A/N: Okay! The chapter where the Outing starts!
WARNING: THIS CHAPTER IS RATED HIGH TEEN (meaning very high on the T scale) FOR HUMOROUS SEXUAL INNUENDO, MENTIONS OF...never mind, AND RELIGIOUS CONTENT. READER DISCRETION, although not necessarily the best way to go, IS ADVISED.
I made that up, the high teen thing. In addition, there is quite a bit of romance in this chapter, so um...yeah, hope you like it, because I think it is WAY TOO CORNY AND CLICHE, but that's just me, always harping on my own work. So review, disclaimer is in the first chapter.
"I can feel the sun. We're headed south now, you made the turn. Means we're getting closer. I really want to thank you for going out of your way." Courtney remarked. Her hair was purposely made greasy and tussled, and her clothes were worn and torn with age and dirt so she looked exactly like her persona: a blind hitchhiker. Chase was posing as one of the kind Samaritans who was giving her a ride to her destination: the compound.
"It's not as far out of my way as you might think. I admire your courage, hitchhiking across the country." Chase recited his lie perfectly.
"Because I'm blind?"
"Nah, 'cause you're a girl."
"I'm a girl? Wow, I've been blind longer than I thought." Chase smiled at this comment, and Courtney somehow sensed this. "Do I hear a smile?"
"You do. So…you weren't always blind?"
"No. The Lord saw fit to take my vision when I was nine." Religious much? Then again, Cody did imprint her with the persona of a highly religious girl. I wonder…
"The Lord, huh? And you don't blame him?"
"Blame him? No, I praise him. Saul of Tarsus made it all the way to Damascus after he was struck blind and he became a new person."
"You want to become a new person?"
"More than anything." How ironic. The drive was silent until Chase pulled up on the dirt road on the side of the complex. "Are we here?"
"I think so. There's a gate. Looks like it's open, I could walk you there."
"No thank you. I made it this far. Is the path closed?"
"Open the door and you'll step right on it." Courtney opened the car door, but before she stepped out, she reached her hand to Chase's shoulder.
"Thank you and God bless you." Courtney took out her foldable cane with a red tip and started using it to detect any objects obstructing her path, also keeping close to the fence of the compound so she could know where the entrance was. Chase had peeled away from the area by then. Also, a few (which turned into most, then all) of the cult members had gathered outside to watch this stranger walk right into their compound. "Hello? Hello? Please. I know you're there." She could hear their breathing and hushed whispers. Then Lars, who had finished doing some gardening, walked up to Courtney and eyed her. Courtney reached out her hand to feel him, first his shoulder, and then she made her way up to his face. When she felt it, she pulled her hand back and gasped. "Jonas Sparrow. I'd know your face anywhere."
"Hm." Lars kept his cool. "Who are you?"
"Oh, my ID is right here." Courtney fished her forged ID card out of her front jean pocket and handed it to Lars, who then scrutinized it closely, and held it next to Courtney's face.
"Esther Louisa Applewhite from Boston, Massachusetts." He waved his hand in front of her to confirm she was truly blind (he had his suspicions). In the house perched on a cliff overlooking the compound, the ATF was looking Lars in the face—in a sense. "A blind hitchhiker and you got all the way here by yourself."
"I was led…by God."
"And was that God in the car that dropped you off?" He had noticed Chase drop off Courtney, but he didn't know about Courtney's true origins.
"Just…one of His instruments."
"Who told you about this place Esther Louisa Applewhite?"
"You did."
"I've never seen you before."
"But I've seen you. You appeared to me in a vision. You spoke to me. You said a place had been prepared for me. You told me to walk out my door, to not be afraid. You said, 'Come to your brothers and sisters at the Temple,' you said I would be carried here, as if on the wind. And then you took my hand and held it to your face so that I would know it."
"Amen!" The crowd murmured, whispered, or yelled, and they led her into one of their buildings.
"She's in!" A guy over a walkie-talkie informed the ATF inside the house.
"As advertised." Wesley murmured to himself.
Courtney and the rest of the cult were inside a mess hall, and while Courtney was getting to know everyone, Lars pulled his right hand man, the curly haired man, away from the crowd to speak to him privately. The man was first to speak. "We shall make a new garden, and fresh buds will flower there, its happening."
"If she is what she says she is."
"Who else could she be?"
"Brother Jeb, I've told you how we must protect the Garden, there are those who seek to destroy it, you know that."
"Yes."
"We are COMMANDED to test all of the signs. If a serpent should enter, we must crush it underneath our heel. You understand that?"
"Yes Jonas."
"We must keep the Garden pure."
In the Twilight Mall, Nick was taking a shower, and Bridgette had just so happened to walk to the shower next to him.
"Hello." Bridgette offered a smile and a nice greeting.
"Good day." Nick responded. Bridgette turned under the running water, wetting every part of her body.
"The water's warm."
"Yes."
"It feels nice." Bridgette had a small pang in the back of her mind that she like the water, which she did since she was a surfer at heart—or used to be.
"Yes, it does. It feels…" Nick looked down to the shower floor, brows furrowed. He then looked up, a mix of shock and blankness on his face. "Nice."
Up in his office, Cody was talking on his Bluetooth earpiece with a friend of his. He had just wandered to his desk to sort through a few papers.
"For my money, the Valsalva Mechanism is really—" Cody glanced at the surveillance tape of Bridgette and Nick taking their showers. "Hey, w-w-way to go—hey—" Cody snapped into straight posture, mouth wide open. "I—I gotta go. Something came up." Cody ended his call and walked as fast as he could all the way to Beth's office, where she was thumbing through a few of her medical files on the Mankins. "Doctor." He decided not to call her Beth, just because he was so shocked about what he had just witnessed. Beth turned around on the balls of her feet, heels of her black pumps clacking on the buffed wood floor, brown hair, lab coat, and black knee length dress twirling in the self generated wind and looked at him, waiting for a response, trying to keep her cool after yesterday's conversation. He didn't give one.
"Cody." She prompted him. What's wrong with him?
"Hello." Cody waved his hand.
"Hello."
"So listen, here's the thing. I was looking—GLANCING—I noticed Nick." Cody was almost incoherent, in terms of speech and hand signals.
"You noticed Nick." She put away the file she was looking and started walking to him.
"Mhm. I noticed him in the shower, and he's…naked."
"Nick's naked in the shower."
"Right, anyways, he seemed to be having a kind of…" Cody licked his upper lip. "Man reaction."
"A what?"
"A…you know, a reaction that a man, person might have in the…you know, naked part—shower—Nick!" Cody was clearly struggling to put together a coherent sentence, because he fired off the last two words without running them by his conscience.
"Nick had an erection?" Beth was able to put together Cody's incoherent thoughts, and she wasn't at all surprised that Cody was nervous. He was still the same immature teen from TDI, so she wasn't at all disturbed by his awkwardness. Cody winced in response to Beth's question.
"I prefer the term man reaction." Now Beth HAD to question Cody's reasoning.
"Why?"
"I-I—" Cody sighed. "This is a problem. This can't happen. It shouldn't happen. When they're in their Mankin state, there's a…limp…ness." Beth went to go get a red file from her shelf full of files.
"Well, I warned about something like this."
"When?"
"His last Outing was with Ms. Lonely Hearts." Beth made her way to her desk and to her desktop, and Cody followed.
"So? That shouldn't matter. Okay, it was a romantic Outing, but he was wiped."
"This is the EIGTH time he's had that exact Imprint. I've cautioned against repeated Imprints on the same Mankins, haven't I?"
"I don't know. You put it in one of those reports?"
"Of course."
"Okay, well, nobody reads those." Beth inhaled sharply through her nose and typed in a few commands.
"How many times has this happened?"
"I don't know, I wasn't LOOKING for it!"
"Well, now you're going to have to. Let's start with the last three months of shower tapes." Beth handed him the red folder.
"We're actually going to sit down and look for—uh…" Cody stopped talking and looked at Beth, almost expecting her to complete his sentence. Beth rolled her eyes before setting her eyes upon him once more.
"Man reactions."
"Esther, I'm going to ask you a few questions, and I want you to be truthful with me, okay?" Lars commanded. They were in a dark room, and he was shining a flashlight into Courtney's eyes. Jeb was also in the room, watching the interrogation take place. Also, the ATF was watching through Courtney's eyes, even though they were blinded by the flashlight.
"Of course." Courtney simply responded.
"You work for the government?"
"What?"
"The federal government, did they send you here?"
"No, of course not."
"And you're not with law enforcement of any kind?"
"No." Lars turned off the flashlight and turned on a ceiling lamp.
"I want to believe you Esther. I want to believe everything you say. It's a beautiful story. But the serpent also had a beautiful story, and the woman was deceived, and the man was corrupted and they were forced to leave the Garden."
"I don't understand."
"I do not come into this Garden a pure being Esther." Lars left to his desk and took his personal revolver and loaded it with a few bullets. "I come into it the way Adam left. Broken, corrupted, impure. But those whom I shelter, they are not corrupted, they have not walked in the world the way I have, they have not seen the things I have seen, and against this world, they are defenseless. So I will protect them, and any who seek to harm them, to foul this Garden—shall fail." He pointed the gun at Courtney's forehead, and although she couldn't see it, Nadia, Wesley, Jerry, and Chase could, and they recoiled slightly at the sight of the gun barrel.
"Elias told me that you saved them. All who are here are blessed." After a few tense seconds, Lars put the gun in a secret holster strapped to his thigh. "Welcome to the Temple Esther, she who was born for a time such as this." He got up from his kneeling position and kissed the top of Courtney's head. "Welcome." And he left the dark room. She looked around, staring at Jeb, hearing him breathing, but the ATF saw past Jeb. The night vision revealed a humongous arsenal of machine guns stacked against the wall, and many more inside some crates. "He is a great man."
"Yes." Jeb whispered. A great man…
Meanwhile, Cody and Beth were in Beth's office, watching the shower tapes, which they had been doing for the past hour or so. Cody stopped being so antsy about watching them, and Beth was dead serious about finding evidence to support her hypothesis.
"Let's roll that back please, I believe I spotted a tumescence at 3:21:04, tell me what you think." Cody quirked an eyebrow, but rewound the clip nevertheless.
"Yeah, it ain't oak, but it's on its way to wood, are we done?" Cody glanced at Beth, and she noticed.
"Go to Wednesday the 23rd please." She walked to the other side of Cody.
"You know, I could burn these and you could just take them home."
"That better not mean what I think it means."
"What DO you think it means?" Cody turned his head to face her, and they were both dangerously close to each other, but that didn't stop Beth from putting together a smart remark.
"That I'm a pervert. Or you want to flirt some more with Blaire and Tawny." She turned her attention back to the screen. "Go back there, mhm—wait, freeze that."
"I will not!" Beth rolled her eyes and moved back to her original spot to the left of Cody.
"Of course. If he'd been a snake…"
"What?"
"Please pretend I didn't say that." Cody smirked in response.
"Scout's honor." Beth locked eyes with Cody for that comment, and remained that way for a few seconds. She gave up the glaring contest and turned back to the screen. "G-g-go back to 17:57:09. W-wait, can you zoom in—to his face?" Cody complied. "Now jump to 24:25:14. Freeze." The frame froze, and it showed Nick eyeing Bridgette from across the open showers. "Well, I guess that rules out Ms. Lonely Hearts."
"Uh…what?"
"It's not residual Imprinting, it's her. It's Bridgette." She pointed to Bridgette taking a shower.
"Whaaaaaaat?" Cody asked, slowly breaking into yet another small smile and tilting his head to the side.
"It only happens when she's there, and it started not long after she arrived." She looked at Cody for a brief moment, but then turned back to the screen. Cody eyed her for a brief moment before turning his attention back to the screen. "She's the new element that's been introduced to his environment, the catalyst of his physical response."
"He likes her."
"Yeah." They looked at the picture for what seemed like forever when it was really a minute, and then Cody found he couldn't move his head back into its upright position.
"Uh…Beth? I HATE to break up this moment, but uh…" Cody sheepishly chuckled. "My head is stuck."
"Cody, that's impossible."
"No, really, my head is stuck."
"Cody, I know you like making people laugh and making jokes out of people, but really, don't you think you're being a little desperate? Or is this a new flirting technique of yours?"
"I swear this is NOT a "flirting technique". OW! But now that I think about it—" Beth rolled her eyes.
"Fine. But if this is a joke, I swear—" She put both hands to the sides of his head and attempted to jerk it back up, which wasn't all that hard. But why does his face feel so warm? Or is it…me? "Better?" Cody rubbed his neck.
"Sure, sure. Ow." An awkward moment of silence followed, and both decided to finally speak again—it just so happened to be at the same time.
"So, uh…"
"You first." Cody offered to Beth.
"Do you think Bridgette likes him back? I mean—"
"Wait, you were LOOKING at Bridgette taking a shower?" Cody chuckled. "Because if so, that offer to burn the tapes is still open."
"That is disgusting. So what do YOU have to say about it?"
"I don't know! I wasn't looking!" Beth quirked an eyebrow and he folded. "Didn't look like it—as far as I'm concerned."
"So what did you want to say to me?"
"I…uh…" Beth was expecting a variety of answers, but not what Cody said next. "Forgot." Cody was mentally cursing on the inside. So close damn it, so close!
"Okay then…" Another few seconds of silence followed. "We should—"
"Report this to Heather?" Beth gave another look to him. "I meant the—the—the—"
"Man reaction."
"Right. But later, okay?"
"Why?"
"Flirting time with Tawny and Blaire?" Beth gave him a hard slap to his shoulder. "OW!"
"Come on Cody, you know how much Heather hates being kept 'out of the loop'!"
"My answer is still no. Unless you want to be the one telling her…although, I could come as moral support. But then I might have four angry girls coming at me, Heather, Blaire, Tawny...and you." Cody grinned, and Beth could see that if he didn't have his way, he'd do something really, really stupid in front of Heather. And she didn't want to see him get hurt, no matter how big of a jerk he was being right now.
"You're lucky this time." Beth powered off her desktop and left to put away the red file that was neatly closed on the desk.
"You will not be sorry!" Cody ran out of Beth's office. Already am Cody.
Nighttime six miles outside of Pleasant, Arizona. The ATF was busily preparing to secure the gun arsenal they had discovered a matter of hours ago, and they were waiting on approval from the judge to go in and confiscate the guns. Wesley was going over invasion plans with Jerry, and Chase was silently eavesdropping.
"When we breach, gold team here." Wesley pointed to a spot on a map. "We need to secure that arsenal." Chase didn't know why the team was going to breach the compound now, because if they did, Courtney would be in big trouble, and he didn't want a dead Mankin (or person, however he looked at it at any given time of the day) on his hands.
"You're going in now?" Chase asked Wesley after Jerry left him.
"As soon as my warrant comes through. Just waiting on the judge."
"Then I need to extract my associate."
"Sure. Let's go knock on the door, let them know we're coming—are you out of your fucking mind? Your girl stays put. She's my eyes in there."
"She's served that function. She's provided enough evidence for you to keep your—case alive." Chase barely restrained himself from adding in a curse word to intimidate Wesley. "Now I would like to do the same for her. In my judgment, this action is premature."
"Your judgment? Come here." Wesley took Chase a few feet away from the hubbub of the rest of the team. "Look, I was told not to be too interested in where you and the girl REALLY came from. No problem, I'm not. What I AM interested in is putting Lars Veerson, Jonas Sparrow, whatever the fuck he's calling himself this week back where he belongs—for good this time."
"Hey, wait a minute. You know this guy."
"Yeah, I know him."
"No, you KNOW him." Wesley remained silent for a few moments.
"Huh. You used to be a cop. Me too. Twelve years, Laughlin PD, and back then, he wasn't calling it a church and they were mostly underage girls. We were putting him away for what was supposed to be forever. Forever my ass. Forever turned out to be just shy of two years. Some judge decided he didn't like the way we handled the evidence. So when this judge calls, I'm not waiting." Wesley walked away, and Chase left the busy house to his car to make a phone call to Harold.
"This is Chase. I need your okay for a forced extraction."
"Courtney's glitching on a government job, FUCK!" Harold yelled quietly in the elevator he was in.
"Chill out, Court's fine. She's performed perfectly within her parameters."
"Then what's the problem?"
"Agent Hinkley. He's about to release the fucking hounds of hell upon that compound. Court's imprint will not have prepared her for this." Silence on the other end. "Harold!"
"Do nothing."
"What? Are you fucking—" Harold didn't want to put up with Chase's disobedience.
"No extraction. Authorization denied." And Harold ended the call. Chase pressed the end button on his cell phone. Fuck, if the Outing were less dangerous, I'd go in there and do it myself. But I can't. I risk losing my job, my life, and even hers if I'm not careful. He slammed his head against the steering wheel. Fuck.
"In our book, the story of Esther is the story of a woman. Her father died while she was still in her mother's womb, her mother died in childbirth. What was so extraordinary about the Esther of the book was her unique vision. She could see things no one else could. This was the essence of the Esther of the book, her ability to penetrate secrets, to see through the darkness, to find truths others could not. Our Esther, it seems, is no different. She says I appeared to her in a vision. I'm right. You all know me. You know that I make no special claim to revelation, I'm just a man, weaker than most. But my faith is not weak. And as I see this place, and all of you, through Esther's eyes, through her amazing eyes which see things no one else can, that faith is only strengthened. Brother Jeb, would you bring our sister forward?" Lars finished his long speech praising Courtney, and Jeb helped Courtney up from her chair and brought her to Lars. "Esther Applewhite, are you prepared to forsake the world of men, to give yourself your life, your fidelity, and your industry to your brothers and sisters of the Temple?"
"I am." Courtney nodded.
"Return to the Garden." Lars drew an imaginary X on the center of her forehead. "A new beginning." Lars stepped aside to let Courtney interact with the other brothers and sisters in the room.
Outside, the ATF was getting ready to raid the compound. They were surrounding the perimeter of the compound, and a small team was entering through the front gate. However, Lars was prepared, because he had set up trip wires all around the compound, but the ATF and the cult members didn't know about it, so when the lights suddenly flicked on simultaneously, it sent the cult members into a small uproar and the ATF hiding as fast as they could. However, Lars's eyes were faster, and he spotted one of them trying to hide.
"Nobody move." Lars flipped the switch to the room they were in so the lights were off. "Come on Jeb!" Jeb immediately complied with Lars, and they both ran out of the building.
"The grounds were rigged, lights went on, and we were trapped over." One of the team communicated to Wesley and the rest of the team inside the house.
"Copy that. FUCK!!!" Wesley yelled to blow off some steam, making sure the man over the walkie-talkie heard nothing. Wesley turned on the walkie-talkie again. "Hold your positions. Do not breach. Maintain perimeter."
Jeb and Lars reentered the main building, guns in each hand.
"Brother Jeb, go out the window." Lars immediately instructed Jeb, and he complied.
"I don't understand, what's going on, what's happening?" Courtney asked Lars.
"Was this you? Did you bring them here?"
"Who? I don't understand—" Lars slapped her clear across the face, sending her tumbling down to the floor. Lars then forcibly pulled her up from the floor.
"Did you do this? Did you bring the wolves to our door?"
"Jonas, she's our sister!" One of the cult members tried to pry Courtney away from Lars, but Lars pushed her back into the rest of the cult members.
"The truth this time sister!" Lars was about to slap her across the face, but a remarkable thing happened: Courtney gripped to Lars's arm and stopped him from slapping her again, causing the cult members to gasp in shock.
"It's a miracle. I can see." Courtney whispered. However, the ATF was now blind since the camera was now, in a sense, dead.
DJ, Gwen, Noah, Izzy, Owen, Duncan, Geoff, Ezekiel, and Sadie were gathered at Geoff's house again for a long overdue review of the evidence they had.
"Recap everyone!" Geoff yelled to call their attention. Izzy and Duncan had just broken out into another one of their arguments, but everyone was calm now. "Let's start back in 2009, so Duncan, you've got the floor dude."
"Sure Geoff. Okay, in 2009, Courtney broke up with me because she was pressured by her parents to not be with me. A year later, the law found out I was innocent, and once I was free, I left Canada and moved to LA. I eventually took up a job counseling high school kids at Hollywood High, but not before my share of odd jobs. About a month ago, I met up with Courtney again after saving her from being run over by a bus. She kept asserting she was Simone, but revealed her name was Dana, and she was in the FBI's Witness Protection Program. After I dropped her off at the Grove, I didn't hear from her until I heard about her death the week after I saw her again. And then all of this began, the betrayal, the phone calls, the appearances, everything." Duncan fell backwards into the gray leather sofa.
"'Kay dude, DJ, you're up for the year 2011."
"Thank you Geoff." DJ tersely responded. "So Sadie, Katie, and I went to the same university in New York City. We were getting ready to go for a night out on a Saturday night, and Katie was walking to Sadie's place—"
"We weren't roommates; she chose to live in a dorm, I chose to live in my own apartment." Sadie quietly explained.
"And somewhere along the line, Katie disappeared on her way to Sadie's apartment. We searched for days, but it was fruitless. Sadie went to LA after graduation, and I left to Quantico, Virginia to train for the FBI." DJ neglected to mention the romantic tension that occurred mainly due to the bad memories it brought up and for the sake of time.
"Okay, my turn!" Izzy jumped off of Geoff's gray leather couch. "In 2012, while I was still on the run from the RCMP, I was hiding in Massachusetts. One morning, I picked up the day's newspaper out of the trashcan. I flipped through the pages, and I was about to throw it away when I saw Courtney's picture. There was a small section of the paper dedicated to the car crash she had "died" in the night before. I soon moved out to LA since the RCMP was hot on my trail. I met up with Owen, who was already living in LA and had his own private investigation business, so I joined him in his business."
"Izzy and I solved a ton of cases, but they were boring; the life of a PI isn't all it's cracked up to be."
"Which is SO true by the way!" Izzy laughed, and Geoff, Duncan, Noah, and Gwen shot her a weird look.
"I called up Gwen to tell her about Courtney's death—"
"And I told Trent, but news of her death never circulated outside of us." Gwen sadly explained.
"Duncan, Izzy, and I became close friends, and we were also close with Noah, Sadie, and Geoff. Everything seemed fine."
"So one day, I got a call from Geoff. He told us that Duncan knew something about the recent suicide of Simone Peters and would come to us, and he wanted us to record the conversation, so we did. Owen and I ended up telling DJ, Geoff, Sadie, Noah, and Zeke that Courtney had been dead since 2012, but after we saw the picture of Simone—yeah, I knew something was wrong."
"I guess it's my turn. A few days before Simone's suicide, Bridgette was kidnapped. We're engaged, and I won't stop looking for her. Anyway, after Simone's suicide, Duncan knew it was really Courtney, as did Sadie, Noah, and I, and after a bit of interrogation with the help of Izzy and Owen, we ended up joining forces. DJ and Zeke joined after we pulled up Simone's profile. And when Gwen came to us saying that Trent was kidnapped, well, we knew there was a connection between him, Courtney, and Bridgette." A few seconds of silence followed.
"So that's all we know?" Duncan asked everyone.
"Duncan's right, we're missing something." Noah agreed with Duncan in a sense, and Ezekiel nodded in agreement.
"We know that Courtney is a ghost because her death was faked twice, but we don't know about Trent or Bridgette." Ezekiel spoke for the first time the whole night.
"It's—getting late. I should go." Sadie stood up, and everyone else except Geoff and DJ stood up. This is as good a time as ever to reveal the information. DJ thought to himself.
"Uh, wait." DJ stopped everyone who was leaving. "I have…something else."
"And you're telling this to us now why?" Noah asked.
"Just have a seat. You'll want to be sitting for this."
"I thought you told us everything that's happened in the past few days; we were just supposed to go over the past just now." Sadie questioned DJ.
"No, it's something else. It might explain everything, it might not." DJ pulled out a sheet of paper from his suit pocket and gave it to Ezekiel. "Read it and pass it around. That list is a list of the whereabouts of all 22 of us. The ones marked with a yes and job occupation means that they're registered in the FBI database—except for Trent because the list is out of date. The ones marked with a no…they don't exist, according to the FBI database, but here's the difference: we know they exist. Now, a few of the people on that list work with a company called Mann Corporation, specifically the Las Vegas branch. I've been investigating into this organization and an illegal part of their company called Twilight Mall for over two years now. This complex is supposedly located within the Las Vegas branch and kidnaps people and wipes their personalities so they can be imprinted with the persona of anyone a client wants. These people, called Mankins, are sold to clients with a lot of money, millions of dollars in fact. I never really understood how these people worked, until I found out that Courtney no longer existed. Even Simone and Dana no longer exist."
"That explains why Courtney was acting so strange when I saw her at the Franklin Hotel!" Gwen exclaimed in shock.
"Well, we know where they are, why can't we just go in there and release them all?" Duncan asked.
"We don't know enough about the complex. There are supposed to be guards around it, and they will shoot on sight, so we might all end up dead if we try to release any of the Mankins. And who knows what the Mankins might be like in their mind-wiped state? And any other workers there? Even the security guy that Geoff mentioned might pose a threat to us."
"DJ, our TD friends are gone." Sadie choked back a sob as she handed the paper back to DJ. "And what they're doing is illegal. I wouldn't want to see Cody, Beth, Harold, even Heather being sent to jail."
"That's what I noticed. This company is doing a systematic extraction of all of us. I don't know the exact order, but Katie might've been first, and Trent is the latest one. Any one of us is in grave danger of being as good as dead, turned into one of their slaves."
"What about Leshawna? Does she know?" Gwen looked up with worried eyes.
"Wait a minute. DJ, if Heather's only the head of the Las Vegas branch, who is the head of the whole company?" Geoff asked.
"Yeah, he's probably the one telling Heather to do all of his dirty work." Duncan agreed with Geoff. DJ remained silent.
"DJ, what's wrong?" Sadie calmly asked him.
"You're not going to like what you hear."
"DJ, I'm sure whoever the head is, it isn't someone bad like Hitler!" Izzy laughed.
"He's not, is he?" Owen asked.
"Depending on how you look at it, he could be just as bad."
"Spill it DJ!" Duncan yelled, unable to take the suspense of who wanted to take Courtney away from him.
"It's…William T. Olias."
"Who?" Gwen and Noah asked at the same time.
"We know him better as…Hatchet. Chef Hatchet." To say that everyone in the room except for DJ was shocked was a horribly SEVERE understatement. They were bewildered, they were murderous, and they were feeling such a mix of emotions because he had ordered the kidnapping of people near and dear to their hearts; Duncan's ex, Geoff's fiancée, Sadie's best friend and Noah's love, and Gwen's boyfriend. Ezekiel was sorry for Bridgette because she was a former crush of his during TDI, and he was good friends with Tyler. Izzy and Owen still had each other, but they were scared for themselves and every single one of their TD friends.
"How—how did all of this happen?" Gwen asked.
"Where did everything go wrong?" Sadie choked back a few more sobs.
"Where's Chris in all of this?" Owen asked, for once actually acting smart.
"Gas man has a point. What happened to Chris?" Noah asked DJ.
"I…don't know. I'll find out tomorrow. For now, we all need to get some rest and get home." And the group disbanded, leaving everyone to deal with their emotions.
"Hey Beth. Just packing up after a long day?" Cody smiled as he leaned against the door to Beth's office and watching her put away a few files.
"Cody? When did you become so curious?" Beth smiled a little bit.
"Ever since—never mind. Look, I came here to say…sorry."
"For what?" Beth's smile started fading, but didn't fade, not quite.
"For all of the stuff that's happened lately."
"It's fine, don't worry. Besides, there's nothing to be sorry about. I forgive you if that whole neck being stuck routine was really a joke." Beth's smile was gone completely, and she was packing up the last of her things into a black messenger bag.
"Not that. For the stuff I said before Trent's mind-wipe. You were right; maybe we are hurting our friends." Cody walked into Beth's office and closed the door.
"Cody…?"
"I've never really told anyone this, but I've started having second thoughts lately, ever since Courtney started acting up. I'm beginning to think something happened out there when she was gone."
"Cody—"
"I mean, what's happening to Courtney now happened to Tyler before he escaped. And…" Beth looked down.
"Tyler's still out there." She whispered.
"I know."
"You know?" Beth looked up, a look of confusion on her face.
"Heather told me. They didn't kill him. She lied to us."
"Chase thought so too."
"And so did Tawny."
"I guess those two were meant to be together." The two shared a laugh.
"What about…"
"What about who Cody? You and your "special someone"?"
"I guess. Oh, I tried the neck routine on Tawny and Blaire."
"Really? How'd it go?"
"Great, if you consider Tawny almost breaking my neck and Blaire flat out seeing through my trick great." Beth laughed.
"I knew they'd see through that."
"But you didn't." Cody leaned over the desk and close to her face, so close that he could kiss her on the lips if he wanted to. Beth leaned back and started walking around her desk, flowing hair hiding a blush.
"That was my mistake." She was now at the door, opened it, and stepped out of the office. "Don't make me lock you in there."
"Coming doctor, coming." Cody walked outside of the office, and Beth closed and locked the door.
"You know Cody," She turned to face him. "Even after all of this, everything's going to be all right."
Cody leaned in close to her and whispered into her ear, "Now that…you're here." And he walked across the complex and to a hallway which lead to the doors out of the place. And Beth could've sworn she felt the touch of his lips on her cheek right before he left.
A/N: That's right! Chef is The Sir, the head of Mann Corporation. So some trivia bits and answers to any questions you may have!
It might seem like I'm moving the CodyxBeth relationship really fast, but that's for a good reason. Just wait, just wait.
Tawny and Chase are a couple, remember that.
Saul of Tarsus (for the Biblically savvy) is the alternate name of Saint Paul, the Garden is referring to the Garden of Eden, Esther is a Biblical figure, blah blah blah--oh, and the Book is obviously the Bible.
Agent Wesley's last name is the name of a town in California. This town's residents were poisoned by water polluted with chromium six, and the town's struggles were made famous by the woman Erin Brockovich and the biopic based off Erin's struggles (aptly named Erin Brockovich) in bringing justice for the town starring Julia Roberts.
Songs that should be in your mind (because they were in mine!): "Barely Breathing"-Duncan Sheik, "Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)-Train, "Fingerprints"-Katy Perry, "Madly"-Tristan Prettyman, "Move Along"- The All-American Rejects, "How Far We've Come"-Matchbox Twenty
Kidnapped/gone list: Bridgette, Trent, Courtney, Katie, Eva, Lindsay, Justin, Tyler
The Company and the couples are still the same. I think I don't have anything else to say, so review please!