Jane and Xavier left the restaurant with Aubrey trailing them behind. Jane had ordered the other woman to do so. Well she had asked really but who was taking note. Aubrey would make sure that Xavier wasn't just another psychopath working for Adeline and she would reveal herself when the time was right, Preferably now that Xavier was leading her to his car. Jane looked around for signs of the other woman but she couldn't see any. She gritted her teeth and cursed inwardly as she looked at the black car in front of her. There was no way in hell that she would be getting into a stranger's car all willy nilly. She would need to be assured of her safety first, and as far as she could tell, Xavier was still a stranger to her. She didn't know him. She didn't know his background. He wasn't even from the city and he had that strange crazy feeling around him. So she wouldn't be getting into his car. "I'm not getting into your car." Xavier sighed as he heard those words. What was wro
Con woke up to the feeling of ropes around him.The fact that he had just been shot and then woke up in ropes amused him.The fact that he had even been shot actually amused him.It wouldn't be amusing when he finally had names and a gun in his hand."Do you think he's awake?"Con opened his eyes and glared at the man on the side of the bed.He was still in Miranda's room.So maybe he wouldn't be killing too many people after all, but maybe he would.There were five men in the room. Five fully armed men and if they so happened to just be holding Miranda hostage and if one of them just happened to have been the one who shot him......... who was he not to shoot all of them as recompense?"Get that thing off me before I strangle you with it."The doctor's face paled almost immediately and he took off his stethoscope from his neck.He had been leaning over the unconscious man earlier but that threat made goosebumps run down his spine. He wasn't too eager to see if this man was intent on
Miranda couldn't seem to come to terms with the fact that Con still wanted to go get the map.Especially after what she had told him.She had stared at him blankly throughout the whole time he put on the clothes she set out for him.Con actually liked the clothes. The pants felt like leather pants but he could tell they were just wool. The shirt covered his arms and the jacket had no arms. It was sleeveless, and made out of a tough material. Probably bullet proof. Everything was snug and tight and it fit him perfectly.Even thieves had to look good and that was what he would be tonight. A thief."Drop me off here. I'll find my way in myself."The man in the driver's seat nodded and Con could tell that he was one of the men that had brought him to the Olsen mansion.The man looked at him with some sort of respect.And it was respect that he didn't deserve really because he didn't have any penny to his name.Miranda had informed him of the new development with his assets. All the mon
"Don't break. Don't fucking break."Con was muttering under his breath as he stood on the single wire that stretched from the building he was on to the Sector 8 building.He was currently in the shadow of the sector 8 building and he was trying to get into the bathroom window on the eighth floor.That meant he was a good number of feet above the ground and looking down was not an option.The wire he was standing on breaking too was not an option.A fall from this height would leave him with a broken leg at least, and he would be ashamed if he broke his leg on such a simple mission.Con stood for a while on the line that was now stretched taut because of his weight on it. He was standing on a single long coil of wire, it could either be aluminum or steel, but he really didn't care about that.Whatever it was, it was holding his weight nicely. He felt like a tightrope artist in the circus, except there was no safety net beneath him, just a long fall and the endless chasm of black that
"Is she in there?"The sound of the receiver cracking on the other end filled Jake's ears and he sneered at the sound."No boss, she isn't.""Is that guy in there then? The one that was at the party with Jane?"Jake heard the line go silent again and then a beep sounded as the call was cut.The sound of the whooshing cars muted his frustrated groan and he felt like hitting something.Adeline wasn't in her house. She didn't even live in the building anymore.He had only come to confirm and his intel had been accurate.She had either gotten herself a new place, or she decided that she had gotten enough of his constant stalking and she had moved in with someone else.Jake knew Adeline HIghton. They had been lovers once when her brother was still in the military and she was yet to start her shitty little business.They had argued and broken up but he still couldn't forget her."Do I have to endure that look on your face or is there an option for me to avoid it?"Jake sneered as he heard t
Con blinked at the head in front of him and he found himself shaking his own.To begin with, how had Xavier found him?He had known Xavier would find him, but the real question was how had he gotten in here?Con felt the glare of a flashlight on his face and the moment the rays hit him, he glared at Xavier and with a fast click the light went off."Sorry boss. I didn't know it was you."Con scoffed and grinned."How many people do you normally expect to be in the air vents of a military base Xavier? And what are you doing here?."Con heard Xavier take a deep breath and he found himself frowning at how that breath sounded.It didn't sound too healthy."I have something I need to tell you, boss.""Tell me and get out of here."They both spoke barely below a whisper, but Con still didn't feel safe, even with that.This was a military base, a dangerous military base.If Xavier was in here, then he had come in from another entry point and that wasn't good. Xavier was capable with guns. Con
"Is the sector 8 building on fire?"Con turned to look at Xavier and then at then at the sector 8 building.The golden glow of the flames made him feel nostalgic and he swallowed the smile that was about to spread on his face."I think it is Xavier."He shrugged."I wonder how that happened."Xavier couldn't help but feel a new level of fear for his boss. He had heard the sound of shooting as he made his way back to the entrance he had used to get into the building. He had also snuck in through the window of a toilet but some guards had almost caught him, so he decided to take the route Con had taken in and see if he could manage an escape from there.What he met confused him and confounded him at the same time.To begin with, there was only a single rope stretching out at the window. It was also on the eighth floor and he had been more than surprised to see some bolts discarded on the floor of the lavatory.He had gone back into the grates, determined to go out the way he came and n
The feeling of the sensors on the wall as they scanned Con's palm made him feel relaxed. The wall slid to the side and he stepped into the room to see Miranda seated on the bed. He tossed the small ball to her and she caught it in the palm of her hand. "I believe that is your map Miss Olsen." Con watched as the lady tapped the small black ball and a hologram popped up immediately. It showed the coordinates to an area. Con was impressed, and he could tell Miranda was too. He watched as she tapped on the huge red X that was being displayed on the hologram. It responded to her touch and zoomed in on that spot almost immediately. He could see a building. An old building that looked abandoned and dilapidated. A green circle pulsed around the house. That was probably where the sigil and scepter Miranda was searching for was. "Thank you Con. I am one step closer to living now." Con nodded and walked over to the table in the center of the room. Its top was made with glass and as he
Xavier stared at the files in his hands and tried not to get too scared by them. There was information on them, more information than he would have felt comfortable ever knowing but he could see what Con was so scared of now. He might even be sure that he had managed to see the things Con had not. To begin with, this world was not what they thought it was.At least it was not all they thought it was. It was much more than they imagined and the fact that Con had somehow managed to stumble on this clearly meant the cosmos was seeking their help, or rather Con's help. Somehow somewhere there was someone or something pushing Con towards making these decisions and he could feel it now. He was sure if he told Jane and Aubrey that they would plan to eat him up alive. Both him and that thing he felt was guiding Con into making the decisions he was making. Their world was under threat, and he would be damned if he just sat back and watched it all crumble.Xavier reached for his phone and tap
Con watched the hackers he had hired work and he came to the conclusion that he had undoubtedly made a very huge mistake.There was little he could do in terms of making them more coperative and oddly he got the feeling that they wanted to make him frustrated. One of them full on refused to listen to his commands and Con felt the urge to give the man a sound slap at the back of his mind. He had to resist it because the others were already working and from what he could see, they were doing what he wanted them to do. That was enough for him, but what he truly wanted was their total cooperation.From the way they had abandoned their jobs to go chase after money, he knew that he couldn't use them for any of the jobs he would have wished to. Since they had the basic knowledge he would need in the people he wanted to recruit, it would have been better if they had behaved and not messed up that way. It was not like he was that desperate that he would hire them despite whatever they did, but
Jake looked out his window and tried to assess his surroundings. He could tell people were trying to hack into the cyber security of the the hotel. The alarms had gone off the moment the breach was noticed and he had spent the past one hour trying to calm himself down and not fly into a rage. The fact that whoever this was thought he could mess with him and get away with it felt funny to him.The only problem right now was the issue of intention. The hackers seemed to be aiming for the security controls to switch them off. That was what they had been trying to do in the first place and he felt they might have done it sucesfully if they hadn't diverted to start hacking away at money. If they were petty thieves then he would make them pay. He would make them pay badly for having him all worked up for nothing, but if they posed a greater problem than than that then he would have to solve that problem, probably with the aid of some thugs and torture. He just bought this hotel. It was on
Xavier watched as Lisa and Clay kept their eyes on him like he was performing some kind of magic trick just sitting down there and doing nothing. He could already tell that it would be a long time before they left him alone and honestly, now he was up to the challenge. There was no way he was going to let them keep him in when he already had something he wanted to do.Lisa could be dealt with. He could persuade her with treats and make her feel he should be let loose to do what he wanted because he was her father and even he would have to admit that he let her loose to do what she wanted too sometimes.Lisa would let him do what he wanted to do because he also let her do what she wanted to do at times. It was an agreement they had both reached and he was sure she would honor her part of their agreement. The one was really worried about was Clay. The fact that the younger male just stood there watching him gave Xavier a funny feeling in his stomach. He and Lisa should have done off t
Con could swear that he had thought there was a chance of Xavier calling him on the phone and offering his help.He had been expecting that for a day plus now but yet nothing had happened and he was getting skeptical. Was he wrong to expect that his comrade in arms would come to him at this moment? And was he sure that he could pull off this operation with Xavier?Con stared at the building in front of him and turned to look at the others in the car. Two of the maids had revealed themselves to be hackers specially trained by the Black family. It seemed his uncle had also believed that one day he would need the help of such people so he had gathered them, from all walks of life, which to him probably meant the prisons. The man was a cheapskate. He couldn't hire professsionals who would get his job done for him, so instead he went to the prisons and got men and women who had been arrested and convicted of various internet crimes .He had bailed them out, paid the men behind the desk eno
Lisa stared at her father and tried to assess the level of damage she had done.She had one hand over her mouth and the other helping her prop that arm up.'"When the heck did my father become ebony haired?""Language Lisa.Lisa rolled her eyes and walked over to go stand near Clay."We did this didn't we?"Clay couldn't help the chuckle that escaped his throat. Somehow he had imagined that Lisa would have more information than he would on what was happening to her father. She had asked him to promise that they would both take the fall for whatever happened and when this happened, he suspected she knew about it. No just knew about it but expected it. He would not have been surprised if Lisa expected this to happen, but it seems she had not. She was just as surprised as he was, or she was now a great actress and she was faking all this, but he could tell there was no talent for acting in Lisa so he was sure it was the first one.Lisa was shocked, the same way he had been and it was fu
"What exactly did Lisa put in to make your hair this color?"Xavier could see Jane was getting distracted already. Her eyes were gleaming as she fingered his lock of hair and he could already see the longing in her.Jane wanted to cut his hair and take it in to be studied. He could proudly say that he had taught Jane as much as he could in the art of detectiving in a science lab. He had taught her how to determine how long a piece of fabric would retain its color if dyed, what mixture of dyes to use and what colors seemed to have an affinity for each other. In part he was a fundamental aspect to the success of Jane's clothing brand and he had felt a bit disappointed when she had abandoned their lab meetings to focus on leading her company, but now he could see that the spark wasn't totally dead yet.She looked at his hair with a clinical eye, from a scientific point of view. Lisa was asleep and he had asked Clay to leave her so she could take the rest she needed. Lisa rarely slept
Clay left Lisa in the room and descended to the lab beneath her to check for himself how her father was doing. Maybe it was because he had been there when the man collapsed or maybe because he had been just as scared when it had all happened, but he had a deep feeling of worry for Mr Frost. There wasn't much for him to do concerning the cure Lisa had administered to her father. She seemed sure of it and it seemed the cure had worked the way she said it would.The ice core had been repaired. By a bunch of black petals. It still surprised him as to how that happened but as long as Lisa's father was out of the danger zone then he would be happy. They were in enough confusion as things stood already and more confusion was not something he wanted for any of them. What he wanted at the moment was to confirm that Lisa's father was okay, and if he was then maybe he could ask if they could run a brain scan on Lisa. She had lapsed off into thought again and it was making him feel a bit scared.
Lisa could feel her heart slam into her chest the moment she heard the question. Her face turned red and she looked away, not because she was ashamed but because she was embarrassed."How the hell can you pop that kind of question on me so casually? Do I look like I have someone on my mind?""You look like you've been hella distracted and when girls are at your age they tend to think of boys twenty four seven. Can you see the reason for my curiosity now?"Lisa rolled her eyes and noticed how close she and Clay were. Closeness between the both of them had never bothered her, Clay was like a brother to her and she was like a sister to him, but he had grown these past few months and she wouldn't say she had failed to notice the changes in herself too. They had both grown a lot and somehow this kind of closeness made her extra aware of that.Everything around them was changing. Not just the climate or global warming, but mostly a lot of the other things, the more important things, the peo