Dangerous Journey
Disclaimer: Don't own iCarly
A/N: I urge you to see the oneshot "The Broken Family", which this is connected to. That oneshot is a prologue and explains what happened in the past that leads to this. Oh and allow me to reintroduce myself with this story, voila!
Chapter 1 (Swept Under the Rug)
"I know why my brother has you doing this, I just don't know why he's still so obsessed with it." Carly's face moved towards her webcam, enough that Sam could see the wrinkles forming around her nose and tight lips. "He's always blamed himself for what happened, but it's time to move on."
"The thing is, he saw the police officer when we all went to LA." She was sitting against the headboard of a bed with her legs stretched across it the mattress. She reached for her hair, pulling it back into a ponytail. "He saw the officer hugging Tori, and figured out that Tori was his daughter. Now he's got me following the guy."
She dropped her hands with a heavy breath. "I don't exactly feel comfortable with it." The officer was a dangerous man, and Sam didn't even know if Trina was aware of whether or not she was the victim of a kidnapping. "I found a place, though."
She remembered Hollywood Arts and went there to try and locate any of Tori's friends. When she ran into Cat, she remembered the girl due to her vibrant red hair.
It was a fluke how it happened, and Sam wasn't exactly sure what forces were at work, but Cat nearly wound up crushed by a garbage truck. She saved the girl, and the next thing she knew, she had a place to stay.
"Well." Carly's eyebrow rose and her lips twisted. "Did you tell Freddie what's going on?"
"No. He knows I moved down here, but he doesn't need to know every little thing that goes on." She didn't want to worry the guy, not that she felt he would be worried about her. "It's not like I'm going to stay here forever. I don't know what I'm going to say to that girl if I even get in contact with her-and obviously I can't do it with the cop guy around."
From Spencer's story about how the officer stalked his mother on their trip in Los Angeles, she was freaked out by the level of danger this man had. Yes, she'd fought thugs before, but they'd always been crappy juvenile kids, not hardened murderers and child abductors.
This man could kill her most likely without so much as second thought. No butter-filled sock was going to stop a man with a gun.
"I have nothing to protect myself." Her lips curled inside and her breath locked up in her throat, causing a grunt to sound. She had to put on a brave face though, she was doing this for a good cause after all. "Well, the officer's a family man now, I presume. Do you actually remember anything about him, Carly?"
"I was six at the time." Carly fell back onto her pillows and shifted the laptop, causing the area around the girl to darken while the blue light lit up her pink pajamas. "Hold on." The screen flashed and blurred as Carly moved her computer, then the camera focused on her face. "Better?"
"Yeah."
A large amount of dark hair fell in front of the girl's face, so she pulled it away with a quick motion. "Anyway. I was six. I don't remember much of anything except that Sasha was holding onto me."
Sasha was the girl from Spencer's memory, the one from the arcade that he wound up making out with. She remembered the woman vividly because they once found out about her online and brought her to challenge Spencer at a Pak-Rat videogame without realizing that the two had already met-making their surprise kiss all that more startling.
"Sasha came back here to LA after she appeared on our show, right?" She was certain about it because she remembered Spencer moving about sluggishly for a while, muttering about how Sasha was gone.
"I think so. Maybe you should look around for her. I doubt she goes by 'Striker' though."
"I think Spencer said her last name was Rodriquez, actually." She hoped the woman might still be single, though she wasn't sure why. It might be nice to get her and Spencer to hook up again. "Spencer should be doing this himself, Carly, but you know he's finishing up his law degree."
"He should be done with that in a month or two. If I can, I'll get him to go to where you are. I don't like you being all by yourself following that guy around."
"Yeah, but I can handle myself."
"Maybe, but this guy has already killed someone-obviously-and he hides behind a badge. He's the worst kind of killer, in my opinion." Sam smiled vaguely as her friend's eyes slanted. "I don't want to lose my best friend because my brother couldn't let go of the past."
"I will be fine, Carls. Don't you worry."
Lines formed around Carly's mouth, and her eyebrows flattened over her sockets. "Too late. I'm worried." A shiver ran through Sam, and her fingers curled over the keyboard as she drew in a slow calming breath. "Sam, if anything happens, you know I'm flying out there the minute I can."
"Don't do that."
"Don't try talking me out of it. Won't work. Also, don't forget she's my littles sister too, so I'd take advantage of an opportunity to meet her if I could."
"Right, I know you would."
As she stared at the computer, she began to think about iCarly. Spencer had been on many times, it was known that he was Carly's brother, and therefore connected to her.
As a result of the realization, Sam could feel the icy fingers of fear drifting across her shoulders and wrapping around her throat. Her fingers spread out across the keys and her eyebrows rose up beneath her bangs.
"What if this officer had seen iCarly?" She wondered. If the man knew of her connection, the results could lead to disaster. There was still a chance he hadn't, being a professional officer. Not many adults, especially those of serious professions, were avid watchers of teenage internet videos.
All of a sudden the silence was broken by a red flash before her eyes. "Is that your Italian friend?" Cat's shrill voice rang in her ears, and caused her to gasp out in fear. Cat's head was now between the computer and Sam, so it was unlikely that Carly was seeing the momentary terror in her eyes.
"American, Cat." Her hand moved to her chest and her eyes closed. "Carly's American, she just moved to the air force base in Italy that her father works at."
"Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot you mentioned that." Cat waved and Carly returned the gesture. "Hey Carly, how's Italy?"
"Fun," Carly answered, "It's different. I wish I could enjoy it more." Sam rolled her eyes. She understood Carly was stressing out too much to enjoy Italy, but she couldn't actually do a thing about it. "Speaking of which, I do have to get off here. It's late, and I need to get up early tomorrow."
"Well it's nice to meet you, Carly. I hope we can talk more some other time."
"Yeah I'm sure we will. Later, Sam."
"By Carly." Sam waved and waited for her friend to end the call. Once the video chat was over, she closed the top of the laptop and set it beside her. "So." A slow exhale fell from her lips.
Cat moved to her bed and sat down on the edge. "What is it?" Sam folded her hands on her abdomen and circled her thumb on the surface of her hand. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, I was just wondering about something." She blinked twice and looked across the room. Her shoulders rose suddenly and she switched her left leg to move over her right. "Your friend Tori, what's she like?"
"Oh she's alright." Cat pushed herself into a more upright position on her bed. The girl's smile increased, furthering the dimples in her cheeks. "I could introduce you if you wanted."
"I might like that, actually." However close Cat was to Tori could be a good thing, because it meant she was close to the Vega family. "What do you know about her family? Much?"
"Not a whole lot, actually. Tori talks about them, but it's hardly ever good. So, I kind of just tune her out." Sam's heart sank and her eyebrows dipped in the middle. She had to suppress a mild growl before turning away to hide her annoyance in Cat's statement. "Trina can be a little bit eccentric from time. Not as much as Tori makes her out to be, but just enough."
Sam perked up and shot a glance back to the redhead. "Oh? Can you tell me more?"
"I guess, but I don't like to gossip."
"This isn't gossip so much." A smirk spread across her face and she leaned forward. Her hands clasped together and rose beneath her chin. "I just want to know more about Trina."
"Oh okay." Cat rolled her head to the right and slouched. "She kind of has this thing where she likes to get attention. From just about anyone. She's a little bit clingy, I'm not sure why."
If Trina remembered anything about her abduction, then Sam knew the answer. It was very possible for a victim of kidnapping to cling to someone or seek attention from somebody that they felt might take them away from captivity.
"She seems to like flashy outfits, kind of acting like it'll get people to notice her."
"So she wants to be noticed. Nothing wrong with that." She leaned back and pushed her hands behind her head.
"Yeah, but she's really mellowing out lately. I think it's because of the way she gets treated. She gets walked on a lot, put down because of how crazy she acts." Cat tilted her head to the other side and squinted her eyes. "Actually, you know, there's this look she has from time to time. After her incident, she has this look in her eyes like she's ready to give up."
"Incident?"
"Yeah." Cat unfolded her hands as she spoke, waving her right hand up in the air momentarily. "A while back she was in a play, and somebody-I think one of the others, but no one ever found out, messed up her harness." Sam's eyes widened and her hand moved up to her mouth, catching a gasp. "She um, she crashed into all the props before slamming into the stage. I think, in a way, the set pieces and props saved her life."
"Lucky."
"Not so much, she broke a lot of bones." It sounded terrible, and of course, she wasn't sure Spencer or Carly needed to hear about this at the moment. Still, it made her question how close to giving up Trina might be. "Like I said, she's kind of mellowed out and isn't as clingy with people as she used to be. I guess she figured looking around for attention wasn't going to get her the attention she wanted…"
"I'm sorry for her, it must be terrible for the family to go through that ordeal."
"Well, it didn't really bother them much." Sam raised an eyebrow and the corner of her mouth slid into a frustrated scowl. "I mean, Tori wasn't happy, she demanded for the longest time to know which of us did it. We still don't know, of course, but she gave up. Um…her mom and dad? They've kind of been in their own world, so they never really bothered with Trina after that."
"So wait, Mr. and Mrs. Vega aren't involved with their daughters?" What this told her was the officer had grown complacent and was confident in the fact that Trina would not be getting away. If he wasn't taking notice anymore, it might not be as difficult to slip in and figure out all she could.
Her heart burst with excited anticipation and she turned around, sliding her legs off the bed.
Cat's lips pursed and her shoulders bounced. "I mean, I don't think Trina is Mrs. Vega's daughter. I heard Tori say once that Trina was their dad's child from a prior relationship…her birth mother died in a tragedy or something, I think."
The emotion fled Sam's face, and the left corner of her mouth indented into her cheek. "It was a tragedy alright," she muttered under her breath. "He got that much right."
"It's like, Mrs. Vega kind of just isn't around and Mr. Vega's always busy with work. He got a promotion recently, Police Commander." Her heart dropped into her stomach and the muscles in her forehead tensed up.
"Oh. He's that powerful then?"
"Yeah, Tori says he's a third or fourth generation cop. Her grandpa was police chief a long time ago." Her hand moved over her stomach and bile started shooting into her throat. The temperature inside her body started to rise, and her entire face began to waver between crimson and green. "Everything okay, Sam?"
"Yeah Cat. Everything's just fine." Spencer wasn't going to like hearing this. If Cat was right about Tori's family, then it was very likely Mr. Vega's father was in a position of power at the time of Mrs. Shay's murder and Trina's abduction.
The crime had been swept under the rug; hidden from the public and from prying eyes. There was no question as to how Trina might never have been able to get help, if anyone knew of a problem, they weren't about to deal with the Vega family. Spencer just made Sam that unwitting person to do just what nobody else would.
While Spencer was right to say it reeked of cover-up, Sam hoped against something like this. The entire state of California may very well be too dangerous for them at this rate.
Still, she needed to know more. She needed a way into the Vega house and had to have a chance to observe and figure out how, if any there was any way at all, that she could get Trina from a very dangerous man without losing her own life in the process.
One thing she could be sure of: If she managed to get this done, Spencer better count his lucky stars, because he now owed her.
So what do you think? Do you think Cat's on the money here, and will Sam be able to do this? We will be seeing Freddie, Sasha's still in LA, and of course Carly will eventually fly in. Though we're dealing with a high profile family that, and if Cat's right, Mrs. Vega and Tori have no idea about the man that lives in their house.