I do not own Artemis Fowl.
Constantine belongs to me.
ALL MINE. MUAHAHAHAHAHAH
Constantine: You have some issues, dude.
Me: Eat me.
Chapter 12
Holly slammed the door to her apartment. She was mad at Foaly for not telling her the truth. She was mad at the commander for keeping the truth from her. She was mad that they were treating her like she was a kid who wanted to sit at the adult table, but wasn't quite old enough. It was more insulting to her than that, though. She used to be old enough, she was a major for Frond's sake! A week ago the commander wouldn't make a move without consulting her! And now she was just another foot soldier, a grunt. Root, never treated her that way.
She stopped and reprimanded herself, getting herself a canned juice smoothie from her refrigerator. She had just done what she promised herself she would never do: compare Commander Root, her friend, to the new administration. It was insulting to the former commander, making an excuse out of him for her not to do her work.
Feeling worse than she originally did she sat down on her couch and opened the can. It was banana-mango flavored, and as she drank it, she mused that she had never actually had a real mango or a banana. Sure she'd had the sim-fruits you could buy at the supermarket, but never had she had an actual fresh mango or banana. She thought that it would taste delicious, maybe she could ask Artemis for them.
Artemis.
She was thinking about him again. She found she was thinking about him more and more, and more and more about how their relationship had changed over the years. She had hated him at one point. She thought he was an evil child obsessed with gold and success, a monster, but then she saw something else in him, something that made him seem oddly human, and then she saw something that made him seem like a person. She watched him grow into a responsible, decent, young boy, determined to do the right thing, or at least try.
She laughed as she took another swig of the smoothie. "Young man, really." She thought to herself. Then she thought about what Foaly said. "If things go bad, stay close to him." He was right, of course, that much she knew. From experience more than just Foaly telling her. When things went bad, try to avoid it, if you couldn't, then the best thing to do was stay close to Artemis, he generally had a plan to get you out of it. He had saved her life before.
She felt warm in her chest. It was the same feeling she felt when she was with him. It chased the coldness she felt from her treatment at the hands of her colleagues away. It wasn't the warm and fuzzies, she'd felt the warm and fuzzies before, when her dad first told her he was proud of her. That was a feeling she would never forget, that love she felt for the most important man in her life. Though it was warm, and it was nice, the feeling that, despite everything, there was someone that she could trust implicitly, and would never try to hurt her.
She smiled at the thought and finished the drink. She turned on her television and curled up with a blanket, unzipping the top part of her jumpsuit so she was just wearing her white tank top and the pants of her jumpsuit, feeling warm and nice under the blanket, with some romantic soap opera playing on the T.V.
She had no intention of falling asleep there, but she felt so comfortable, and it had been such a trying day, that she couldn't help but to drift off.
The Next Day.
Holly awoke with a start, and in a cold sweat. She immediately checked the clock on her T.V. 5:30. Good. That mean she had a half hour to think before she actually had to get up. She had managed to wake up a half hour before she had to, and she knew why. She had had nightmares the entire night, and woke up once or twice. She woke up again because of a Nightmare, but didn't even bother going back to sleep this time.
The one good thing about the nightmares, though, is they made her think. They had all been about Foaly, VInyaya, Constantine and Artemis. It was all murky, Foaly and VInyaya were hiding things from her, they were a gigantic two faced monster. Constantine had kidnapped her, and was holding her hostage until the fairies would return his memories. Then Constantine turned into Artemis, who took care of her, and healed her with fairy magic. They were fighting trolls on an arctic cliff. She woke up when she and Artemis were crossing a gorge on a suspended cable car and a heat seeking missile had been fired at them from somewhere. The last thing she saw was Artemis climbing out the window of the metal car, knowing his heat would draw the missile away from her, he looked back at her with a smile, and jumped.
That was what made her wake up. She pulled the blanket she had around her shoulders and sat up with her arms around her knees. She knew something was wrong. It wasn't the dreams that bothered her particularly, She had long since grown out of nightmares scaring her. It was the secrets that Foaly and Vinyaya were were keeping. She didn't know what it was, but she was determined to get to the bottom of it. She couldn't break into the LEP's secret files without leaving a trace, but she knew a certain Irishman who could.
LEP Command Headquarters, Police Plaza.
Willow Berry didn't exist. Her files had been wiped by Foaly under Commander Vinyaya's orders. If Holly Short was the LEP's golden girl, Willow was their dark horse. In the Academy she excelled, passing her marksmanship, hand to hand combat, and stealth skills tests with flying colors. Unfortunately for her, her excellence also exiled her, she was a social outcast with few friends but she didn't care. She joined the LEP to protect and serve, and if the other students couldn't hack it, well then she didn't give a damn what they thought of her.
When she graduated from the academy she was approached by Commander Vinyaya, who asked her if she wanted to join a new covert special operations division. She was honored to be asked to, and agreed to immediately. She knew what it really was, it was the jobs that no one else wanted to do. The jobs that the LEP weren't supposed to be behind. The jobs that the press weren't supposed to know about. She didn't care. They were jobs that had to be done. She knew this. So she didn't ask questions.
Her meeting with Foaly and Vinyaya happened in the early hours of the morning. They always did. Dark hallways, windowless rooms, a single light hanging down from the ceiling, these things had no effect on her anymore.
Willow took her seat across the table from Vinyaya. Foaly was sitting next to Vinyaya with a wafer-thin laptop open in front of him. It's screen glowed eerily on his face. He didn't look at her, but Vinyaya did, Vinyaya always looked at her with those cool, emotionless eyes that so contrasted with the warm smile she always wore on her face. Willow got the feeling that, amongst all of the Commander's subordinates, except perhaps Foaly, she knew the Commander the best. The commander had been giving her orders for 3 years now, and every time she looked at Willow with those eyes, and they never failed to give her the chills.
Vinyaya smiled that warm, fake smile at her. "Hello Major Willow." Yep, she was a major, with no underlings. The title had been bestowed upon her so that if she ever did get entangled with the LEP regulars, which occasionally happened due to the tightness of time that she sometimes had to reach target in, she could rank her way out of trouble, and be gone before the poor, bumbling captain or corporal could call back and figure out why the hell there was an officer there without somebody could tell him about it. Like he mattered.
"Good morning Commander, Foaly." Foaly ignored her, the elf creeped him out, and what was worse was she knew it, and took every chance to scare the piss out of him that she could get. Willow smiled at her own depraved game. "You have a new target for me?"
"Yes." The Commander slid a file across the table. "A human, living in Ireland."
Willow didn't open the folder. "Artemis Fowl?" Of course she knew about Artemis Fowl, everyone knew about Artemis fowl.
"No, but close though."
"What is his name?"
"That is irrelevant."
Willow recognized this tone in Vinyaya, it was the same tone she took when Willow received her first target, and had asked what the target had done. It had been irrelevant. That was not Willow's job. Her job was, as it has been put, to do or die. She would always do. "Armed?"
"Probably."
"Dangerous."
"Always." Willow looked at Vinyaya, whose steely eyes forced her to look away.
"Alright, I'll leave as soon as possible."
"10 minutes." This was Foaly, speaking without looking up from his laptop. "There is an unregistered shuttle, fully stocked, just for you, leaving for Tara in 10 minutes." The sarcasm in his voice was more than apparent, and made a slight whistling noise as it died in the air.
"Yes sir." She ignored the sarcasm and picked up the file. She got up to leave when the Commander stopped her.
"Major."
"Yes?" Willow looked back at the Commander, whose smile had dropped from her face. The same steely eyes were there, but this time Willow couldn't turn away.
"He can see through your shield, be quick about it."
"Y-Yes sir." Willow managed to tear herself away from the Commander's gaze and left the room.
After she left, both Willow and Foaly said the same thing.
"Creeps me the fuck out."
Please Read and Review!
I've only been getting one a chapter recently and its making me sad :'(
Constantine: Again with the issues.
Me: Again, with the Eat me.
Summerful: Thanks for all the support! and sorry about the length between updates, I've been really busy lately. Keep Reading!
3 to all my readers.
