I'm not good with updating; I'm an awful person, ect.
This chapter's a tad bit smaller than previous ones, but I wanted to leave two little cliff hangers for you guys. ;) But, the identity of Ian's wife and Benjamin's mother will finally be revealed! :o
BUT before that, you really do need to take a look at my friend Bex13's Harry Potter fic. I've never read a single Harry Potter book or watched any of the movies, but this fic made me laugh out loud repeatedly. And I'm a character in it! So, that's something. xD
http: / www . fanfiction . net /s /659 3927 /1/ Sparks_Fly
(Remove spaces)
And now here we go! Enjoy, hopefully the next chapter'll be up soon. Maybe sooner rather than later, depending on the reviews I get. ;)
"Grace?"
Crap.
I'm not entirely sure how I managed to delude myself into thinking that my mother, aka arguably the most powerful women on the planet, aka the girl who could break into strongholds undetected at 14, aka my mother, would remain conveniently unaware of my little day trip with Benjamin. I'm also not entirely sure why I thought that Ian Kabra wouldn't tell my mom that he saw me. But he did, obviously, and now here we are.
I cautiously made my way to my mom's office (Walter the Great smirking at me the entire time, like he knew I was in trouble.) and sat down in the chair opposite hers quietly. She looked up, and surprised me. I was expecting a death glare to end all death glares, or at the very least a 'Grace Hope Cahill I'm Very Disappointed In You' look, but she smiled softly at me instead, before going back to whatever she was doing on her computer.
I cleared my throat awkwardly, wondering if she just brought me in here to say hi. Of course, I could never be so lucky.
"Just... Wanted to say hi." She said with a light, absentminded smile.
Huh.
"That's all?" I asked, shocked.
"mmhmm." She murmured.
"Are you sure? Nothing you had to say to me, or... anything else?"
She raised an eyebrow.
"Is there something you think I should be talking about, Grace?" She asked, looking me in the eye.
Oh, so that's how it's going to be. She totally knows what happened; she's just giving me a chance to admit to it.
I shifted awkwardly in my seat.
"Oh." My mom said, pretending that she suddenly remembered something. "Are you thinking that I should be yelling at you for hanging out with Benjamin Kabra?"
Even though I knew it was coming, I still flinched. I ducked my head down.
"Even though I would have liked for you to have told me what was going on, I... I trust your judgement, Grace."
My head shot up.
"W-What?" I stammered. "Why aren't you screaming at me? I went against your rules, I ki... hung out with the grandson of your worst enemy!"
My mom nodded. "And the grandson of my worst enemy is saving your life. I wish I could have given you a better life, Grace. A life where we lived in a suburb somewhere. A life where you could have friends and we could argue like a normal family, a life where the training you've been through was just a fantasy. But that's not what your life is. Since your great-grandmother died it wasn't my life, and it was never going to be your life. And it kills me that you have to hide sometimes, that you don't have any friends. If Benjamin Kabra is what you need to feel normal, I don't have a say in that."
I sat there, gaping at her. This was the last thing I thought she would have said.
"So... You don't mind if I hang out with him?" I clarified.
"No." She said.
...
"So she totally called me out on everything, and then just says, oh yeah, it's cool, you can hang out with him all you want."
Benjamin looked at me, just as shocked as I was.
After my mom dropped the bomb, I drove over to Benjamin's and hid out in the bushes until Benjamin noticed me (which, thankfully, only took like 15 minutes.) and came out to meet me. He wasn't entirely sure what I was doing there, I could tell, but thankfully he now knows me well enough that he just ran me over to my car and let me drive us away. (I'm not all that sure how I feel about the fact that the person who knows me better than anyone, apparently, is Benjamin Kabra.)
That's how we ended up here, sitting at a picnic table in a massive park, moms with strollers staring us down like we're suddenly going to jump each other's bones, or do meth, or something. Neither of which I was particularly interested in, in case you were wondering. The fact that once the thought of me jumping Benjamin's bones came into my head my face flushed bright red was a completely irrelevant point. It was a hot day. The kids in winter jackets are also irrelevant. It's hot out, ok?
"My dad said the same thing to me!" He exclaimed, snapping me out of my inner monologue.
"What?" I demanded.
"He called me into his office, and sat me down for a 'man-to-man talk'- and my first thought, of course, is 'good Lord, he's going to give me a sex talk.' But he started going on about opportunities and family pride, and then he just said 'I just want you to know that you're free to associate with whoever you want.' And he really accented the whoever, you know? So I immediately knew he was talking about you."
Well, this was an interesting turn of events.
"Well, this is an interesting turn of events." I said after I thought that. "Clearly, our parents are in Cahoots."
"Cahoots?" Benjamin intoned amusedly.
"Cahoots." I said seriously.
"And what do you propose we do about the cahoots?" Benjamin asked.
"Why, absolutely nothing." I said, "If we do something, it could turn rather sour, don't you think?" I said, trying to sound as posh as he does ninety percent of the time.
"True." Benjamin said, an unreadable look on his face.
"So what-" I started to say, but was cut off by the sound of a gleeful, nauseatingly high-pitched squeal.
Both Benjamin and I looked over to see who was the source of the sound that could really be used for serious torture if we could somehow bottle it; and we were greeted with a scene from Baywatch.
Really. If they were still filming Baywatch, this girl would have made Pam Anderson real nervous. She was running towards us (and I'm not sure why, but somehow it seemed as if she was running in slow motion. More Baywatch, I guess.), the biggest grin on her face. She was darkly tanned, blond hair, blue eyes, the whole nine yards. She had a healthy glow about her, like she spent a lot of time outside. Probably helping wounded orphans, or something, I thought bitterly before I remembered that it didn't matter.
It mattered a bit more, however, when she downright leapt at Benjamin, succeeding in tackle-hugging him. He looked at her confusedly for a second before his face lit up and he put on a grin to match hers.
"Emily?" He asked, more excited than I've ever seen him.
Well, crap.
…
Deep breath in, deep breath out. It's not that hard, you've been doing it for years! Just. Keep. Breathing.
Amy Cahill was trying to compose herself, trying to make sure that nobody would see through the façade she tended to put up whenever she was around Ian. It was as if they were 14 again, and his mere presence made her into a stuttering idiot. Back then, she built up weak excuses of hate to try and convince him she didn't care.
But there was a time where he managed to break those down, too.
She shook her head in a weak attempt at clearing her thoughts of that time. That time was done and she knew it.
She was sitting rigidly in a large chair, in the bar that she and Ian had agreed to meet. Seeing him wasn't exactly something she loved, but they both realized they needed to, for their kids. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Amy wondered if she was just living vicariously through her daughter. She dismissed that thought as quickly as it came, though, because it wasn't true or because she simply didn't want to think about it she didn't care.
At 7pm, the bar was virtually empty, too late for happy hour, too early for partying. Amy wished that the space was more crowded. More room to hide.
Just then, the doors swung open, and Ian walked in, quickly seeing her and making his way over to Amy.
Deep breath in, deep breath out, she instructed herself one last time, before he sat down across from her.
Ian wasted no time. "They saw each other today."
Amy matched his tone, "I know." She said, "Amy left as soon as I told her she could see him."
Ian hesitated, "Do you think there's…. something there?" He asked.
Amy sighed. "I couldn't tell you." She said.
The doors behind Amy opened again, and Ian looked up absentmindedly to see who the new patron was. His eyes quickly widened, however, when he recognized the woman.
With the same red hair as Amy, the two women could quickly be mistaken for each other. That was his mother's reasoning, at first, he remembered bitterly.
So you like redheads, Darling? She's not the only girl with red hair out there, you know. Easily replaceable, that girl.
They never really loved each other. Not like Ian had loved Amy. It was an understanding. It was polite. It was fondness. It wasn't love. It wasn't even lust. It wasn't even attraction, for Christ sakes. It was a relationship dominated by Isabel Kabra. A match made in heaven for Lucians, but in Hell for Ian.
They had become friends, though, this woman and he. They both knew that love was never going to grow out of this match. They played their parts well, the two of them getting married when they were told to, after they had barely known each other for a month.
He hadn't expected the match his mother provided. That was for sure. For one thing, he was expecting a Lucian. A high-ranking one at that. That Chrissy Collins girl she was always going on about. Not this. Not an Ekat. Not her.
Not the broken girl he received. Broken from, ironically enough, Hamilton Holt. She often cursed herself for loving him when she barely knew him. She told him that she couldn't help it, just like he couldn't help but be in love with Amy, even now. It wasn't something he could control. She knew that. Ian played the part of best and only friend for years. When she heard about Hamilton's death, he was the one who comforted her.
But there was no love. Nothing more than platonic love. Nothing more.
Amy turned her head to see who Ian was staring at. She lost her voice for a moment, stuttering under her breath before stopping, clearing her throat, and saying Ian's wife's name.
"Sinead?" she asked.
…
"Make yourself at home." Emily said cheerily, taking off her black pea coat and her red gloves, unravelling the scarf from her neck. She looked like something out of a TV show- looking good after just running around in the freezing cold. I knew for a fact that my nose was bright red, and my coat was suddenly far too puffy for my liking.
Emily had invited us back to her hotel, which was, of course, the grandest, most expensive place in the entire freaking state. I wasn't sure who she was until she went to help Benjamin up, offering her hand and exposing the tattoo on her wrist. Two snakes, coiled around each other. That's just great. So now not only is she like, every guy's dream girl personified, she's also a Lucian.
Oh, and did I mention the accent? 'Cause it's Australian. Yup, chick's exotic, too.
Emily slipped off her shoes while Benjamin took a seat on the end of her bed. I'm not sure why, but that pissed me off to no end.
Emily had another tattoo on her foot. Curved around her ankle were Arabic letters.
ولنيكونانتصرعلى.
She caught me looking at them and smiled politely.
"Cleopatra." She said.
I nodded like that made sense.
"It means 'I will not be triumphed over.' It's a Cleopatra quote."
Well I knew that that was a Cleopatra quote, but excuse me for not knowing Arabic.
Emily nodded.
"I will not be triumphed over." She said again. I'm not sure I liked the look in her eyes as she said that.
…
Amy was speechless. Speechless and very, very hurt.
"You… You married Sinead Starling?" She said for what was probably the thousandth time.
Ian kept his eyes down.
"My mother was trying to form an alliance with the Ekats at the time." He said again.
"So… It wasn't even that I was from another branch. It was just me, then." Amy said quietly.
"Amy-"Sinead tried to say, but it was too late; Amy was already half way out the door.
Breathe in, breathe out.