“Why are you saying this?”
“You have to go.”
She ushers Roche’ to the door. “Please leave. Don’t come here again. I will miss you,” she whispered as she closed the door.
Roche’ walked down the hall with her head down. She was heartbroken that her sister, whom she just found, was lost again. As she exited the hotel, she clumsily bumped into a guy wearing mirrored sunglasses.
“Excuse me,” she said as she looked up briefly but ducked fast to avoid eye contact before speeding out of the door.
The man looks as if he’d just seen a ghost. After standing for a while and watching this woman go to her car, he shrugs it off. He continued to walk to the counter of the hotel, where he leaned towards the receptionist.
“I’m here to see Adonis Sterling,” said Harnando Vasquez.
Ω
Jessi hangs up the phone and takes in a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.” She whispers to herself before standing on her desk and calling for everyone’s attention.
“Hey, hey, hey hey” She then places her fingers in her mouth and blows a loud siren sounding whistle from her lips. The room falls quiet.
“I need all of you to go with me to the Quest building. There are some people trying to take over the world using the internet.” She says, immediately realizing how stupid it sounded.
In the back of the bullpen, someone snickered, someone else tossed a paper ball her way, with the rest continuing as if she hadn’t said a word. Jessi starts to step down, just as the lights in the bullpen got out.
“I bet you will get your asses up now.” She states with pride.
Everyone starts to look around. A few look out the window and see the clouds forming over the Quest building. Jessi jumps down and grabs her coat from the back of her chair. While most of the officer’s attention is directed out the window, Jessi heads for Wilcox’s office. Jessi took pleasure and smashing the glass and taking the prized Louisville Slugger from the wall.
She takes a small practice swing. “Damn, this might be worth that house money.” She rushes out the door with her fellow officers rushing behind her.
As she rushed outside, she spotted her car across the parking lot and made a mad dash for it. Suddenly a gunshot rang out so close that she could feel the ringing in her ears, causing her to drop down and reach for her gun on instinct. Looking around to see who was shooting at her, she realized the shot came from the car she was leaning against, the Chief’s car. She slowly rises, being careful to stay out of the line of sight of whoever was doing the shooting. She noticed that the front driver’s side window was bathed in crimson red blood, and brain matter bits slowly slid down the window. Jessi covered her mouth to hide her gasp. Through the clean spots, she could see the Chief slumped against the driver's side window with half his head missing.
“Fuck” she whispered, but she needed to focus. Wilcox was part of the reason all this crazy shit was going down. She needed to get to Wade. She jumps in her car and barrels down the road with Quest lined up in her sights. As she drives, she notices strange shadows projecting from the top of the quest building.
“What the fuck is that” She slowly whispers.
Ω
They lied to her as she rode in a super nice stretch limo sipping champaign and eating a weird rich people’s cheese. The death of her sister was still fresh, but she was too distracted to think about it. They made sure of that. This Russian woman was really nice, and she had told her the ropes of what was needed. “Everyone wants to be a star, right?” The woman said with a large grin and thick accent. “You just get to skip the hard work,” she added. Roche’s parents had kept her a secret all this time, and now, here she was in the clutches of what they feared most, her sister’s kidnappers. But she was an adult, and she could call the police any time she felt threatened. Her sister told her that these people were evil, but she didn’t get that vibe. She was happy that they came to visit before her mom got home. That woman would have had a fit. She was so cautious about weird white people visiting and made sure that it was etched in Roche’s mind. She had lost her husband and didn’t want to lose her only child too. She found it odd that when she asked how they found her, the Russian woman ignored the question. They were so nice that she eventually forgot about it. “We just need you for two shows,” the woman with the thick Russian accent said. “But first, we need to make sure you are committed. We can’t have you quitting on us.”
The thought of living just a moment in the life of Rochelle gave her overwhelming excitement. She wanted it so bad. She was furious at her mom the first time she told her she couldn’t seek out her sister. “It’s for the best,” the woman would say. “The best for who?” Roche’ thought. “She gets to travel the world and have millions of fans while I go to this boring ass school and eat dinner every night with two old people.”
Those thoughts seemed like an eternity ago as Roche’ laid cuffed to a table in this motherfucking lair with a demon rising from the floor. The first time she saw something like this, the same decrepit old hag made her read a book in some old, abandoned church. Now she was here, facing her failed choices. Rochelle told her these people were evil.
The face upon the shadow was so hideous that Roche’ froze in fear. It was so much bigger than the one from the old church, and this time it brought with it the
