vesper did.
The only thing that Vesper really wanted to do right now was talk to Lavinia. She wanted to make sure that Lavinia was not going to do anything rash, especially over Domini or her past. Knowing Lavinia, Vesper was highly unlikely to be able to stop her from doing whatever she wanted to. Vesper did not even know if it was worth trying.
But Aliyah wanted Vesper to try before she had to intervene. That was probably a smart move on Aliyah’s part, but Vesper hated the mere thought of trying to stop Lavinia from something that she wished for so dearly. Admittedly, Vesper knew that the situation would be a lot worse if Aliyah stepped in first. This way, at least Vesper could calm her down a bit- if that was even possible.
According to Aliyah, it was worth a shot though.
According to Vesper, it was not.
Vesper did not- could not, do anything to ever jeopardize the friendship that she and Lavinia had. Without that, Vesper would be very last. Vesper would never, ever forget what Lavinia did for her.
When Vesper arrived here, she had been entirely distraught and nearly out of her mind. She had just been fresh from losing Celastrus and being unable to see her parents for a quiet long time. It had been Lavinia, not Aliyah who had kept her from losing her mind. It had been Lavinia, not Aliyah who comforted her in the long nights when she had woken up screaming from her latest nightmares. Lavinia had been the one to stay with her day and night until she got used to it here, not Aliyah.
And yet, Aliyah was the one that she was helping.
She was helping destroy the only chance that Lavinia would ever have to find out her past.
Still, Vesper did not see any other way out.
There was nothing more that she could do to help Lavinia.
It was then that Vesper realized what a life that she was living.
She was helping one of the closest people to her lose what they had spent their entire life looking for.
Aliyah would not let it happen any other way, and Vesper would just have to deal with that.
Domini was almost catatonic. She was barely hearing or listening to what Aliyah was saying; it was literally going in one ear and out the others. Knowing that she was going to have to ask Aliyah to repeat everything that she was saying later was not helping convince her to tune in. Truthfully, Aliyah had lost her after the first sentence.
“You are the most important thing we have right now Domini and we cannot afford to lose you.” That is what Aliyah said. Domini did not like hearing things such as that. Domini was not that important- at least not in her own mind. And honestly, she did not want to be that needed. The fact that someone wanted to be near her was astounding to Domini- to say the least.
For the past while, she had felt as though she was a bad luck magnet, and that nobody deserved to be stuck around her. Domini felt almost contagious. She knew she was dangerous.
“…And you are forbidden to speak with Lavinia until further notice.”
Domini’s head jerked a tiny bit the moment Aliyah uttered those words. She stared at Aliyah uncomprehendingly. “What?” Aliyah sighed in response to her words, and muttered something not understandable under her breath.
“I am quite sorry, Domini. Unfortunately, there is no way I can let you tell anything to Lavinia until further notice. That is it.” Aliyah’s tone was kind, while still being firm. Domini knew that it would not be possible for her to change Aliyah’s mind. She was not even sure if it was worth the headache to try at all.
“I promised her,” Domini spit out from between her teeth. “I am not going to back down on any promise of mine. I have not become that kind of person; nor will I ever be that kind of person.” Domini was glaring at Aliyah. She was not staring her down; Domini Jetson had too much class than that. There were, however, certain things that she was not above.
Stalking out of a public room was definitely something that she had not outgrown yet. So, of course, she did just that.
“I suppose we can talk later then, can we not?” As Domini left the room, she spat those words at Aliyah. She saw Vesper’s mouth open and close like a fish, but no words came out of it. Vesper seemed to be stunned that Domini would say something like that to Aliyah. Domini could not believe it either, but what was done had already been done and she could not change anything about it no matter how much she wished. It is not like Domini would have wanted to change anything about what she said anyways. Maybe she would take away the harshness of it, but that was it. Aliyah needed to hear that. Domini thought that she needed to learn how take her ego and pride down a few notches. And Domini seemed to be the only one willing to say something about that.
She was stalking back to her room. There was not a single place that she could go otherwise. Besides, she did not want to be bothered otherwise. Nobody else here held anything to her or about her. Nobody here really knew the true Domini Jetson. And if Domini could control anything about her current situation, nobody would ever know anything about her. She would like it better that way.
Lavinia was glaring at the door, her face set into a grimace and her eyes sharp and ferocious. She was ready to pounce, and it would not be surprising if either Aliyah or Vesper were the first to be attacked. It was them that she was annoyed and angry with, not anybody else.
Slowly, the door was pushed open and a man that Lavinia had not seen before stepped through it. She did not cower back as others might she merely loosened up her glare and fighting stance. Relaxing back on the bed, she appraised the man that had somehow been able to enter her room. As far as she knew, the only people that had the key and even knew about this room were Vesper, Aliyah and herself. Of course, her key had been taken away. When she had woken up, there was no key for her left, just an empty room.
“What do you want?” Her voice was not the hostile tone that she had been reserving for Aliyah and Vesper instead, it was a sweeter, much friendlier one. It was almost too friendly, if anything. You could still hear the menace in it, though it was well disguised. All in all, it was highly unnerving to listen to. Lavinia thought that the man could hear it, as she watched him shudder slightly as the words fell out of her mouth. A smile came to her mouth. It was in happiness, as gruesome as that sounds.
The man just stared at her, as she had been doing previously to him. He seemed to be taking it all in; he seemed to be taking all of her in. She had returned to watching him, meeting his gaze calmly. Unlike him, she did not flinch under the sudden weight and pressure of another person watching her.
That was something that people had always thought odd of Lavinia; the fact that she did not seem to care when she was being watched and just kept on doing her own thing. Lavinia had never found this odd before, probably because she had never been to Utopia, only heard about it in the public places of this building. That is, if she was out of the room. Most of the time Aliyah preferred her and Vesper to stay inside, and more so now that Domini was here with them.
Truth be told, it was one of the most annoying things that Lavinia had to deal with here. She did not like being ridiculed for something as simple as the way she felt around other people. At least she did not know too many people, so not too many people could be annoying her. Of course, Lavinia was going to make sure that that did change sooner or later and probably sooner if Lavinia could get her way.
Slowly, the man spoke, “You need to come with me, right now.” His voice was devoid of any emotion, and Lavinia did not care either way. It did not matter to her.
Sighing, Lavinia stalked over to him, dragging her feet. She was going to comply, but nobody ever said that she had to like it. And trust me; she did not like it very much. It was kind of hard to disagree though. If she did not comply, then he probably would have gotten Aliyah to come get her. And she had a sneaking suspicion that she was going to Aliyah right now.
Aliyah was the last person that she wanted to see.
As she followed the man out of the room, watching carefully as he locked the door behind him, she wondered about all the fun and good times that she had had with Aliyah. They had become few and far in between. They had been so close, especially before most other people had gone here. Then job things had taken over, and Lavinia seemed to take a backseat in Aliyah’s life. She hated that- the fact that something so simple had messed with their wonderful friendship.
Honestly, it was not something that she enjoyed thinking about. But Lavinia figured that if she were going to see Aliyah now, it might to her some good to remember arguments and things from the past. However, she had not expected to come across memories such as these.
Aliyah sighed as she watched Lavinia’s retreating form as she left the room. It was obvious that she was annoyed, even from the way that she walked. As she had forbid Domini to speak to Lavinia, she had to forbid Lavinia from speaking to Domini so neither would get in trouble. And as much as she hated to agree to it, Lavinia really had no choice in the matter. Domini would have more flexibility, but she did not know that yet and Aliyah did not care to tell her.
It was simple: what Domini did not know would not hurt her, but it might have enabled her to do some things that she otherwise would not have done. Aliyah did not need more problems; she had enough things on her plate at the moment. In fact, some might argue that she had too much on her plate.
The topic that she was currently worried about at the moment was Mr. and Mrs. Jetson. Usually they were alright and could handle themselves, but she had not heard anything from Mr. Jetson for a day now, and that was a rule that was not to be broken. They had always communicated in some sort of way at least once a day, if not more. After that phone call, nothing more had been heard from the Jetson’s.
Of course, Domini did not know anything about that, and she did not need to. She would learn about it when the time was right. That time was not now. There were irreplaceable things that would be set in motion once Domini did know. Once she did, their future would be in her hands. She had to be prepared for that to happen, and as of now, it was quite obvious that she was not. Hopefully, she would be soon. Others did not believe her, but Aliyah knew that Domini Jetson would not let many things stand in her way, and some government officials were not one of those things.
There were only two reasons for the Jetson’s mysterious disappearance. They could be coming here, and that would be far too disastrous if Domini were to find out. The other option was them being in government certified labs. Aliyah dearly hoped that it was not the second option. That would just be too much for anyone to deal with.
So even though this option was not much better, she hoped that the Jetson’s were coming here, mainly because Aliyah knew that they would be alive that way. If they were not, a lot of problems would be caused. Who knew? It might work out in their favor, but something told Aliyah that she would not want to risk it.
They were still in the bedroom, and this seemed to be the room that they were taking the longest in. At least, that is what it felt like to Mrs. Jetson. Mr. Jetson was not as worried, but he was, even if only a little bit. Things like this tended to worry Mrs. Jetson more than Mr. Jetson. Of course, it could probably also be accredited to the fact that Mr. Jetson knew what was going on more than Mrs. Jetson did. Even Mrs. Jetson knew that.
As she watched the men invade her house, she realized that it was not them finding her that she worried about. No, she was more worried about the fact that she had no idea of what went on in at least half of her husband’s life, if not more. She had come to the conclusion that while Mr. Jetson was the main part of her life, she was not the same for him.
He had secrets, many secrets, and Mrs. Jetson was not sure of how many that she actually knew about. She did not know if he was ever going to tell her all of them. She hoped he would. She really hoped he would. What was their marriage even worth if he could not tell her something such as that?
Mr. Jetson’s arm tightened around her shoulder, and brought her attention back to the F. B. O. P. Now, they were nearing the place where Mr. and Mrs. Jetson were hiding behind. Her stomach tightened in anxiety and she felt like she was going to pass out. The only real conscious thought that she was having was: Is this what has been hidden from me?
Mr. Jetson watched his wife at the same time he was watching the F. B. O. P. invade their house. He knew that there was absolutely no way that he would be able to guess what was going on in her mind, and did not even want to attempt.
What he did know was that her attention was anywhere except what was going on in their house right now. There were only a few things that might possibly distract her from watching them, so whatever she was thinking of probably was very intense, and would be hard to get rid of. Even if she did forget it right now, Mr. Jetson had no doubt that it would come back later, nagging and eating at her until she gave it the time of day.
Unconsciously, he squeezed her shoulder with his arm. He could see that her attention had come back to the matter at hand. He could practically see her squirm with anxiety as the F. B. O. P. neared their hiding place Mr. Jetson was not extremely worried. Compared to Mrs. Jetson, he was practically calm.
Together they watched with rapt attention as the man ran his hand along the bookshelf and wall, looking for some sort of exit. A grin began to form on his face as he ran his hand over the panel of the spot that covered the exit. It was not noticeable to the untrained eye, but this person was a professional. For the first time, Mr. Jetson felt himself become anxious.
“Hey guys,” the man called behind him, immediately capturing the attention of the other men in the room…
A/N: Wow! Longest chapter yet!
Just under 3,000 words...I think this story is getting funner (is that even a word? XD) annd funner by the moment!
Don't forget to comment, fan and vote!
XxTheDarkAngelxX