A/N: Sorry for the long wait, everybody. After I finished Why, Why Love I decided to take a short little break to get all my ideas for my other stories and to rest my fingers for a little while. I am fully back now and I promise to update much more frequently. Hope you enjoy this chapter!
Last One Standing
Envy: Breakthrough
"I still don't think that this is a good idea".
Artemis just leaned back against the headboard and smiled. It had been hours since the group had left Marshall labs and settled into their hotel, but Minerva was still fretting over Artemis' earlier words.
"Getting extra help isn't a bad thing," Artemis said to the girl, who was sitting at the foot of the bed, a frown marring her pretty face.
'But why would you want to get the fairies involved?" Minerva asked, "We don't even know who we are dealing with here. What if the mastermind knows about fairies?"
"How is that possible?" Artemis asked, sitting up, "unless the mastermind is either you or me, there is no way that they would be able to know about fairies"
Minerva just sat in silence, still brooding.
"If that is the case, then there should be a way to figure out who the man is without having to use any help from Underground," Minerva said, "after all, the Mastermind seemed to set this up to be a puzzle. He wouldn't have left us a clue if there wasn't any way that we could figure it out".
"It is probably possible to find out what we need to know without the help from Holly and the rest," Artemis answered, "but this will just make the whole process faster." Minerva still looked a bit suspicious.
"Besides," Artemis continued, "it is not as though we are asking the fairies to find out the identity of the mastermind. All we need is information about this Matthew Ackers"
"Well how are you expecting to contact them?" Minerva asked, "It's not as though you can just call them and ask for help".
"Well, actually I can," Artemis said simply. Minerva looked at him questioningly, but he gave no further explanations. It had been a couple of months since Holly quit the LEP and started her own private investigation business with Mulch, and at that time Artemis had promised that he would be in touch if ever an interesting problem arose.
What are you talking about?" Minerva asked. Artemis shook his head.
"Don't worry about this," he said, "there is still boxes full of materials that we brought from Cerrith's home that we need to search through. We need to go do that". Minerva frowned at him deeply.
"Why are you hiding things?" she asked him. Artemis shook his head.
"I'm not," he said quickly.
"Is it because of the demon incident three years ago? I grew up a lot since then, Artemis. I'm not dangerous to the fairies," Minerva said.
"I know," Artemis said, "Some old friends started up an investigation business. I was going to ask them for help. It is nothing important"
"Fine," Minerva said, though she still didn't sound entirely happy. She slid off the bed and made her way to the corner of the room, which was filled with stacked cardboard boxes. She sat down on the floor and pulled a box towards her, opening it and examining the materials inside. Artemis looked at her. Had the two of them just had their first fight? Could it even be considered that? Ever since Artemis came back, he found himself constantly amazed by how much Minerva had changed. But for some reason, with the gained maturity, Minerva also seemed to have gotten a little more emotional.
Outside of the room, Aidan strolled down the small hallway to the main room. He had wanted to get separate rooms, but Artemis had said that it would be safer for them to stick together, so he had ended up booking them the largest penthouse suite he could find. It was a beautiful place, but of course, the beauty of it all was lost on the jaded Aidan.
Slowly he made his way into the main room, which was large and spacious with French windows that led out a majestic balcony that overlooked the DC monuments, lit up beautifully in the inky sky.
Aidan walked towards the mini-bar, opening it and examining its contents. It seemed as though the hotel had taken all of it's alcoholic beverages out since the room had been booked by someone under twenty-one.
"I knew I should have used to fake ID to get this place," Aidan groaned. His eyes darted over the top of the fridge and to the balcony. He saw Ryn on the balcony, leaning against the balcony ledge, her back faced towards him. "What is that monkey girl doing now?" Aidan wondered, walking towards the balcony. He opened the French doors and stuck his head outside.
"Hey, woman—are you throwing up over the balcony?" he yelled out, severely hoping that wasn't the case. Though the boy didn't know much about the girl's background, he knew that she had to have more class than that.
"I do not even want to know why that is the first thing your mind jumps to when you see a person on a balcony," Ryn stated turning around and facing the boy. Aidan almost balked at the sight of the girl. She had taken her top jacket off, and for the first time the boy saw how painfully thin she was. He knew that slim girls were the fashion, but in Ryn's thinness made her look more sickly than attractive.
"What are you doing out here?" Aidan asked, saying the first thing that came to his mind "shouldn't you be inside protecting Artemis or something like that?" Ryn sighed and turned back to gaze at the sights of DC at night.
"I already did a comprehensive check of the all the rooms," she said, her tone bored, "so the only threat that Artemis could face is something that would come into the room through this balcony".
"Don't you ever just get tired of working?" Aidan asked.
"This is only my second day on the job," Ryn answered, "it would be sad if I were already tired of it".
"We're on the 57th floor, I am sure the balcony will be safe," Aidan said, "sleep for a little bit. We can't have the only bodyguard in our group walking around like a zombie all the time. Imagine how much trouble you would be in if I got hurt because you were too tired to protect me".
"And once again," Ryn sighed, "I am not your bodyguard, so nothing would happen to me."
"You know, that rudeness is a vice," Aidan said, "and bodyguards shouldn't have vices. It distracts."
Ryn let out a snort of amusement.
"I am rude," she said bluntly, "I'm plain, I am still slightly afraid of planes, I hold grudges, I smoke occasionally, and I am addicted to sleeping pills. Any other vices you would like to know about?"
"I didn't ask you to give me a laundry list of things that were wrong with you," Aidan retorted, "If you wanted to make sure that I wouldn't fall in love with you or something like that, you don't have to worry about it".
"If you fell in love with me that would just conform the fact that you're an idiot" Ryn answered. In fact, every one of those things Ryn had said to Aidan was a lie. She had just said them so that the boy would think her to be a horrible bodyguard and therefore would stop constantly nagging her about protecting him.
"Well in any case, it seems as though you are a very unusual bodyguard," Aidan said. Ryn nodded her head. She had been aiming for horrible more than unusual, but she would have to settle in this case.
"Well I will leave you to your vices," Aidan answered, walking backwards, towards the French doors. Ryn was a very weird girl, and the angelic boy didn't quite feel comfortable around her.
"That would be for the best," Ryn answered, still not turning around to look at him. Aidan sucked out of the doors, shaking his head. Was there anybody else in the world as strange as the girl he had left on the balcony? He wasn't quite sure.
Slowly, lazily, the boy made his way through the main room. He crashed on one of the couched, idily looking around him for the television remote. He turned his head and his eyes fell on a brown bag that had been carefully placed in the corner of the room.
"Ryn's bag," he whispered to himself, remembering the bag slung across the girl's slight back. He cast his gaze out the doors once more, to make sure that the bodyguard still had her back turned to him, and then preceded to take the bag and open it. Now, Aidan was a naturally curious boy, but normally he was just too lazy to really do any real snooping. However, when it came to the ever-mysterious Ryn, Aidan felt as though he had to find out anything he could about her, for his own safety. If the group bodyguard was unstable, who knew what could happen.
The boy looked through the bag. There were a few notebooks, a couple of slim, rather lethal looking knives, and a change of clothes.
"Nothing special," Aidan said, ruefully, taking out one of the notebooks. He flipped through it and a picture fell to the ground. The boy groaned to himself. It seemed that he had been finding too many pictures lately.
"Why do so many of the clues seem to be pictures?" Aidan asked himself as he picked the photograph up. He looked at it, a frown spreading across his face. The picture showed three smiling teens—all wearing what seemed to be uniforms from the same school. In the middle was a boy with light brown hair and sparkling blue eyes. His arm was lazily slung over the shoulders of a tall, beautiful girl with a waterfall of chestnut curls and a pair of deep blue eyes. On the other side of the boy was a small, frail looking girl with soft golden hair and large brown eyes.
Aidan turned the picture around and saw that there was writing on the back.
"Diana, Micah, Grace. 2006" he read. 2006? That was three years ago.
Slowly, Aidan turned the picture back around and looked at the people in it once more. His eyes widened slightly when they fell back on the image of the girl with the wonderful brown curls.
It can't be, he thought. His eyes looked up, back at the girl who was resting against the balcony ledge, this picture can't be Ryn, can it? But the more he looked at the picture, the more he saw the similarities. Take the beautiful girl in the picture; subtract 30 pounds, cut off all the curls, add dark circled under the eyes, make the bright smile disappear and you had Ryn.
"What happened to you?" Aidan asked, shaking his head. He stowed the picture in pocket and put the bag back in the corner, as though he had found nothing. What had happened to the girl in the past three years that transformed her from her former happy and pretty self to the plain and hollow girl that was standing in front of him?
Aidan got up and walked to he room where Artemis and Minerva were sifting through all of the boxes that they had brought from Cerrith's house earlier.
"Alright, breakthrough," Aidan said as he entered the room. Minerva looked up at him, expectantly.
"You found Matthew Ackers?" she asked excitedly. Aidan scoffed.
"I don't even know who that is," the boy said. Minerva gaped up at him and Artemis gave off a sigh. It was just like Aidan to completely loose focus of everything. The boy couldn't be counted on to do anything.
"Matthew Ackers," Artemis repeated, "the man who was the father of Cerrith's child. The person who could very well tell us whatever it is that the mastermind wants us to find".
"We just found out about him today," Minerva said, "how could you forget about him so quickly?"
"Whatever," Aidan said, waving away the two teens' comments, "Look at what I found in Ryn's bag".
"Why were you looking through my bodyguard's bag?" Artemis asked, exasperated.
"Don't you think there is something strange about her?" Aidan asked, "I was looking through it for my own safety".
"You were looking through it for your own amusement," Artemis amended, "Ryn is part of our group, she is in this game just as much as we are. I would like for there to be trust between us".
"How can we trust her is she never tells us anything about herself?" Aidan cried out, "what kind of teammate makes her fellow game players resort to searching through her bag to find out anything about her?"
"What did you find?" Minerva asked, leaning forward. Though she wanted to side with Artemis on this topic, she too felt as though Ryn hid too much for her own good.
"A picture," Aidan asked.
"Another picture?" Minerva asked, "How many are we going to collect before this is all over? We should probably just invest in a nice picture album."
"That is Ryn." Artemis said as he looked over the picture, "how long ago was this taken?"
"It's on the back," Aidan answered, "it was only three years ago".
"Is it possible for a person to look so different in three years?" Minerva asked, looking over the picture in wonder. Had Ryn really once been the beautiful and happy girl in the picture?
"Diana," Artemis whispered, looking at the back of the picture. So that was his new bodyguard's real name? "How unusual".
"Do you think that she has some kind of disease?" Aidan asked, "What else would explain the sudden weight loss?"
"She could," Minerva mussed. Artemis on the other hand looked at the names of the three children intently. He was sure that he had heard the three names together before.
"Don't these names sound familiar?" Artemis asked Minerva, thrusting the picture into the girls' hands.
"Of course they do," Minerva answered, looking them over, "they are completely common names".
"No, I felt as though I had heard them all together before," Artemis said, frowning. He didn't like the feeling of not knowing something. Such a feeling was rare, but when it came, it felt almost sickening.
"Well why don't you look it up?" Aidan asked, "There is a computer in the main room". Minerva looked up at the boy. Artemis nodded his head, getting up.
"You two stay here and look through the rest of Cerrith's belongings. I will go and do a search about Ryn," he said. Minerva pouted. He was leaving her here so that he could find out more things about Ryn? Why did he care so much about his bodyguard?
"Don't you feel nervous leaving your girlfriend by herself with another man?" she asked.
"No," Artemis answered right away, "why would I be?"
"Aren't you worried I'll leave you for another man?" Minerva asked, raising her eyebrows.
"But you don't even fancy Aidan," Artemis said logically. Aidan scoffed.
"You underestimate me, Fowl. I can get any woman out there to fall in love with me," the boy said. Artemis shrugged.
"If Minerva wanted to leave me for you then that would be her decision. I have no part in it," he said. Minerva gaped up at her boyfriend.
"Why don't you have any feeling of jealously?" she demanded, "it's not normal".
"Don't be immature, Minerva," Artemis answered quickly, "there is no time to talk about relationship matters right now. We could all potentially be in grave danger".
Minerva just frowned and turned back towards the boxes, going through them without another word. Artemis shook his head. The girl had matured in so many ways, but at times the tiny, irrational girl that he had first known her as still shined through.
There isn't any time to dwell on that, though, Artemis thought as he walked out of the room. There were more pressing things on hand.
Minerva sighed as she went through the boxes. She wasn't one to normally get jealous or clingy, but she still felt a little animosity towards Ryn. Artemis seemed to be a little too interested in finding out information about her. She was only his bodyguard, after all. Employers were usually never that interested in their employees. Slowly Minerva turned towards Aidan, who was lounging on the bed.
"Aidan," she said, a grin creeping on her face, "you said that you could make any girl fall in love with you, right?"
"Of course," Aidan answered, still lying down, "Have you not noticed how good I look? What girl out there could refuse me once I chase her?"
Minerva held back the floodgate of sarcastic remarks that threatened to spew from her mouth.
"I think I know a person that you could never manage to woo," she said tightly. Aidan sprung up and looked at the small girl.
"Impossible," he said, "I can get any girl that I set my mind to. It is my most cherished skill".
"The girl I have in mind would never succumb to your advances," Minerva continued. A scowl marred Aidan's delicate face.
"Such a girl does not exist". The boy retorted. How could there possibly be a girl out there that would refuse Aidan Masters? He was rich and sinfully handsome. What more could anybody want?
"Yes she does," Minerva said, "and she is Artemis' bodyguard".
"Ryn?" Aidan asked, laughing, "Why in the world would I want to chase after her? She isn't nice, pretty, gentle, or any of the qualities that I look for in a girl".
"I told you that you couldn't do it," Minerva said, turning back towards the boxes.
"It's not that I can't, it's just that I physically cannot make myself do it," Aidan answered.
"Is that your excuse?" Minerva asked, smiling to herself. Sure, this method was childish and immature, but it was worth the go. Aidan might be a wonder at seducing women, but Minerva had a brain that was second only to Artemis.
"If I could bring myself to, then I would be able to seduce Ryn in no time whatsoever," Aidan said quickly.
"Ryn doesn't seem like the type of person who would be interested in you no matter what you did," Minerva answered. Aidan felt his blood boil. The boy was in the school of thought that everybody had one talent, one thing that they were exceptional at. For Aidan, that was his skill of wooing women. His looks and his honed skill had never failed him before.
"Fine," the boy said, "how about we make a wager?"
"A wager?" Minerva asked, feigning innocence. Her plan was working perfectly.
"I will bet you that I can manage to make Ryn fall in love with me by the end of this mission quest thing we are on," Aidan said, smiling cheekily.
"That is quite a feat," Minerva said.
"I can do it," Aidan said, cheekily, "Let's say this. If I succeed, you must fulfill whatever favor I ask you to. If you win, then I have to do a favor for you".
"That sounds reasonable," Minerva said, turning back towards the boxes. This was perfect. Ryn and Aidan would be distracted with each other. Sure it was slightly cruel, but Minerva felt as though she had a right to resort to such tactics. She had lost Artemis for three years in some sort of time portal and had just gotten him back. There was no way that she was going to lose him to another girl now. Especially if that girl was Ryn.
Meanwhile, Artemis was sitting at the desk in the main room, a search page pulled up before him. The boy raised his eyes past the top of the computer screen and saw Ryn, walking idly back and forth on the balcony, the wind whipping her choppy brown hair into her worried, gaunt face. He knew that whatever he was going to find when he searched her name was going to tell him why the girl had deteriorated to the state that she was in right now.
"Whatever it is, it's going to be something horrible," Artemis murmured to himself.. He was used to seeing horrible things, but to see horrible things about his bodyguard. He was supposed to be neutral towards her. Knowing too much about her could be dangerous in their position. But not knowing large things about her could also be dangerous. After all, Ryn was a player in this game for a reason.
Sighing, Artemis brought his hands to the keyboard and started to type in the names of the three children that were on the back of the picture.
Suddenly, Ryn burst into the room, her eyes shining wildly.
"Ryn, what is it?" Artemis asked, standing up. He quickly deleted the names from the search box, "Is there somebody outside".
"Matthew Ackers," Ryn said breathlessly, "I just remembered who he was"
A/N: Okay, sorry for leaving you on a cliffhanger-- but this way you can just get more excited for the next chapter! Hopefully you enjoyed this one. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on it. Your comments are always so helpful and they make my day.
Gracias y besos!!