Most internships consist of coffee runs, lunch orders, and running awkwardly in painful heels after the boss, loose papers flying in your wake. I was completely prepared for that. What I was not prepared for was to be interning for a superhero―a real superhero, with laser vision and everything―who could not keep a secret, including his own.
After the funeral was over, Adrian and Clare returned to the professor’s old home, now their new home. Adrian was kind to her, allowing her to stay in the only home she knew. He held the door open for her and she thanked him as she went inside. They sat, side-by-side, on the couch as people once again came up to them and expressed their deepest condolences. They brought lots of food: casseroles, Adrian said, and pies and salads and lasagnas. Clare worried that they’d expect her to eat all of it in front of them, but the people simply dropped off the food and left with an expression of sorrow.
Adrian was taking the professor’s death harder than Clare was. At least, he was showing it. He cried often. She could hear him through the thin walls when he thought she was asleep. Clare wished she could cry. The professor was good to her, and he knew her secret. She was his secret. Clare missed the professor terribly, but it was hard to cry without tear ducts. She'd learned that on Fridays. The diner was empty for a Wednesday night. Usually, we had at least one or two tables until close, but there was no one. I grabbed a rag and began to clean some tables before the owner could come out and yell at me for doing nothing. I stepped back to admire my handiwork, turned to the next table, and promptly jumped at the sight of a little girl sitting on the next table over.
She had little blonde ringlets, tied back in a big, blue fabric bow. Her pink dress was tattered and muddy at the hem, and her feet, which were swinging back and forth like little kids tend to do, had red rubber rain boots. I blinked at her. She stared back at me. “Um, hi?” I said. The first day wasn’t so bad. Charlie had left a water bottle by her left foot and there was something digging into her back pocket which she hoped was some type of granola bar. If she wiggled her ankle, she was able to bring the water a few inches closer. Vera knew that if she wanted to actually reach the bottle she would have to somehow free her hands which didn’t seem plausible at this moment. She ignored the slight burn of thirst in her throat.
Right now, she needed to rest. She felt groggy, the after effects from the drug she knew was used on her, but was still too keyed-up to actually fall asleep. To distract herself, Vera thought about her family. She wondered if they knew that she was missing. She wondered if they would realize that it was Charlie who was the reason she was missing. She wondered, if they didn’t know she was missing yet, how long it would take for them to realize that she was. The ties around her wrists seemed to grow tighter. The skin underneath the plastic was itchy and sweaty. The right one was tighter than the left one, digging into her wrist bone slightly. Once again, Vera felt that tightening sensation in her chest, but she pushed it back. She could not afford to freak out. She needed to rest. She needed to figure out a way to escape. She needed to survive. The first thing it saw was a dark space with strange, glow-in-the-dark shapes. It blinked, and then started at the sensation of blinking. It heard a sound off to the left and turned its head to see what made the noise. An elderly man froze as it looked at him. Slowly, the man got up off of the stool he was sitting on and walked over to where it lay on the table.
“Hello.” His voice was soft, a little weak. He smiled at it. “How are you feeling?” It stared at him. It couldn’t speak, could barely move. The man chuckled to himself. “Of course, you don’t know what’s happening. How could you even know what feelings are?” It blinked again, becoming more comfortable with the sensation. Another sensation, though, was beginning to form in its head. It felt muddy, cloudy, fuzzy. What was it feeling? “Come on now,” the old man said. He held out his hands and it stared at them. He shook his head and chuckled at himself again. He came closer, took its shoulders, and slowly helped it sit up. Once it was up, however, it sat ramrod straight, as if there was a metal pole as its spine. “You’re my greatest invention,” he told it. Pride shone in his eyes, though it did not yet know what pride was. “You need a name.” A name? It wondered what a name was, but it wanted one all the same. It sounded special, important. “What would be a good name? Hmm.” The man tapped his finger against his lip as he thought. It watched him anxiously; did it not deserve a name? “I’ve got it!” The man snapped his fingers. It jumped in surprise, which caused him to laugh outright. “What do you think of Clare?” It studied him, blinking rapidly because it liked the feeling, and thought about the name. Clare. It sounded nice. Somehow, Clare smiled at the old man. He smiled back. “Clare it is then.” A word of advice: don’t trust a man driving a pink taxi. He will attempt to set you up with your nemesis (whether it be one-sided or not. Apparently, Henry never felt threatened by me, the jerk) and accidentally give you food poisoning by ordering bad Chinese take-out.
I finished signing the paperwork at the hospital. Getting my stomach pumped was not on my to-do list today, but then again, neither was being essentially kidnapped. I sighed as I made my way to the waiting room, wondering how long it would take Abigail to get here. I pulled my phone out of my pocket just as Henry plopped down in the seat next to me. Even after getting his stomach pumped, Henry looked gorgeous. He made me so angry. “So,” Henry said after I’d glared at him for a minute, “great date, huh?” Someone’s phone began to ring and I saw that it belonged to the guy. He pulled it out of his pocket, looked at the screen, and then tossed it to me. I barely caught it I was so surprised. He ducked out of the plane, and I was left standing with a ringing flip-phone. Someone behind me grumbled and I quickly exited the plane, looking for the random man who just threw me his phone. The searching was futile. There had to have been three hundred different people standing in the wet field, and none of them looked familiar.
The phone was still ringing shrilly, and it was starting to get on my nerves. I flipped it open and held it to my ear, feeling every bit the spy in a bad 90s movie. Chapter One
London, 2003 It was another dreary, rainy day in London, but Adeline Kingsbury didn't mind. She dipped her brush in the grey oil paint she had by her side and continued to paint the grey sky she was currently looking at through her giant window. Her art studio was perfect: a large room with wooden floors and a window that took up over half of the far right wall, an old couch her mother had thrown out months ago had precedence in the middle, and the art supplies that filled every available space. Adeline loved her art studio; it was her only time away from the rushing of everyday life, and often times it felt more like home than her family's own large mansion did. She had just put the finishing touches on her latest painting (Why Stay Inside When You Can Dance In the Rain?) when her phone began to ring. Adeline rushed across the room to where her coat hung on the coat rack, pulled out her phone, and quickly flipped it up to answer the call. "Hello?" she answered. "Adeline," her mother responded, her voice just as commanding over the phone as it was in real life, "what are you doing? Where are you?" "Going to my next class," Adeline lied. She was studying business and art history at University, although her parents didn't know about art history. Being the only living heir to her parents, Adeline was meant to be the next CEO of Kingsbury's Castles, a hugely successful real estate company that had been in the family for years. They were known for their success at buying grand houses at great prices, even when the family only wanted a one-story house with two bedrooms. Elaine and Austin Kingsbury had a way of making your life seem more than it really was. Kingsbury's Castles truly was a successful business, with great reviews and happy employees. It would be a wonderful, steady job for their only daughter. The only problem: Adeline had no interest in real estate whatsoever. "Oh, sorry darling. How has class been so far?" "Fine. Great. Look, Mother, I really have to go. I'm going to be late. Love you." "Huh? Oh, yes. You too, dear. Oh, and don't forget about the dinner with the Lowells' tonight!" The phone clicked, and Adeline closed her phone, returning it to her coat pocket. She sighed and closed her eyes, dreading the idea of faking her way through a conversation with Ransom Lowell and choking down the organic food that Mrs. Lowell always had prepared. She was the type of mother who didn't believe in vaccinating her children. Yes, tonight was going to be a long night. Adeline was truly getting sick of dodging Ransom's proposal attempts, for of course they would be married, the only children of two of the wealthiest families in London. They would be marries in autumn, with Adeline in a dress with lace sleeves and a full skirt and Ransom in a sharp black suit. Then, they would have three children, all blond-haired and blue-eyed who would grow up to be a doctor, a real estate agent, and a disappointment, in that order. It made Adeline sick to her stomach to think of her guaranteed marriage to Ransom Lowell, a boy with cold eyes and an even colder tongue. Adeline prayed that she would come down with some sort of sickness before tonight. She sighed. "I need new art supplies," she told herself. Adeline shrugged on her coat and left her studio. |
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