Chapter 2:
Rosette breathed a sigh of relief the moment she leapt from the range of the nearest security camera's view.She knew that if she was spotted,she would face dire consequences not only from her father,but from the head of security about rules and regulations and all that jazz.
She also knew that if she was caught,her best friend and dear helper,Marisse,and her kind and gentle mentor,Madame Tuscany,would be reprimanded and would most probably be dismissed from their current occupations.
She knew what kind of power her father held in her country,and it made her hatred for him spawn even greater.She knew that what he did for a living was indirect robbery,buying land at cheap and affordable prices,then selling it to land developers at a ridiculously high price,causing the land of the developments to be at extremely high prices as well,which,in turn,made life for many people very hard...they had to pay for the sky-high rent,and feed their families and pay the utility bills.
She realized this not long ago,after she had met someone in the streets who had told her,detail by detail,about how her father was ruining others' lives.
She was,in fact,going to meet the very person in five minutes.
What she didn't get,however,was her father's side to the story.
To her,he was the most evil man in the world.
She obviously had never been to war-torn areas in the world.
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Joshua looked out of the limousine window and felt a burden in his heart.
He saw happy,care-free families,fathers,playing with their young children,mothers,coaxing them to take care as they sat by the benches,discussing each happy event that went on each day,relating every detail to their equally-happy friends,whom had their own happy tales to tell.
His own family could never do so.
They would never be able to take a stroll in the park together.
They would never be able to sit down and have a lively discussion over dinner.
They would never be able to ask their parents how to simplify an algebriac equation,or explain the tenses of their grammar.
This is what hurt him the most.
His family,would never be able to be a family.
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Vinsent handed his briefcase to his butler,and walked slowly across the white floor from the doorway to the bed where a woman lay.
In a comatose state.
He smiled sadly and took her cold hand, and beckoned for the nurse and his butler to let him have a few quiet moments with his wife.
Hearing the door shut with a 'click' behind him,he looked up at the very machine that had been keeping her alive ever since Joshua had barely been twelve.
Its readings were the same as always.
Her brainwaves were gentle,green lines that never reached above a certain mark.
Which meant that she had never woken up since the day she was diagnosed with cancer.
He remembered the days when she had to be escorted to the hospital,rushed to the intensive care unit,for emergency chemotherapy.
It was all the doctors could have done.
She had slipped into a coma one day,at home,while she was reading a book to the two young children,Rosette and Joshua.
She had simply stopped,mid-sentence,and landed on the floor.
The maid,who was nearby,alerted the family's doctor immediately and he rushed over from his private quarters where he resided.
By the time he had gotten there,the children,who were crying hysterically,were being calmed down,to no avail,by their two governesses and three maids were desperately fanning the her.
Her brain had almost gone into total shut down because he had gotten there slightly later.
Imagine what could have happened if he had been a second late in rushing down the staircase.
The situation was unthinkable.
She was rushed by helicopter to the nearest hospital and was immediately placed on a life support system.
The family,broken since then,had lived a small glimmer of hope that she would wake up one day.
That hope,had faded,bit by bit,with each passing year.
Before she had slipped into her current comatose state,they used to take long walks in the park,smiling and laughing,shouting and playing.
They used to eat dinner together every night,and they would tell amazing stories about kindergarten and about work.
But the children had obviously forgotten the times before.
They now believed their whole lives were full of misery.
Especially Rosette.
Born rebellious, she had one of the wildest streaks in their whole family ancestry, and that made her one of the most bouncy and cheerful people to be around.
But,as they say,being wild was sometimes a bad thing.
After their mother had to be placed under intensive care in the hospital,she had been absolutely wild.
She went out of the house,day in,day out,and no one knew where she went.
Even Vnsent himself wondered her whereabouts on certain nights.
Then,this rumour came round that she was dirtying the family's name by sleeping around and drinking,and taking drugs.
Which of course,as we all know,rumours are rumours.Most aren't true.This one was abolsutely twisted.
Reacting in a way any normal father would,he had angrily sent her to a academy where she could be trained and taught how to live and act like a lady.
He never questioned what she did at night.
So,her hatred for him spawned when she learnt that she had been transferred to the new school,forced to leave behind old friends,forced to pick up new habits and hobbies.
In a mad fit of rage,she had stormed into his office,screaming and demanding to see him. Crying hysterically,she had to be detained by the office security when they had refused to let her see him.
She broke down and had to be sent for psychiatric help.
Ever since that incident, she had withdrawn into her own quiet world, absorbed in her own things, never saying a thing to anyone,except her chambermaid and her governess.
A year ago, she had even stopped speaking to her own brother.
What Vinsent didn't know,was that on the nights she had gone out,she had been sneaking to the hospital where her mother being hospitalised to bring her flowers and talk to her comatose form,every night,for several months.
He didn't know till this day.
Vinsent regretted what he had down,how he had reacted when the rumour first came about,but he knew that there was nothing he could do at this moment of time.
Except wait.
Gripping his wife's hand, he whispered softly to her.
"Hello Melanie...I'm here to visit you."
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Rosette ran across the concrete pavement, turning at certain streets and bumping once or twice into a complete stranger,
before muttering a unsympathetic "Sorry."before rushing off again.
She knew where she was going,and she knew it was wrong to be hanging out with this kind of people,but they were the ones who had told her the truth about her illusionary fairy tale life that was,to her,a complete nightmare.
Her conscience was right,though.
She shouldn't have gone there.
But if she hadn't,that day,she wouldn't have met him.
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Chrno blinked open his eyes and felt a slight ache on the back of his neck and his back.
Looking down at himself,he realised why.
That idiot,Aion, and him,had been sort of locked in an unconcious wrestling the position,the kind that they had watched the buff wrestlers on WWE perform on those nights when all they did was beach themselves on the couch and drink a mixture of Pepsi and this alcoholic lemon soda.
Which,of course,had always caused the two to wake up,suffering from massive hangovers,each on different parts of the apartment.
Once,Chrno had found himself waking up to the sounds of the honking of cars and the smell of burnt rubber while Aion had found himself waking up to this vile and foul smell and found himself caked in layer of grime.
Chrno had woken up on the balcony,while not-so-lucky Aion had found himself wallowing in doggie poop.
It was one of those kind of nights.
Pushing the still-snoring Aion off his shoulder, he looked up,straight into the face of the big burly man, Michael and almost jumped in shock.
Breathing in deeply to soothe his frazzled nerves,he pulled himself up onto the leather seat,allowing Aion to roll and land with a dull thump on the carpeted floor of the mini-limo.
He introduced himself properly to Michael and the both of them became engaged in a conversation about the ways and means of handling kidnappers and terrorists.
The two were going to become fast friends.
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Rosette finally reached the dark and damp alleyway, panting with her chest heaving up and down,and finally,when she had regained enough energy,looked up.
There he was.
Billy.
The tall,lanky blonde had spiky hair and piercings on almost every single part of his body(he had boasted this to Rosette)
and wore scruffy clothes and had tattoos on his upper biceps.
He noticed her out of the corner of his eye and smirked.
"Heyyy...how ya doin' Rosetttteeeee?"
Rosette looked at him with a disturbed look.
"Are you drunk?"
Suddenly,almost on cue,this group of three other boys came out of the shadows.
Their dressing was similar to Billy's and they seemed even more intoxicated than he was.
All four guys surrounded Rosette and smiled eerily.
Rosette,in her right mind,turned on her heel and tried to run,but was grabbed by one of the clammy hands of one of the boys that had long black-blue hair.
He drawled."Hey...you're rather cute...why dontcha spend some time with us 'stead of those rich ass losers...?"
Rosette spat angrily and hissed."Those 'rich ass losers'have better class than you bunch of assholes that hide in a dark alley."
Apparently,that was not the right thing to say,because they were angered and they tore off her jacket angrily.
Rosette's heart pounded furiously and she went into panic mode,knowing what was coming.
She screamed,"Help!Someone!"
Her cries attracted no one,and the quartet closed down on her,beginning to tear off her cap and her shoes...
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Chrno and Michael were entering a heated yet friendly argument about ways to defend themselves from armed assailants when they both heard a girl shriek.
Chrno shouted to the driver to stop the car immediately and leapt out,looking around for the location of the scream.
Michael,too,was out of the car,and having been more experienced,pinpointed the exact location of the scream and ran towards this dark alleyway.
Chrno followed suit.
When they reached there,they found a girl,around the age of seventeen,tears running down her cheeks,clothes torn off but left in her unmentionables,surrounded by a bunch of drunkards who looked like drug abusers.
When the four saw the two agents standing front of them,they smirked and formed a line in front of the girl, slamming their fists together,not knowing that they were gonna expect hell.
There was no need for any form of contact between both agents.
The four drunks were taken down in less than a minute.
Chrno dusted his hands, and walked over to the blonde girl,who was shaking,while Michael called for an auxillary vehicle to take the four away to be questioned for attempted rape.
Chrno took of his jacket and placed it around the shaking girl, and smiled gently at her and asked her if she was alright.
She responded by throwing her hands around his neck and bursting into tears.
Chrno was taken aback for a moment by this gesture,but after a smile from Michael,he placed his arms around her and carried her back to the car,where they would take her to a hospital.
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Author:Awww...their first sweet moment.
Joshua: Go to hell.
Author:-jealous brat-