(Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who read my story! And for those of you who gave me a review, thank you extra much! Your kind comments on the story made my week and was super motivating. I couldn't wait to start writing daily again because of everyone. Here's Chapter 7. This chapter had been pre-planned for a long time, so there are a lot of tiny, but important details. Let me know what you think! And I just wanted to say thank you again for your time and patience. I hope you enjoy!)
What in Beverly Hills Happened to Daddy's Little Angel?
Jade Lewallen instantly breathed the unique scent of her house as she breezed through the front doorway again, with Arielle right behind her. It smelled like a mix of aromatic cinnamon candles and whatever it was Colette was cooking for dinner tonight. In fact, Jade would feel pretty hungry, except every time she thought about the fact that it would be the first "family get-together" dinner of many, she felt like running to the nearest bathroom and puking her guts out.
The two of them and Winter had just had a small rendezvous, where they spent the time gossiping in Jade's room. Or rather, Jade and Winter talked while Arielle barely spoke up at all. Now, Winter had to leave for her dance class. Jade and Arielle had followed her outside, with promises to work everything out later.
"Hi Colette," Jade said, moving through the kitchen with ease. Normally, she didn't talk to the staff at all, but Colette was different. Colette had stayed with them the longest and often covered for Jade on the rare occasions when she needed help.
Colette looked up, saw Jade, and waved her wooden spoon in the air in show of acknowledgement. Jade quickly glanced at what Colette was cooking, and her spirits automatically lifted for a second. Lamb chops. Whenever they were having lamb chops, it meant that her father was eating with the family that night, instead of taking on some other critical life-changing case.
And then, Jade's eye fell to the next food item. "Uh, I don't remember anyone ever eating purple globs of crap in here." Jade wrinkled her nose and disgust and took a step back, like germs on the food could be spread airborne. "Whatever happened to the side dish of cashews that were supposed to go with the lamb chops?"
Colette lowered the spoon and nudged the plate of purple crap with it, "Since Miss Chase is allergic to peanuts, Miss Hannah requested that I make zucchini instead."
Bitterness washed over Jade. Of course. No wonder her father was home today. In the spur of the moment happiness, Jade had almost forgotten just how dedicated her father was to his new family now. Apparently, the only life-changing he was doing around here was Jade's, and not for the better either.
Having remembered that, she swept wordlessly out of the kitchen, trying to keep her head clear of all the possible ways she could kill someone right now. Jade angrily climbed up the stairs. She felt like stomping, but that was something that elementary school kids did. And for this new job, she needed to be mature and convincing.
She would smile, lie through her teeth, and pretend to befriend the van Burens if she had to. But she was going to get the job done, damn it, even if she had to sacrifice a piece of herself to do it. She wouldn't let anyone win over her. And she had a good feeling now was a good time to pay another telephonic visit to her special friend.
Jade nearly crashed into her sister as the two of them both hit the landing at the same time. Glaring silently at the floor, Arielle stormed past Jade, and ran into her room, slamming the door. Jade stared at the white paint on the wall. Was it her fault that Arielle had decided to take a little cruise—probably into Blake's pants—and had made Jade think of the possibility that her sister was switching sides?
Whatever. Arielle would come around. She always did. They only had each other after all. Sooner or later, Arielle would need Jade to help her, and with some proper ass-kissing, Jade would graciously forgive her.
But first, Robert Haussler. When Jade was relatively sure she was safe in the confines of her room and that none of the staff were snooping around, she flipped open her phone and called his number. Many times, Robert's skills had proved themselves handy and useful. Jade had, in fact, relied on it multiples of times when she'd been too lazy to do some digging of her own.
"Hello, Jade. How may I help you this time?" Robert's voice picked up on the third ring. Finally. Considering how much Jade was paying him per job, he'd actually do her the decency of making her his number one priority. She was probably the one that kept food on his table anyway.
"Hello, Robert. I would like to hire your services again." Jade's lip curled. She couldn't wait until he was finished with his triple assignment. Three times the endless possibilities she could work with. Three times the chaos. "Please compile the usual report and findings on Hannah, Blake, and Chase van Buren."
There was a long pause, and Jade heard him shifting in his creaky chair in the background. She felt a wave of extreme impatience sweep over her. Why wasn't he jumping up at the opportunity? That's three times the normal amount of pay he'd be getting, after all.
Then, finally, "Very well then. I will have it ready for you as soon as possible. I assume, I am still charging the fee to your account?" Robert asked, and Jade could hear the greediness in his voice. She rolled her eyes, even though he couldn't see her. As good as he was at being a private investigator, he was still as shallow as ever.
"Yes. I would prefer to keep this a secret between you and me. Oh, and Robert?" Jade twirled the charms hanging on her phone and smirked, yet another things Robert couldn't see. "It had better be really good this time."
She snapped her phone shut. Jade hadn't been lying when she told Duke that she had everything set up. There were things around the house that Jade would never tell Arielle about, much less anyone. When you got down to it, she operated alone. Her mind was the only one capable of thinking two steps ahead of everyone else's. And she enjoyed using it as much as she could to her advantage.
In fact, she walked over to her private laptop and logged in. Once she was on, she booted the system and instantly, one of her biggest pride and joys whirled to life. The system allowed Jade to look into every room in the house, as well as the grounds surrounding the house. About a year ago, when her father's promiscuity had been brought to Jade's attention, she'd hired someone to install cameras into every room and to link it instantly to her computer.
Since she dismissed the staff for the day, her father had been away at the time—like he always was—and Arielle had been attending her yearly summer camp, no one else knew about Jade's secret. And she wasn't about to tell anyone either.
Now, sitting in front of her desk, she clicked on Arielle's room's feed. Inside, Arielle was sitting on the floor and zealously flipping through what looked like an old photo album. Jade zoomed in and saw the red rose embossing on the front page and the slightly yellowed edges. Beyond that, the pictures were blurry. Jade gave up and returned it back to normal. Besides, it wasn't like Jade was curious to find out who was in them or anything.
She stifled a yawn. Really, it would have been way more amusing to see Arielle take her anger out on, say, the wall or something. Making other people angry and lose control was one of Jade's specialties, after all.
Officially bored, Jade clicked on another feed: her father's office. Jade had always made it a point to not to spy on Mark Lewallen too much—she didn't really want to know what kind of things he was doing in his bedroom, anyway.
But now, she wanted to observe him. Mark Lewallen was examining an open folder, rifling through sheets of papers. There was a crease in the shape of an upside down crescent on his forehead and he massaged his temples with one hand as he used his other hand to flip through the papers.
Jade watched him quietly, propping her chin up on her palm. For as long as she could remember, she'd loved her father almost as much as she'd hated him. She hated him because Mark Lewallen was not a kind man. In fact, he often played dirty to get his way.
At least now we know where Jade gets it from.
But, in another way, Jade always loved him for a way that he never was.
The first time she'd gone over to Winter's house for their first sleep-over, Winter's father had come in and kissed his daughter good-night. Told her he loved her, and to sleep well. It was possibly one of most disgusting things Jade had ever seen at the time and also the most shocking. Part of her had always accepted her father for the busy man he was and shrugged off the lack of contact—physical and emotional—between them. Regardless of how Jade had tried to play it off as nauseating, she could only remember one thing: how much she hated Winter at that moment.
Her father had never even told her he loved her.
She'd heard him say it to his countless of one-night stand girlfriends as they were coming home, but to her and Arielle, never.
It made Jade sick with jealousy to realize that even though she was infinitely more perfect than any of those sluts, she was just never good enough for Mark Lewallen. And just because of that, there would always be an inner part of her that wasn't whole. Complete.
If you got down to it, she was really just like the tin man. Able to function and move and think, but without any heart inside of her.
The day that she'd realized the imperfection, she learned that she could hate, truly hate, and that her revulsion could be turned into something worthwhile. Jade decided that if her father wouldn't love her and Arielle, he would love no one.
Not even Hannah van Buren. If there was something she'd learned about real families since then, it was that the moms and the dads actually cared about their kid's well-being. And if Hannah van Buren was like any of those parents, the easiest place to target her would be Chase and Blake. The little one, Jade decided, could be left alone for now. She really had no interest at all in attacking people younger than her. It took away the power feeling.
She thought about it. If she could push and push and push, one day, one of them would break. They'd be miserable here. And eventually, the only place they could go would be back to their little dump.
Someone knocked on the door. Jade quickly snapped out of her reverie, slammed the top down and unplugged the cord as fast as she could.
"Who is it?" she snapped, getting up and yanking the door open.
Carla, the maid, trembled in front of her, like she'd been caught doing something naughty. "Mr. Lewallen, miss. He wants to speak with you in his office."
The maid trembled like she was about to get beaten.
Jade looked at Carla for a long second. "Very well," Jade cleared her voice, and lifted her chin like she was posing for her picture in Teen Vogue. "I will be right down."
Carla nodded imperceptibly and quickly pivoted and walked back down the stairs. Once, she was on floor one again, Jade quickly barged into Arielle's room.
When Arielle heard Jade, she shut the mysterious album as soon as she could. "What?" she glanced up almost defiantly. My suffering is all your fault, her eyes accused and she looked more tense than usual, with the way a vein was pumping viciously in her arms.
"Did Dad ask you to go down, or anything? Like, today at all?" Jade demanded. If this father-daughter talk was going to turn into another discussion on how much Mark Lewallen loved Hannah and their soon to be big-happy-family, Jade would seriously consider telling her father that if she ever got her way, there would be no happy ending.
"No," Arielle said in a tone, indicating clearly that she would like to be left alone. "Why?"
"No reason," Jade said, breathing a sigh of relief, already exiting out of her sister's bedroom the moment she heard that. Her spirits lifted. Her father always told Arielle any important news first, because he was always under the impression that Arielle was older. Jade was actually older by six minutes, but no matter how many times they told Mark that, he always forgot.
But now, maybe her father wanted to talk to Jade about how school was, or discuss about Nietzsche. Ever since Jade had found out that Mark Lewallen was interested in Nietzsche philosophy, she'd studied the idea of the Ubermensch religiously.
Jade took a deep breath in front of her father's office, and did a couple of exhaling exercises her therapist had taught her. Then, she turned the gleaming, gold doorknob, and entered in as gracefully as she could, letting her newly short hair graze her collarbone ever-so-slightly.
"You wanted to see me?" Jade put on a cheerful face, as she sat down opposite her father. The folder she'd seen on the camera was no where to be seen.
"Yes I did." Mark Lewallen glanced up brusquely. "How was school today?" Her father got up from his chair and paced around the room.
Inside, Jade smiled triumphantly. Yes! This was going to be a very good day, after all. "It was really good, actually. As President of the Junior class and Associated Student Body, I am planning a charity gala, which is happening in a month." She paused for the slightest moment, and then rushed on. "And also, my G.P.A. and SAT scores are the highest in my year, and I'm applying early to Yale." Jade looked to her father's face for a reaction—he was, after all, an alumni of Yale—and then continued on more confidently. "And my paper on the Ubermensch idea has been nominated for an award. I'm also supposed to receive other medals too, like categories in the quantum of physics and American Government. The awards ceremony is the second to last week of school. I would love if you came." she finished the last part in a hurried breath. "Oh, and—"
"Stop," her father wheeled around sharply and glanced at Jade coldly. "I was talking about the van Buren kids."
"Oh," Jade was in a smaller voice, once the realization had sunk in. A lump began to form in her throat. Who was she kidding? Her father didn't give a shit about her. All he wanted to know was how his future kids were. The kids he couldn't wait to inherit. "I didn't have any classes with them, so we haven't been properly introduced yet."
"How is it, then, that you are smart enough to win so many awards, yet you can't even think of a way to find the van Buren kids and introduce yourself?" he fixed his eyes on her. She read the message in them easily: you've disappointed me again.
"I wasn't aware that you wanted me to," she finally said. "I mean, you're never around. How am I supposed to know what you want?"
"You don't seem to be aware of many things," Mark Lewallen said in an almost sneering tone. "Like the fact that I know how you got rid of Janice last time. Well, this time, it's for real. And there are going to be some changes around here because of that."
"Like what?" Jade forgot to catch herself. She heard the same sneering voice come out of her own mouth.
You know what they say: like father, like daughter.
"You will treat Hannah the way you'd treat any family member. And just to make sure you don't toe the line, I am going to be around much more often now. I know who's the mastermind around here, and I am going to be watching your every move." her father's eyes burned through Jade's, just to make sure she fully got the threat of his words.
So this was why Arielle didn't get called in. Even her father realized that Arielle was just a pawn in Jade's grand scheme.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Jade smiled as winningly as she could under the present circumstances, "I already adore Hannah. I absolutely just love her to death." Jade emphasized symbolically, keeping the smile on her face.
May Hannah actually suffer a real one, in a painful way, Jade sneered in the inner recesses of her mind.
"Good. Now, make sure you don't have a problem sticking to it." Her father said, finally walking back and settling back into his desk. "You are dismissed."
Jade nodded curtly, then quickly backed out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her. She immediately did her therapeutic exhaling breaths, managing to keep everything together until she reached to her room and was able to close the door and lock it.
Then, in one motion, she leapt across the room and pulled out her fresh packs of pencils. Then, reaching for two at a time, she broke them, letting the wood shaving fall to the ground. Jade broke more and more until she'd used up two packs. Jade breathed heavily. Breaking things always helped her keep her head in the right place.
As long as it's not anybody else's head.
She collapsed at the foot of her bed, picking up a pile of half-pencils and squeezing them into her palm and the ground. The harder she pressed the sharp wooden tips, the easier it was to calm and will herself not to scream bloody hell.
When she was able to calm herself down, she started to see how foolish she was, how incredibly overrated she was making this out to be.
While intimidating, Mark Lewallen was human. Jade was fully equipped and armed to take him down. She didn't need to touch a single hair on his precious Hannah's head. All she had to do was hit her where it hurt until she was gasping for breath.
Jade looked up from where she'd collapsed on the floor. There was nothing she couldn't do. And if she had to, she was willing to try everything. Whoever stood in her way would only be an obstacle.
Feeling much better, she stood up and was entirely composed when Carla once again opened her door.
"Dinner, miss." she said, then her eyes fell to the neglected wooden pencil leftovers and she looked to Jade uncertainly.
"Just practicing," Jade looked at her and smiled slowly. She walked out the door, leaving Carla scrambling to pick up the shards.
A fire had been ignited within her, and with each move she made, it only grew stronger. Over time, it could eventually consume her until she had no more compassion left.
Careful, everyone. Those of us that are smart will get to higher ground. Those of us that aren't, might just end up being the ones that get burned.