Daddy's Girls: Chapter 19
Author's Notes: A little dissention in the ranks to spice things up before things really start going downhill... what will happen to Buddy and the Girls? Will the MASK team find them in time? Keep Reading! :)How did I get myself into this mess?
Roxanne wondered, as she tiredly dragged her feet forward. She had been
out in the desert for what seemed forever without water. Then again the
hot sun was causing her to lose all sense of time and direction. Her
unsteady eyes looked ahead at a small remote local village. There
appeared to be very few shacks surrounding a well. Most of the people
were attending to their daily duties and were far too busy to notice
her entering the village. Despite the situation, attention was the last
thing she wanted to draw to herself. Roxanne wore a dirty white shirt,
sandals, and a locally made skirt that allowed her to blend in well
with the locals. Her long dark brown hair was a final touch of the
deception.
"Water," Her lips echoed as she quickened her pace
towards the town water supply. She pulled the bucket out the well and
began scooping water into her mouth with her hand. No matter how much
water pass through her lips she couldn't satisfy her thirst. In fact,
there was more working against her then just the heat.
Jon's
words echoed through her mind, "Once you reach the well you're going to
infect their water supply. Everybody will suspect the virus to be an
outbreak affecting the local popultion."
She ran her hand over
her right arm where she had been injected with the virus. Her arm shook
violently in pain, as she could feel the virus spreading quickly
through her system. I don't want to do this. I don't want to kill a
bunch of innocent people, but I don't have a choice. He'll know if I
deceive him and kill us all.
"Once you complete your
task, you'll receive the antidote," Jon's voice weighted heavily onto
her conscious. "Even you know there are sacrifices to be made for
choices my dear."
Roxanne pulled a knife from her belt and
ran it across the palm of her hand. She closed her eyes letting the
instant pain subside. After placing the knife back into her hilt, she
closed her fist tight around the fresh wound and squeezed a few drops
of blood into the well.
To stop the bleeding, she ripped the
bottom of her dress and wrapped the cloth around her open wound. Not
wishing to stay any further to draw suspicion, she turned around and
headed back towards her pickup point.
"What's taking her so
long? She should be back by now?" Vanessa half worried and half angrily
replied as she glanced at her watch.
"Maybe she took a run for it?" Cliff Dagger suggested, "Just like we should, it's too hot out here."
"She's known for stupid tricks…but knows better when she's physically
out match." Vanessa reminded. "You stay put I'm going to drive Manta
closer to see if I can pick up a reading on her."
"But Vanessa…Jon said not to get close. We don't want them to know Contra World behind this."
"I know that you idiot! He only said that for your benefit!" She sharply remarked as she took off in Manta.
It didn't take too long for Vanessa to come across a figure lying face
down in the sand. The image would be shocking to any witness, but she
knew she wasn't dead yet. Vanessa left her vehicle and gently turned
over a sleeping Roxanne. "Roxy wake up." She ordered as she lightly
slapped her face.
Her eyes flickered open, and her cracked dry lips muffled out, "Water."
Vanessa grabbed a bottle of water from Manta and forced the bottle to
her lips, as if she were feeding a baby. "You gave me quite a scare
seeing you like that." Roxanne continued to gulp down the water; even
after she finished the bottle she requested more. Vanessa put an arm
around Roxanne and pulled her up off the ground. It was clear it was
more then dehydration that was effecting the girl. She worried if the
viral infection had escalated due to the sun exposure.
"Dagger come in!"
"Yeah I'm still here."
"I found her. I'm taking her back to base."
"Antidote?" Roxanne requested dazedly looking at Vanessa.
"Roxy…Mayhem ordered that you aren't to receive that antidote, until Jon returns."
She closed her eyes wincing in pain, "Wh…when?"
"Not until tomorrow morning…it's to ensure you don't escape."
She half laugh and cough with expectancy, "Why am I not surprise?"
Buddy
still slept soundly on the floor of the cell as two worried teenagers
sat beside him and wondered what his waking would bring. Jess kept a
close eye on him as she leaned back against the wall, while in the
meantime Annie looked at Jess as though suddenly contemplating
something.
"Why?" she suddenly asked.
"Why what?" Jess looked at Annie, slightly irritated.
"Why do you play this…Jekyll and Hyde game? I mean… you're taking so many risks, doing things I'd never dream of doing…"
"Which is excatly why I do it. Because it's boring to be you."
Now it was Annie's turn to be surprised. "What? What do you mean to be me? "Why… would you want to be me?"
"Because you have something I don't."
Annie laughed bitterly. "Are you crazy, Jess? Are you sure it's not the
other way around? Because you have a wonderful mother, brothers who
love you, a terrific father…"
"Are you sure Dusty knows he's my
father? 'Cause he seems to forget about me everytime you pop up
somewhere. Then it's always Annie this and Annie that. The only way I
could make him notice my existence was becoming a carbon copy of you.
But he doesn't know me." Tears welled up in Jess' eyes as she let out a
frustration that had been boiling up for years now. "He idolizes you. I
wanted him to look at me like he looks at you and talk about the same
way he talks about you. I wanted just a few minutes of the time he
spends with you. So, to get that… I had to be like you." She wiped a
few tears away that had managed to escape her eyes. "This is why Rox
and I get along so well… we've spent so much time to get just a tiny
bit of our fathers' attention that we the crazy things we do to blow
some steam and frustation off. Because pretending to be perfect is
excruciating."
Annie locked eyes with one of her best childhood
friends, seeing inside them a resentment that she never even knew
existed, and she could not believe what she was seeing and hearing. She
couldn't begin to comprehend that someone who had EVERYTHING she wanted
out of life was confessing that she wanted to be like her. For a
moment, Annie had no idea how to reply except to stammer in surprise,
"Is that what you think? That I'm perfect? That my life is perfect?"
"You can stop pretending to be surprised anytime, Annie," Jess snapped
irately, half-glaring back at her friend. "We all know just how perfect
you are, especially my father."
"NOBODY knows how I am! NOBODY!" Annie shouted as she leapt to her feet.
Jess unconsciously shrunk back into the corner of the wall as Annie's
angry shout startled her completely. Annie's face twisted into an
utterly foreign mixture of emotion as she whirled on her friend and
began to let her have it as the floodgates opened wide.
"So you
think my life is so perfect, huh? That it'd be so wonderful to be me?"
Annie snorted derisively. "You don't have a CLUE what it's like to be
me, what it's like to struggle day in and day out with things that
normal people take for granted…things that YOU are obviously taking for
granted."
"Oh yeah, like what?" Jess replied with her own snort of disbelief.
"Like the fact that your mother didn't abandon you on your father's
doorstep! Like the fact that she loves you and will always be there for
you no matter what! Like the fact that you will never have to live in
her shadow and endure looks from your father's friends, wondering if
you're going to turn out just like her!"
Jess could only
continue to stare, shocked, as Annie unloaded almost seventeen years
worth of emotional frustration on top of her. She watched as streams of
angry tears fell down her friend's face.
"You'll never feel
what it was like to know from a very young age that your mother didn't
want you, and you'll never know what it's like to ask yourself every
day if your father is going to leave you too! You'll never have such a
huge abandonment complex that you're scared to death to even make the
tiniest mistake around him, so you do what you're told and don't talk
back, and become that perfect angel, his perfect little girl. Because…"
Annie's voice cracked sharply, "…because he'll just leave you if you're
anything less than perfect!"
Annie started to shake as the pent
up feelings traveled up and down her whole body. Jess tried to make a
reply, but Annie wasn't finished just yet. She took a deep breath and
then shakily carried on.
"You will NEVER, EVER, know what it's
like to have your father branded as a traitor. You will NEVER see how
much respect he lost in the eyes of his co-workers, and you won't have
to EVER watch him try doubly hard to gain it back. You will NEVER spend
three long, agonizing months in a remote mountain cabin with a CB radio
as your only method of communication, and only a man, a teenage boy,
and a dog for company, waiting and wondering, hoping and praying that
the rumors aren't true. That your father really ISN'T working for
VENOM, and he really isn't a traitor, and maybe, just maybe…" Annie's
voice died to a whisper, "…he might come back one day. And you'll never
have to feel the insecurity of knowing that the only people willing to
take you in aren't even related to you by blood!"
Buddy slowly
opened his eyes at the sound of her distressed tone, but his voice was
still too weak to carry over to her. He lifted his head slightly, just
in time to see her slump against the wall and pull her knees up to her
chest.
Jess took a deep breath to calm down. "I'd be very
careful in using the word never, Annie. 'Cause other than you I was
actually here to experience the situation with your dad. It was hard
for all of their agents and even their families. I can remember one
night that I couldn't sleep because a few agents were at our house
discussing the situation. I remember walking into the kitchen to get me
a glass of water and finding my aunt crying, while Buddy was outside
kicking the hell out of our rainbarrel. My dad was so sick of it that
he actually cried himself to sleep one night. So sorry, if I'm not
pitying you much about this part of your story, because I've seen other
people suffering through it too. As for your comment about the only
people willing to take you in and being actually related to you… did
you forget your grandparents? People who were you're blood relatives
and raised you."
Annie turned the most pitiful look on Jess as
she sniffled and choked out between tears, "Believe it or not, Jess, I
want the same thing as you. I want people to notice ME. All I have ever
wanted is for people to look past my mother's shadow, to look past that
seemingly perfect exterior, to look deep down for that scared little
girl and reassure her. Tell her that everything is okay and that no
matter what, they'll love her, and never leave her. Dusty is one of the
few people that can and has done that. He's one of the few people that
can make me comfortable in my own skin, and make me forget all my
insecurities." Annie's expression turned regretful as she half
apologized, "And I'm sorry, Jess, if that affected you badly. I had no
idea, I honestly didn't. But considering that you're going to have a
lifetime of security, I don't think that me taking a few hours of your
father's time here and there is a large price to pay."
"Depends from which side of the canyon you're looking at this."
Annie opened her mouth to say something, but Jess cut her off. "No, I
listened to your rant, now you listen to mine. Did it ever occur to you
that your parents did what did because they love you more than anything
in the world? Brad just couldn't raise you on his own, so he gave you
to people of whom he knew they'd give you anything you'd need. As for
Vanessa… did you listen to what Buddy told us earlier? She saved you by
giving you away. Saved from living a constant life on the run. A life
of crime and violence."
"She could have stayed with us."
"Could she? Annie, from what I gather, you can't just quit being a
VENOM agent. Mayhem would have hunted her down and taken you and her
back to Contraworld. With that she would have doomed you to become a
terrorist. But she gave you away, and I doubt it was as easy for her as
you may think. I know this sounds mean now, but you should finally open
your eyes to world, Annie… maybe you'll see a few things you've missed
before."
Annie rested her head on her knees and continued to tremble as the wave of repressed emotion left her feeling weak.
"If… if it's any help for you… I don't see Vanessa Warfield when I look at you… I see Annie Turner."
Unsure what else to say, Jess simply stared at her friend for a moment
until she caught Buddy moving out of the corner of her eye. She rushed
over to help him sit upright and propped him up against the wall as he
eyed her suspiciously.
"Jess, what's going on?" he demanded in
a slightly stronger tone. He then glanced around the cell and noticed
the missing figure. "And where's Roxy!?!"
"She…she left…with
Jon," Jess stammered in explanation. "He gave you the antidote before
he took her away, but Annie and I don't know what she did…"
I think I do. Roxy what the HELL were you thinking! That man is nobody to be making deals with.
He closed his eyes and the back of his head hit the wall lightly, as he
attempted to control his anger. The memory of Jon taking advantage of
the helpless girl lingered in his mind. Buddy had no idea what sort of
words had been exchange that moment, but her body language gave him a
clear picture. He wasn't going to stand by and let one of his girls
become his next plaything. "How…how long ago was she taken?"
"A few hours ago," Jess calmly remarked.
"That girl really going to hear it from me, when I get my hands on
her," he indicated in a low muttering tone. Buddy sighed raggedly and
focused on the two girls in front of him, one of which still sat
huddled in the corner. "You didn't answer my first question."
"Annie and I were just…" she paused to search for the right word, "…discussing a few things."
Annie looked up and over at Buddy at the mention of her name and slowly
got up from her corner to come sit beside him, an unreadable look in
her eyes. "We're finished," she said softly.
Buddy locked gazes
with her, then glanced back at Jess. An unspoken message seemed to pass
between the three of them as Buddy said artificially loud, "Annie, you
don't look so good…"
She blinked back at him and Jess before
she slumped to the ground with her eyes closed and arm outstretched.
Jess immediately began screaming her name as she knelt down beside her.
"ANNIE, ANNIE WAKE UP! HELP, SOMEONE, GUARD, HELP!!"
The guard strutted indifferently up to the cell door. "What the hell's the matter now?"
Jess slid to the side so that the guard could get a glimpse of Annie
lying stretched out on the cell floor. Buddy stood and glared pointedly
at the guard, "She collapsed, and I don't think Jon's gonna be too
happy that it happened on your watch."
The guard immediately scrambled for his keys and threw the door open.
"Outta the way!" he yelled, hauling Jess roughly to her feet and
shoving her behind him as he knelt to examine Annie's prone form.
At a nod from Buddy, Jess very carefully lifted the guard's knife
sheath from the back of his gun belt. He never noticed Jess' soft
touch, nor did he notice Annie's outstretched arm, or her fingers
flexing ever so slightly. Buddy nodded again, and Jess knelt down and
gently slipped the knife hilt into Annie's open palm. Just as the guard
leaned closer to slap her awake, Annie's eyes snapped open with a
furious look, and she buried the knife in the guard's thigh. Buddy
quickly clapped his large hand over the guard's mouth before he could
scream in pain and then pushed him to the ground.
"Scream and
you're a dead man," Buddy growled as Annie ripped the knife from the
guard's thigh without hesitation. He then lifted his hand from the
guard's lips and ordered, "Now give me the keys before I tell her to
bury that knife in your heart."
"She don't have the guts," retorted the guard with forced bravery as he watched Annie skillfully brandish the knife around.
"Oh yeah? You better take a closer look pal…cause you got about ten seconds to decide…"
The guard looked deeply into Annie's now completely cold eyes,
remembering exactly who she was as she flipped the knife down blade
first and placed it scant inches from his heart. He very quickly
relinquished the keys to Buddy's control as Jess knelt down to smile
viciously at him.
"I think you deserve a little rest for
helping us out," she sneered as she delivered a perfect chop to the
junction of the guard's neck and shoulder, rendering him unconscious.
"Nice touch," Buddy praised her, "but I could've handled it."
"Save your strength." Neither of them recognized the strained voice as
Annie's until they looked over to see her searching over the guard's
sleeping person, standing up when she found nothing else useful. "You
and Jess are going to need it to get out of here."
"Whoa, wait
a minute!" Buddy too straightened to his full height, albeit wobbly, as
he unlocked the cell door and said, "What do you mean 'you and Jess'?"
"Just what I said." The look of grim determination and utter detachment
in Annie's eyes started to scare him a little, especially when she
casually wiped off the bloody knife and slipped it into her boot. "You
and Jess are getting the hell out of here, and I'm going to find Roxy."
"Like hell you are! If anyone's going to look for Roxy, I am!" Buddy snapped back. It's the least I can do, because I know what kind of a trade she made for me…
Annie really started to unnerve him as she smirked back at him, "Oh
please, in your current state, you couldn't find your way out of a
paper bag." She then looked over at Jess before her friend could open
her mouth. "And don't even think about volunteering, because Buddy
needs you to help lead him out of here. Besides, I'm the only one of us
other than Roxy who has the best chance of surviving if I get caught.
Not that I'm looking forward to such an existence…"
"Have you
completely lost your mind?!" Jess exclaimed, wondering what suddenly
happened to her old friend. "Think about what you're saying, Annie!"
"I know exactly what I'm saying, Jess, because I already said it. We
all go home, or nobody goes home, and none of us are getting anywhere
by sitting here and arguing about it. Besides, you're taking the whole
situation out of context," Annie's green eyes turned dark as she used
Jess' words against her. "Look at it this way, if I don't come back,
you'll have your father all to yourself again."
"I'd gladly share him with with you, if I don't have to tell yours what happened to you. Be careful, Annie."
