DISCLAIMER: See Prologue.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I had eight reviews on Chapter Twelve! I'm so excited, you have no idea! I wasn't expecting that many (along with the new followers and story favorites), so I decided to write another chapter for you guys! Yes, two chapters in two days – and this one is 1800 words. I feel accomplished. :)
REPLIES TO REVIEWS:
Beth: No problem! Read my Author's Note at the end, though, regarding updating for this week.
Booklover1598: Yes, the Runes thing will definitely be coming into play, though not until my ending. Which I hope will make you cry. (Just warning you.)
MIgirl923: Finn and Jacqueline really need a ship name. Honestly.
Roselinta07: You always write the nicest reviews! I'm so glad you like it, and the Runes thing will be explained near the end.
Arocksprpl2: I had to explain shipping to my SS teacher once – funniest experience of the year, let me tell you!
Heroherondaletotheresuce: First of all, your username is amazing. Secondly, your review was like my favorite this week, because you were super nice and I'm really glad you ship them!
Corndoggies13: Lol, I found it funny too! That's why I added it. I'm glad you did though – I wasn't sure if people would. :)
Guest: Grr, your review got cut off on my computer! I wish I could read all of it, but my computer is super spazzy. Thanks for reviewing though, and I hope you like this chapter!
Enjoy this chapter, guys! It's from Finn's POV.
Chapter Thirteen
It was midnight.
Finn had a strange habit of staying up late. It wasn't like he couldn't sleep — he was actually feeling somewhat tired at the moment — but there was just something so… powerful to watch the streets of New York City at night. To know that the world was still going, still occurring right in front of your eyes as you slept, and you might never even know about it.
So Finn stayed awake to at least midnight almost every single night. He actually couldn't fall asleep without having spent a significant amount of time on the balcony adjacent to his room, one of the only ones in the entire Institute. Most of the time, Finn would just watch the taxis rushing by, or feel the wind on his face, or maybe he even would sketch. He wasn't one for painting or sculpting, but drawing into a blank notebook with a simple pencil was one of his favorite hobbies.
No one knew this, of course, not even Kristal. He'd thought about telling his family, even his mom, what with the talent she had always had in art, but he liked keeping some things about his private life, well, private. It was also kind of embarrassing for a guy to draw. He'd already humiliated himself when he had moped around after Kristal had broken up with him — adding "sketching" to that list wouldn't really be his idea of something smart to do.
He almost wanted to think of Kristal, especially with the kiss they had almost shared. But he didn't, because he'd get so angry at himself and confused about just what to do that it wouldn't be worth it.
Jacqueline, though, he wanted to think about. Truthfully, she had been popping up into his brain at times when he would least expect it — when he was looking in the mirror, as if he wanted to impress her, when he ate breakfast and she wasn't there, and he wanted her to be, when Kristal came to flirt with him for what felt like the thousandth time, and he wished Jacqueline had been there instead. Which was completely idiotic. She was just someone he met, someone he was friends with. That was all; there weren't any other reasons he should be thinking about her.
But, still, he thought about her a lot, too much in all honesty. She probably had a boyfriend back wherever it was she came from, and she'd end up going to visit him soon or something, or just leave the Institute altogether.
That was the strange thing, though — nobody knew where Jacqueline had come from, except for probably Brother Elijah and the other Silent Brothers. (And it wasn't like they were actually going to tell anyone else, or do anything useful with the information.) His mother didn't even know, and she was the one who had found Jacqueline when the demon had attacked her. Nobody wanted to ask her, and even if Finn was tempted to, he knew he wouldn't. It wasn't for him to bring up, because that was her choice alone, not his.
He watched as one of the streetlights hit a pure white sign on the billboard across the street, reminding him of the way the light in the training room could hit Jacqueline's almost-white hair, creating the color he saw now. Propping his elbows up against the railing of the balcony, he felt himself picturing an image in his head.
An image of her.
Not of Kristal, the girl that had occupied his mind for much too long.
No, this time, he was picturing Jacqueline D'Angelo in his head.
—•—
About an hour later, Finn was holding a piece of slightly rumpled paper in his right hand, a pencil in the other. (Like his father, he was left-handed.) On the paper was a rough sketch of Jacqueline, staring off into space somewhere. He'd caught her doing that a lot, and Finn assumed she was lost in her thoughts and far, far away from reality. He could relate to that, though it happened less frequently to him than it appeared to occur with her.
It wasn't a great sketch of her, as it was unfinished, but it was something, at least. He'd captured her almost perfectly, specifically with the curve of her nose and the shape of her thin lips. But her eyes, so captivating — but it wasn't like he'd ever admit that, not even silently to himself — were just… not right. At all. Maybe it was because he wasn't using colored pencil to get their extraordinary blue shade, but they looked too innocent and untouched on the paper. Jacqueline's eyes, though wide, weren't naïve. She had a grasp on life, even if she could lose herself from reality sometimes.
She was so unlike Kristal, and for that, he was extremely thankful.
Suddenly ashamed of himself, Finn took the piece of paper, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it across the balcony. Watching as the paper flew through the air, he cursed. What the hell was he thinking? He had just drawn a picture of Jacqueline, a girl he barely knew anything about. He had just been cheated on by Kristal; he shouldn't be getting into any sort of relationship, especially when that girl hadn't shown any interest in him whatsoever.
Or had she? Jacqueline was always smiling whenever she was near him, she bantered back and forth with him, she had been watching as he had been with Kristal this morning...
All of a sudden, the wind picked up and it began to drizzle. He was tempted to go inside and actually sleep, but he wanted to get the drawing of Jacqueline first, to make sure she'd never, ever see it. He'd rip it into pieces or burn it or keep it hidden away somewhere, with the rest of his drawings that no one would ever look at. Before he could get the picture, though, the wind carried the piece of paper off of the building. It fell to the ground, onto the sidewalk.
He wanted to get it, before anyone could see it. It didn't matter if that person was some random person on the street or if it was Jacqueline herself, but there was no way in hell that picture was going to be held by anyone but him.
Finn abruptly ran down the fire escape stairs, smoothing his partially wet hair away from his forehead. He was practiced at sneaking out of the Institute, so he knew it wouldn't be that hard to run down the stairs that were near his parents' room. Naturally, he paused a little when he was a few feet away from their window, but Finn kept his eyes glued to the little ball of paper — though his vision was being slightly obscured by the steadily increasing amount of rain that was no soaking through his white t-shirt, he somehow just needed to have that drawing.
His feet were light against the stairs, an acquired skill from all of his years in training. In only a few moments, he had reached the bottom of the Institute. The rain was turning into almost a complete downpour now, so he couldn't hear anything, but Finn could've sworn he heard footsteps behind him.
He reached down to pick up the sopping wet drawing of Jacqueline and quickly shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans. Just as he turned around, however, to go back upstairs, he bumped into someone. Hoping against hope that it wasn't his parents, Finn looked up into the eyes of the person standing before him.
It was Jacqueline.
"Um, hi," she said quietly, the rain soaking through her hair and jacket and making her look much smaller than she actually was.
"Hi," Finn responded, and automatically wanted to face-palm himself. Because "hi" sounded intelligent. Yeah, definitely.
"Um, I couldn't sleep—" they both said at the same time, and broke off.
"You first, Jack," he told her, watching her as she smiled softly.
Jacqueline pulled her arms, hidden underneath a sweatshirt, around her to conserve the little warmth she had. "I, uh, couldn't fall asleep tonight, so I decided to take a walk."
"I was just awake," Finn said, shrugging and smiling. He wasn't going to tell her about the picture, no way. Who would?
Jacqueline shivered. "God, this rain sucks."
"Well," Finn asked, "would you like to go inside?" He was just as cold as she was, and he thought, in the back of his mind, that she looked pretty with the rain dripping down her pale skin, her hair soaking wet. Not that many girls could pull that look off, but she could.
"Please," she murmured, and she stood closer to him. They weren't touching — he knew she wouldn't touch him, for reasons that he hadn't yet known ever since he had met her — but it was closer than they had ever been, as if they both needed the warmth from each other.
They both walked in silence back up the stairs from which Finn had come, mostly because the rain was too loud for them to really hear each other if they were talking, but also because they had wanted to stay quiet, so as not to have Finn's parents, or anyone else, for that matter, hear them.
Finn and Jacqueline headed into a quiet living room, far away from the bedrooms of the rest of the Institute. On the wall was a big television set, an unlit fireplace in the corner, and two squishy loveseat couches in the center. Finn's mom had insisted that there was some piece of her old mundane life with her at the Institute, and despite the fact that his dad hadn't really understood it, he had changed it from an empty guest bedroom into this "normal" den.
Though Jacqueline and Finn hadn't spoken, both knew that they wanted to talk with the other person, at least just for a little while.
Finn, using a box of matches that were too far up for either the twins or Lizzie to reach, lit a fire in the wide fireplace, noticing that Jacqueline was still shivering. When he wasn't up on the balcony at night, sometimes he would come in here, and in the wintertime he would often light fires. It was something he had to be careful about, and he took it seriously. Nowadays, though, it didn't take him that long to crumple up the pieces of newspaper and twigs to give off the warmth and light that only a fire could provide.
Sitting on the couch and wrapped in a thick blanket, Jacqueline asked, "Finn, could I tell you something?"
"Sure, anything," he whispered, taking a seat beside her.
"It's kind of a long story."
"That's okay. I've got time."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Might not be able to write another chapter this weekend, sorry guys! I'm super busy.
Please review? I want to hear exactly what you think! Don't sugarcoat it – tell me what you like and don't like!
Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend if I don't talk to you before then!
-Mimi