Take Care

Chapter 2

The Mouse Found the Cat

When he walked out of the room he found Jason leaning casually against the wall facing Sharpay's room. When he saw Troy walk out he smiled knowingly and muttered a "follow me". Troy followed him down to the elevator and waited patiently for the door to open. Jason looked at him and chuckled.

"You know, Troy, be careful when you're with her. The girl is a flight risk"

Troy raised an eyebrow and smirked at Jason as the elevator door made a soft 'ding' and opened. Jason walked in first with Troy following close behind. The elevator was vary spacious with mirrored walls and had a silver steel floor. Jason leaned back on the wall that faced the door and looked at Troy through the mirror. "You talk about her like you know her very well".

"I do. We, uh, we used to be a…thing…I guess you can call it."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, it just didn't work out. But I'm telling you, she's not the person you see on T.V., the nice blonde who does charity work. She does things for the hell of it, so just be careful." He turned to face Troy this time, "if you need help with anything, don't doubt to call me."

The doors dinged again and Jason swiftly stepped out waiting for Troy to do the same. When Troy was next to him Jason led him through a long narrow hallway with little light. Troy frowned, unsure of where they were headed. Other than the lack of light and the tight fit of it, the hallway was just like any other hallway in the house. He looked for windows, hell, he looked for a door of sorts but found nothing.

"Where are we going?"

"Garage"

Jason said curtly as they finally made a sharp left and faced a plain looking brown door. As he opened the door, Jason looked back at him and raised both his eyebrows, as if measuring the excitement about to cross Troy's face. Jason sidestepped so Troy could have a better view of the garage.

Now when you think garage you think of a normal car storage that could fit two cars maybe four if it was a big one. He didn't expect that, you know, with the family being rich an all. However, saying that this family owned a garage was an understatement. The Evans family owned a small airplane hangar filled very, very expensive cars. There were red Maseratis and black Audis, a couple of Mercedes Benz and black luxury SUV's lining the walls. Troy raised both eyebrows in surprise. How much money did this family have?

"Nice, right? You'll be driving Sharpay in that one today." He pointed at a black Benz SUV parked a couple of yards away from them. "Just take it to the front; she'll be waiting for you there."

Jason tossed a pair of keys to him as he walked back to the door they had just come in through. Troy whirled around with a questioning frown on his face, "doesn't this family have chauffeurs?"

Jason turned as he was on the process of closing the door, "yeah, but today you're on double duty, Mr. Bolton." And with a last flourish of his hand as a wave goodbye, he was gone.

Sharpay sighed for what seemed like the one hundred thousandth time during that car ride. The SUV rolled silently through hills and streets and stopped slowly at stop signs. She was bored out of her mind and suddenly a trip to the beach didn't seem so alluring. She didn't sweat it; however, she simply sighed and leaned back on the black leather seats of the cool SUV. She reeled her eyes forward and looked at the driver, her new bodyguard.

He still wore the Guess suit and had put on a pair of black shades to protect his eyes from the relentless California sun. She closed her eyes and rolled her head to her right side, and leaned onto her own shoulder.

"Are you okay, Miss Evans?"

"I thought I said to call me Sharpay. And yes, I'm fine, Troy. I'm just bored." She replied facing forward again.

He looked at her from the rearview mirror and raised an eyebrow. "I thought you wanted to come to the beach."

She laughed and leaned towards the driver's seat. She placed her hands on his shoulder and patted them twice before leaning back onto the back seat again. "Yeah, but I get bored quickly, Troy."

He decided to ignore her comment as he pulled into the parking lot of the beach. He surprisingly found a parking spot close to the stairs and close to the main part of the beach. Sharpay waited for him to get out of the front seat and open her door. Once he did so, she grabbed her tote bag and got out of the SUV as gracefully as she possibly could. She looked at Troy as he got out the umbrella and her folded chair from the trunk and narrowed her eyes. She needed to find a way to get rid of him.

"Hurry up, Troy. The sun isn't gonna be up forever." She said and started walking towards the stairs.

Even the wind that blew was hot which made it difficult for her to breathe. She took her white lace top off and stuffed it inside her purse. She was left with her black bikini and shorts. Once she got to the sand she took her flip flops off and tossed those with the shirt as well. She remembered that Troy was supposed to be behind her, so she looked back to see where he was.

He carried the umbrella and chair easily, however, he looked like he was having some trouble with walking in the sand with his shoes on. She smiled and waited for him to catch up with her, but when he did she did not keep walking.

"Here," she said, motioning for him to give her the umbrella, "just walk a little bit further down, by the lifeguard post." She saw him frown before walking alongside her.

They got to where Sharpay wanted to be and settled everything down. Her chair was facing the ocean and the red umbrella was to her right covering her face. She put her headphones on as she pulled her shorts down. Her matching string bikini bottoms rode low on her hips already, and when her shorts pulled them slightly lower, Troy quickly adverted his gaze. Once she was comfortable she took out her sun screen and looked at Troy.

He stared at her, unblinking.

"It's not going to put itself on, you know."

Troy raised an eyebrow and chuckled at the girl's boldness, "I don't mean to be disrespectful, miss, but I am in charge of your safety. Not your needs."

She shrugged her shoulders and threw the sun lotion behind her. "Suit yourself, but you better not feel guilty when I get skin cancer."

Troy looked away and resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the spoiled girl. He had not even been in her presence for a day and she was already managing to get under his skin. He stood in front of her, unsure of what else to do as she tanned. He crossed his hands in front of him as he watched the beach for any signs of danger to the teenager. In reality he knew that nothing was likely to happen at a beach, but in his profession he could not afford to assume anything.

"You're blocking my sun."

He did not even bother to look at her as he slid to his left. He was getting hotter by the second under the sun and the fact that he suddenly got the urge to use the restroom was not helping. He held it, though. He could not leave his post…or could he? Jason did say she was a flight risk, but was she really that bad? Surely not, right?

He decided that she was not likely to stay there for long because she was bound to get incredibly hot as well.

He could not have been more wrong.

Forty minutes later he was sweating and he could barely stand up straight from how much he needed to pee. He heard a giggle and looked down at the resting blonde on the foldable chair. Her designer shades pulled up on top of her head and her eyebrows raised.

"What is wrong with you?" she asked mockingly.

When he did not answer, she nodded in understandment. "Look Troy, if you need to go, you can go."

"You're a flight risk." He blurted out accidentally.

She blinked at him seriously and sat up. "And, obviously, you've been talking to Jason."

He looked at her and then at the restrooms by the stairs and then back at her. How was he supposed to trust someone who couldn't wait to get rid of him?

"Just go, Troy! You're making me uncomfortable. I'll be here when you come back, I promise." When he did not move from his spot, she added, "scout's honor." That's all he needed to have him running towards the men's restroom on top of the stairs. He must have looked back at the blonde about twenty times on the way there, thankfully however, she did not move a single inch.

Even though the line in the restroom was pretty long, Troy managed to finish his business pretty quickly. He washed his hands as fast as he could and didn't even bother drying them. He headed out of the foul smelling men's restroom and looked for where they had set their umbrella and chair. He sighed with relief as soon as he saw the blonde still lying down with her hands on her sides. He knew Jason had to have been exaggerating, she may not like body guards but she was too much of a public figure to try crazy stunts like that.

Keeping his eyes on her as he walked down the steps, he let himself calm down and not be so much on the defense. She was not that bad of a person considering she had people watching her 24/7. As he got closer to a seemingly sleeping Sharpay, he noticed that a few things were off. For one, she had her lace shirt back on. The second thing he noticed was, the most obvious, and that the umbrella was moved a couple inches to the right of where it had been before with a lot of sand kicked around it.

He mentally kicked himself for not noticing that sooner as he ran the rest of the space towards the blonde girl on the chair. When he was behind her he shook the back of the chair violently, causing the unknown blonde to sit up abruptly and push her glasses back. Other than the hair, this blonde and Sharpay had nothing in common, she was taller than Sharpay and her eyes a blue that matched the ocean. Her bikini was white instead of black and her face was rounder than Sharpay's.

"She told me you'd be mad" she said as she eyed him seductively.

"Where is she?" he said as he roughly grabbed her by her right arm and shook her slightly.

She snatched her arm back and pushed her sunglasses back on her face. She raised an eyebrow at him and stepped back slightly.

"What are you gonna do to her?"

"What?" he hissed incredulously, "I'm her bodyguard, and I'm not the one she should be worried about. Who are you?"

"She just paid me to stay here and if someone came looking for her to not say where she was. She seemed pretty scared to me."

Jason's accusations were sounding more and more plausible by the second. He wanted to slap himself for being so stupid and trusting of someone who probably wanted to drown him.

"Just tell me where she went and what she's wearing."

Sharpay ran as fast as her legs would allow her along the main streets of the beach boulevard. She was barefoot and the burning floor was making her run even faster than the rush she got from running away. She looked behind her quickly to see if her new bodyguard had managed to somehow catch up to her. She slowed down when she realized there was no one she recognized.

She laughed silently congratulating herself on her getaway even though she knew she had to get moving before he caught up with her. She probably looked like some sort of beach bum, with her hair in a mess under a hat and wearing only shorts and a bikini. The hat she stole from a little vendor served to make her less recognizable.

She looked for someone who seemed reliable enough to give her some information about the whereabouts of a mall around this place. She soon found a group of teens about her age that seemed to just be hanging out by one of the clothing stores. She approached them confidently and they stopped their conversation to look at her expectantly.

"Do you know where there's a mall around here?"

"There's the main mall a couple of miles from here." One of the guys said after an awkward silence from the group.

"Hey, aren't you Sharpay Evans?" a redhead girl who wore sunglasses and a blue dress asked her. These kids didn't look suspicious so she had nothing to fear.

"Depends. If anyone wants to give me a ride to the mall, then I might be her."

They all looked at each other for a couple seconds before one of the boys spoke up, raising his hand slowly. "My bike is down that way, I could give you a ride."

Sharpay got off the bike and straightened out her shorts. She looked at the blonde boy and thanked him with a kiss on the cheek and a wave goodbye. As she made her way inside the big shopping mall she hoped that no one would stop her for not having a shirt on. She decided it really did not matter as her goal of the day had been accomplished; she had gotten rid of that stupid bodyguard of hers. She rolled her eyes under her sunglasses and walked into a vintage-looking store for an outfit. She came back several minutes later with a shopping bag in each arm and with a satisfied smile on her face. She figured she had time to kill before her lap dog came to the mall looking for her, so she headed towards the food court.

She ordered a McDonald's Happy Meal and ungracefully plopped down onto one of the seats, placing her bags next to her. She snatched her phone from her stringed backpack, which she had carefully hid on her tote bag, ignored the missed calls from her new bodyguard (she did not bother to put his number on her phone), and started scrolling through the daily news. Sharpay finished her meal quicker than she had anticipated, even though it was a kid's meal she ate slowly, and leaned back on her chair. With her head towards the glass ceiling that let in the sunlight, she wondered how long it would be, before he would find her.

She felt her phone vibrating in her hand and lifted it up to see who was calling her. She expected to see her bodyguard's unknown number, but was surprised when she saw that Jason was calling her. She swiped her finger to answer and placed the phone to her ear.

"Hey, babe. How are you today?"

"He's going to get you. I can't believe you did this on the first day, Sharpay."

"Oh, please, spare me the drama. I neither care or want to hear it, so shut up." She rolled her eyes at his dramatic antics.

"I already told him where you are, Sharpay, it's only a matter of minutes"

"Good, I'm already bored."

"Why are you doing this? Are you trying to get attention?"

"It's like you don't know me, Jason. If I were trying to get attention wouldn't I be doing something rash and crazy, trying to get paparazzi here and there? I mean, let's be honest, the only reason I'm doing this is because I hate the guy."

She got up off the chair deciding her little relaxing moment had come to an end. She quickly grabbed her bags and decided to take a walk in the mall while she waited for Troy.

"You know, your father would be disappointed you're doing all of this to get pity and attention, Sharpay."

"Good thing he's dead then, right?"

"You're incredible-"

"I've been told."

"Tell him to call me when he's with you."

"I won't"

She hung up and sighed with annoyance as she avoided a pregnant woman dressed in black. The mall had a reasonable amount of people today, surprisingly, it wasn't packed to brim nor was it empty. Small families walked side by side, friends laughed, nothing was out of place. She wished she didn't have to go back home, if she could even call it that anymore. All the memories still haunted her during the night, making the house a cold place where nothing but memories lived.

She kept walking past a couple stores when something a few yards in front of her caught her attention. A man dressed in a black suit was coming toward her, at first she thought it was Troy but when he got closer it was obviously not him. This man's jacket was unbuttoned and he had a slight beard and slightly longer hair than Troy. His hair was black and he wasn't wearing sunglasses like Troy was, so she could see his eyes- pitch black. Her breath caught in her throat and she turned and began walking the way she had come.

She looked back to make sure she wasn't just imagining it and spotted the guy staring at her walking towards her still. She sped up and fished for her phone in her bag. Sharpay went to her recent calls and pressed the number so it began calling.

"Where the hell are you?!"

"Troy, you have to help me someone's following me, I'm in the mall. Please hurry, I don't know what to do, where are you? Please help me, I-"

"Who's following you? I'm in the mall, too; just tell me where you are exactly."

"I don't know him, but he's still following me. I'm walking towards the main entrance, please help me."

"Okay, I see you. I need you to make a left and go into a bathroom, okay? You're going to see me standing next to the men's restroom, don't look at me just go in."

Sharpay could feel panic rising in her throat and she found it harder to breathe, so she simply nodded knowing he could see her. No matter how many times she found herself in these situations she could never get used to someone following her, that was just one of the things that scared her the most. Especially since her father had died she had an 'irrational fear', as her therapist kindly put it, of being followed. She made a left like Troy had said and searched for the restrooms. He spotted him right next to the men's restroom and she didn't make eye contact with him as she stuffed her phone in her bag again. She walked into the women's restroom and walked all the way to the very end stall and closed herself in. There was no one else in there with her and she thanked whatever lucky star she had left. She hung her bags on the little hook on the door and sat down on the toilet and brought her knees up under her chin.

She had been sitting like that for what seemed like hours but was probably ten minutes at most before she heard the door open again. She held her breath; she was too scared to speak. What if it was simply another woman? No, the person was walking too slowly, too cautiously. The footsteps walked slowly and stopped a couple of stalls before hers. She looked up at the ceiling trying to not make any noises that could hint the person as to where she was.

The footsteps stopped right in front of her stall and she bit her lip trying to stop herself from making noises. She looked around trying to figure out what she would do if the man tried to open the door. She knew she couldn't trust a bodyguard, they either quit the first day or got beat up the second, and it was infallible.

"Sharpay?"

She let out a big breath that she had been holding for a long time and let her feet fall to the ground. She pressed her palms to her eyes and shook her head, damning Troy and his stupidity.

A/N: Okay, there it is, the second chapter! I hoped you guys liked it! I'm hoping to have the third one by next weekend, if not I'll try to have it during the week :)

Please review and tell me what you thought, thank you! :)

-jcs