Furtive Fragments
Chapter. 8
by : Dru
Disclaimer in chapter. 2
Words : 1959
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It was 6 AM in the morning of Sunday, the sun barely up, and Elle stepped out of a cab in front of the place she was renting. Well, the second floor. She had called a locksmith before leaving Sydney & Nadia's house. If the people on the first floor were home she wouldn't have needed to, but they were away on holiday.
She payed the cab-driver, walked up to the front door and sat down. She was carrying her 630 dollar shoes like they were a cheap sneakers. She looked up into the sky, breathed in and then out. Twilight was her favorite time of the day, there was just something in the air that was rejuvenating.
She could have just picked the lock, not like she didn't know how to, but she didn't have anything to use and she didn't want to anyways. So, she waited 30 minutes for the guy and when he finally got there, she had almost fallen asleep, sitting up against the front door.
"Hello, sorry that I woke you up so early and on a Saturday. I usually never lose my keys." She told him, as he got to work on getting into her own home.
"That's okay, ma'am. You're not the first one to lose your keys or drag me out of bed this early." He told her, smiling and then getting back to the job at hand. A few minutes later and the door opened. Elle breathed a sigh of relief and payed him and then basically slithered up the stairs to her apartment.
Even though she had gotten a few hours of sleep last night, it had been on a sofa that was probably not designed for someone to sleep on and wearing a slightly form-fitting dress on top of that. She was told she was not a sound sleeper, she moved around a lot. That's how she woke up that morning, she fell of the damn thing and ended up on the floor. That's when she decided to go home. The sisters had both been asleep when she left, and she had only left a thank you note.
Right now she wanted one thing : Sweat pants & T-shirt. Her bed, her oh-so comfortable bed. Okay, so maybe that was more than one thing, but you got the picture. Sleep was the only thing on her mind. She got to her bedroom, where she dropped her shoes on the floor and fell onto her bed. She had planned on changing her clothes, but she only dragged her covers over her and fell asleep in a second.
When she woke up, it was only an hour to noon. She got 5 hours of sleep. Great, that had been just what she needed. If she had been working that day she might have needed more but then she wouldn't have gone out to a club if she didn't have the day after off. She was going to spend this Saturday on her ouch and watch Tv, Tv and then some more Tv.
She got out of bed, stretched like a big cat almost and then changed into the sweat pants and T-shirt (that had Donald Duck on it) that she had been meaning to put on before she fell asleep that morning. She put her shoes with the rest of them (her shoes. She had a thing for shoes, especially high heels and from this label.) and then walked barefoot to her kitchen to get some bottled water.
When she walked into her living room, she dropped her bottle (thank god, it was closed.) at the sight of the person sleeping
on her couch. Who else but her brother, suit and all present. He woke up just after the bottle hit the floor, he sat up and looked at Elle. She picked up the bottle and turned on the Tv, before sitting down next to him. Only the sound of cartoons where heard for a couple of minutes because she had put on Cartoon Network. What could she say, she loved cartoons.
"What are you doing here?" She asked him, as ads started once again on the Tv. He turned to her and looked at her, smile in place and he tried to smooth the slight wrinkles out of his pants from sleeping on her couch.
"Just visiting. You were asleep when I arrived, so I just let you sleep. Big night?" he asked her, as she pulled her feet up from the floor and folded them under herself. Somehow she just could never keep her feet on the ground for that long if she wasn't standing.
"Kinda. Me and Nadia went out to dinner with Weiss and Ryan. Then went dancing a bit. Then I couldn't find my keys and slept on the sisters couch. Sydney was being totally nosy." Elle told him, but kept her eyes on the Tv and drinking her bottled water.
"Going to get some water myself." He told her, a bit later but she only nodded at him. She looked really occupied by the Tv. When he came back he asked ; "So, the shoes you seem to have a few pairs of are pretty expensive, right?" and that raised her interest, enough to tear her eyes from Tom & Jerry.
"yeah, I guess so. Why?" She asked him, half-smiling and wondering why he was asking about her shoes. They were expensive, they were mostly Manolo Blahniks. She had a slight shopping-addictions, not that she would ever tell any one that ever, though she suspected her mom had always known.
"Just wondering about it." He told her, as he sat next to her again and took of his suit jacket, putting it on a nearby chair. Elle looked at him for a bit and then smiled ; "Man, you're weird. I have this trust fund that was unlocked last year, I didn't really touch it until just recently this year. Does that answer whatever weird question is swirling around in that mind of yours?" She asked him, poking him in the shoulder with one sharply filed nail.
"Yes, it does. Thank you." He told her, before they became silent again and continued to watch Tv until Elle stretched a bit and Sark saw a tattoo on the back of her neck.
"Does that tattoo mean anything specific?" He asked her, and she put up a hand to cover it. It looked like maybe she was a bit uncomfortable with him noticing it.
"No. It's nothing. I don't want to talk about why I have it, it's in the past and it'll stay in the past. Ah, saved by the bell." She told him, joking at the end as they heard the doorbell and she left to go see who it was. Not like he could do it, what if it was someone who worked with her. How would she explain him there?
But he followed her down the stairs and hid away from who ever was in the doorway, but he was still close enough to see and hear who it was. No one that Sark knew, just some sandy-blonde haired guy. Probably an old friend of Elle's but by her body language it was someone she was not pleased to see.
"Greg? What are you doing here?" She asked her ex, when she saw who it was. She was a bit shocked at seeing him after 6 years or so of no contact.
"I was in the neighborhood. Thought I'd say hi." He told her, smiling and his soft green eyes slightly sparkled. That had been what had first attracted her to him, his great eyes. They held so much emotions, and she liked that in a guy.
"yeah, right. Did he send you? Why now? Why after 6 years of leaving me alone?" She asked him, and he lifted a hand to run through his slightly curly hair. Sark noticed the same tattoo on this Greg's hand as he had seen just minutes ago on the back of Elle's neck.
Then they started to whisper to each other and sark wasn't close enough to hear it, and he also didn't want to totally invade on his sister's personal life that much. But he saw that Elle kept shaking her head and kinda sighing. She was not liking whatever this guy was telling her.
Sark moved into the guy's line of sight and they stopped whispering. The guy looked Sark over, from top to bottom. Like he was sizing him up. The blonde looked like a surfer who hadn't seen that much of the beach for some time. A slight tan but it was fading. Sark wondered what this Greg thought of him.
"Who's this? Someone important? A new fling?" Greg asked Elle, a bit caustic. Looked like he didn't like this new development of things. Maybe he expected her to be alone and vulnerable.
"Oh, this is Julian. He's my brother." She told Greg, grabbing Sark's hand and tugging him closer to the doorway. Greg looked Sark over again and narrowed his eyes. Did he think she was lying?
"Brother? Last time I knew you were an only child. Come on, who is he really?" Greg asked her again, looking from Elle to Sark and then back to Elle. Looking her in the eyes and Elle started to fidget a bit.
"Remember I told you I was adopted? Well, turns out my real parents had another kid. He only found me recently." Elle told Greg, who looked like he was coming around to believing her but there was still a slice of doubt in his eyes.
"Oh, okay. Well, I've got to go now. Umh, nice meeting you, Julian. And think about it, Gabi. He's pretty serious about it. You know how he gets when he wants something." Greg told her, before turning around and walking away before she closed the door and headed for the stairs with Sark on her heels.
"What the hell was that about? And 'Gabi' ?" Sark asked her, as they made they're way back to her living room and the cartoons that were still playing on Tv.
"Nothing you need to worry about and Gabi because you know, Gabrielle." She told him, as she sat down again on the couch and started watching Scobby doo. She loved that great dane dog and his owner. Totally hilarious things that they got up to with the rest of the scooby gang.
"No, seriously. You look very troubled. I want to know if I can help in any way. Please let me help you." He told her, and finally she couldn't stand it and snapped at him.
"You know, you might be some big bad for governments but there are other things that you have no idea about. When I was 17 I ran away and started to hang out with some seriously bad people. And for a while, I saw nothing wrong with what was happening. The guy you saw earlier is someone I used to date. For about three weeks, then I started dating this different guy. He had the bluest eyes I had ever seen. I knew he was dangerous, I had seen him in the act but he was just so damn...enchanting and just for some reason I stayed there for 3 months more." She told Sark, and she looked kinda far away and to Sark this was starting to sound very bad.
"What happened after 3 months?" Sark asked her, and she put the Tv on mute. He was as nosy as Sydney right now. Elle thought they really fit together, except for that good vs. bad thing, but they say opposites attract.
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TBC...