Three Strikes and You're Out!
Jade was walking around, patrolling the hallways. She could've just used the computer in her room, but she felt a need to stumble across two people and physically yell at them.
Continuing down the length of the hallway, she cursed Blake van Buren for the tenth time since the party had been moved to her house. It was just like him to invite hundreds of drunken teenagers to throw up in her house and have sex in the bedrooms.
Then, when her father came home, she would be blamed again and Blake van Buren was going to get away scot free. Like always.
She had a feeling this was his way of getting back at her for earlier.
Sighing, she kept walking. Downstairs, she could hear the pulsing beat of some dance song that had come straight out of somebody's iPod. Trying to tune everything out, she continued past the doors, pausing over each other to put her ear to the door. If anybody was going to grope each other in one her family bedrooms, it was going to stop right now.
Pushing her ear against the third door down the hallway, she heard distinct moaning sounds from inside.
Finally.
Turning the handle in her hand, she found that it wasn't even locked.
She stormed in, ready to give whoever was in there a verbal bashing while delivering threats to their physical health. Instead, all she found was Blake van Buren. Making out on the bed with a beach blond girl that slightly resembled Arielle from the back.
Red dots appeared in her line of vision, coloring her sight. He had certainly gotten over himself fast enough.
Incensed, Jade watched as the two of them tried to eat each other's faces, and scoffed with obvious disgust. Hearing the noise, the two broke away from each other.
Blake looked up, caught Jade's murderous look, and shrugged noncommittally.
"Ignore her," he advised the blond girl, and grabbed her face so that he could resume swallowing her face.
Noting that the room belonged to Blake, giving him full right to do whatever the hell he wanted to in it, she made a mental note of the girl and backed out of the room, slamming the door. She could've made a bigger fuss by demanding the girl leave Lewallen Estate, but that would only make it seem like she cared.
So she stayed silent, and patrolled the hallways, even more furious than before.
~*~
Blake van Buren was in his room, making out with Trisha Fields. Here, at least, was a girl who didn't make him question everything. She was here because she wanted to be here, and not because there was some kind of hidden agenda. Plus, she was wasn't too bad to look at, either.
When his bedroom door opened in the midst of their session, he opened his eyes, and –to his surprise--saw Jade standing there. It was as if he'd conjured her up somehow. Then, purposely shrugging to show her how easy it had been to replace her, he pulled Trisha to him and resumed kissing her.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard a door slam.
~*~
Arielle had never been so furious in her whole entire life. When she'd broken her pinkie climbing a fence on another one of Jade's great revenge schemes, she didn't think she had been this angry. Even when Jade had verbally embarrassed her in front of the rest of the group countless of times, she'd only harbored a silent grudge, and she always forgave Jade the next day.
But this time it had gone too far.
Not only had Jade stole her cell phone for her own nefarious purposes, but she'd also blatantly betrayed Arielle.
At first, when she'd received Blake's text message, she'd been confused. Then, she had scrolled down and seen the message that'd been sent from her phone earlier, and it had all became painfully clear to her.
Her cell phone had obviously been hacked by someone. Besides Jade, hardly anybody knew the password to unlock her code. Plus, Jade was the one who'd returned Arielle's phone under the guise that Arielle had left it back in the room. She could've easily used it, and then sneaked it back.
But that's where the comprehension stopped. Jade had made it clear to Arielle that she hated Blake van Buren, so unless she wanted to destroy him, Arielle couldn't imagine what she could possibly want with him.
So, Arielle, interest piqued, had decided to find out for herself. When she arrived, she found that the keys entrusted to her and Jade by Mark was missing the key to Room 1209. So, she grabbed the key to Room 1208, the one that adjoined Room 1209, and had barely cracked the door open when she'd been faced with a revolting sight.
Two sets of tangled limbs were locked together on the room's bed. It seemed like the two people were in the middle of feeling each other up, as the girls' hand slid over the guy's length. Arielle had immediately recognized the one on top as Jade, and another peek had confirmed that the one on the bottom was none other than Blake van Buren.
Shocked and horrified, Arielle had immediately slammed the door shut, not even bothering to be quiet about it. She doubted the two of them heard it over those wild moaning sounds they were making, anyway.
At first, she'd sat in Room 1208, shuddering over the images that were now burned into the back of her brain. Once the initial shock had worn off though, it had slowly morphed into rage.
It wasn't even so much that Jade was carrying on something with Blake. It was the fact that it was a betrayal to Arielle's trust. She told Jade nearly everything because she wanted to be close to her sister. In fact, the only thing that she hadn't been entirely truthful to Jade about was the subject of their mother. And she'd only kept it secret because Mark told her that reminding Jade would cause her to go into post-traumatic stress, and Arielle hadn't wanted that to happen to her sister.
But, apparently, Jade didn't have the same sisterly sentiments as she did. Even her breakup with Duke had only been revealed to her twenty four hours after it'd happened. So, Jade really didn't even put Arielle as her priority in these things.
And that's what hurt the most. That after Arielle had considered Jade to be her closest confidante, Jade had treated her as nothing more than another one of her minions to command. That to Jade, Arielle was one the same level as the rest of them. That Arielle, too, was just as worthless.
Well, not anymore. Arielle had been pushed and pushed, and now she was through.
Mind focused on finding her sister, she finally found Jade pacing the hallways. Arielle strode up to her angrily. "Jade Lewallen, you are a filthy hypocrite," Arielle gritted spitefully in a voice that she could hardly believe was her own.
"What are you on?" Jade sneered back, caught in a towering temper at the moment. She didn't want to deal with this shit right now.
"I certainly wasn't on anything when I saw you draped half-naked over Blake," Arielle shot back, and she saw a tiny flicker of surprise and apprehension in Jade's eyes. And then, it was gone again.
"Don't talk about things you know nothing about," Jade told her, attempting to push past Arielle.
"That's just it!" Arielle shouted, feeling the beginning of tears prickling her eyes so that the cold air made it sting. "I know nothing, because you don't tell me anything. It's like you treat me as your slave rather than your sister."
"Oh, you're a fine one to talk, Arielle Lewallen," Jade whirled on her twin. "You blame me for keeping secrets, and yet you're the one who never breathed a word about our mother. If that's not hypocritical coming from you, I don't know what is."
Arielle gnashed her teeth together angrily. "I only did that because I didn't want to send you back into a coma. Do you think I like not being able to talk about our mother? Because, you can go on day to day without even realizing what you're missing, but I can't. You're not the victim here, so stop playing the role of a martyr."
Jade turned her nose in the air that had a way of making Arielle feel small. "Well, it seems like your concern is wasted. I'm about to find out ever dirty, little thing, regardless if you want me to or not." Jade said with a stormy expression spread across her face.
"Well, I certainly won't be wasting any more of my energy on you," Arielle told Jade coldly, feeling fueled by the power rush. It felt good to finally lash out after years of keeping it all bottled up. "And if you can't start treating people right, then nobody else will either."
"Do be careful about the insults you throw at me right now. People who have done so in the past have a nasty habit of regretting it." Jade told Arielle hatefully, as if she couldn't believe her authority was being challenged this way.
"Then think of my words as advice. Or haven't you noticed that your followers are dwindling? Ryder hates you. Duke isn't with you anymore. West is Duke's friend more than yours, so he'll probably be supporting him. Winter is hardly around anymore. And me? I've just about had it with you. So, now tell me. Where exactly is your infamous army?" Arielle asked quietly in a ominous tone that belied her angelic face.
Jade straightened up haughtily. "Don't forget who runs things around here, Arielle," Jade all but scoffed at Arielle's words. "I can rebuild everything just as easily the second time."
"Then, I hope you find somebody who will take your crap. Because I'm not going to anymore. Not now, and not ever again." Arielle finished, in that same quiet tone she'd used before.
Then, for the first time in her life, Arielle turned her back against her sister and walked away.
~*~
Duke Lawson had almost managed to forget about his ex-girlfriend. Almost. As he let exotically beautiful Freesia Goldberg grind herself and her chocolate-colored skin against him, he could almost close his eyes and not see Jade.
Jade. Duke sighed. Viciously cold and beautiful Jade Lewallen. Jade Lewallen, who'd callously broken his heart without a second thought. He'd curtailed everything to make her happy, and in the end, it hadn't been good enough for her.
He could still remember the way she had looked when she'd made it clear that they were over: cruelly detached, as if ending a two-year-long relationship had been just another job on her daily itinerary.
And even after that, he still missed her.
Yes, she'd been malicious and conniving. But she was also one of a kind. After having been with her, every other girl in the room paled considerably in character. None of them had the same ruthless ambition, the same drive that had at first seemed so attractive.
Groaning, Duke left the dance floor and flopped onto an unoccupied stool, next to West.
West sympathetically passed Duke a drink and Duke gulped it in relief.
West really was such a good friend. He'd driven both of them here carefully, knowing that Duke was in no mood to focus on anything but his troubles. And even though he'd been just as drunk, West had taken his time to drive slowly, offering to make Jade pay the entire way. If that wasn't the mark of a true man, Duke didn't know what was.
"Thanks," Duke mumbled and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Time to see how long it would be before he thought about her again.
~*~
Jade tore through her house murderously. She couldn't believe that Arielle had the gall to say things like that to her face. Granted, Jade could've handled the situation a little better, but after seeing Blake in lip-lock with another girl, all she'd wanted to do was to tear something apart limb by limb.
And it seemed that not only had she not managed to do so, she'd just lost her one constant source of support, all in one stroke. Brilliant.
Well, she'd just have to work extra hard now to prove Arielle wrong. There was a social order that had been firmly established, and it was going to take a lot more to crumble it than lack of support.
If Jade had learned anything, it was that people were dispensable. Friends were allies, and enemies were meant to be obliterated before they tried to overtake you. And as much as it would hurt Jade, Arielle was becoming a problem. And if what she'd said was true, then the alliances really were changing.
Jade would just have to make sure that she was on the winning side. And if that meant that Arielle would end up at the bottom, then Jade would just have to get over it. She'd learned long ago that the only person she would ever invest in was herself. And tonight had just proven her right.
And now that Arielle had made it clear that she knew something Jade didn't, she was just going to have to find out the information for herself. And when she did, everyone that'd tried to keep Astoria a secret from Jade would invariably be sorry.
"Go screw each other's fat asses off somewhere else," Jade snapped, when she caught Caitlin Lambert and Pasco Denison going at it outside her father's study. The sight of them enjoying the night when Jade couldn't, only made her angrier. "You have exactly three seconds before my patience runs out. If I still see you by the count of three, I can guarantee that both your social lives will cease to exist come Monday morning."
The two looked at each other unsurely.
"One," Jade threatened.
That was all it took. The two of them had grabbed their clothes and bolted off like rabbits in wildfire. Once she was sure they were gone, Jade let herself into her father's study and shut the door behind her firmly. She could still hear the music playing over the entire first floor, but at least there were no sounds outside the door.
It was a tiny consolation to know that she could still exercise her power like that.
And now, Jade thought as she slowly walked over to Mark's desk, she would finally get the answers she was looking for. She'd tried to give her father the privacy she'd thought he deserved, but he'd clearly abused that privilege. And now, Jade was going to take it back. Her father may think that he controlled things, but he had no idea how lenient Jade had been with him. She was the one true leader, and she was tired of having to pretend otherwise.
She yanked open the first drawer like it'd personally offended her, looked at it, and promptly jammed it shut again when it revealed nothing but office supplies. Opening every drawer, Jade quickly closed the ones that held records of his past cases. She didn't need those.
Sienna-- who had ended up not showing up to the reception party after all, claiming that she'd gotten everything she needed after dinner—had implied something about a contract between her parents and Mark. If that was true, it at least gave Jade a starting point.
Thanking the heavens above for inventing organization, Jade quickly thumbed through the files. She doubted it would be in here, if Mark truly anal about maintaining his secret. To her surprise, however, it fell neatly in a folder labeled "Year 2002". It was fairly vague, and Jade quickly extracted the folder out of its spot. Mark must not have taken his teenage daughter into consideration when he'd hid this document.
She scanned the first page of the thick file, frowning. It seemed weird, but nothing groundbreaking. Nothing in it actually painted Mark as the villain that Sienna had told her about. Basically, in a situation that was similar to Terry Shivo's, it stated that in return for not taking Astoria off of life support, Mark would be granted a total sum of ten million dollars. As part of the bargain, Arielle would be allowed to visit once a year, but Jade would not, under any circumstances, be told that she had relatives on her mother's side.
Stupid document knew as much as Jade. And she'd been counting on it to give her all the answers.
Jade threw the letter back onto the table in disgust and sank into her father's chair, feeling as if this whole endeavor had been completely useless. She'd expected to have a breakthrough, but instead, it'd just confirmed that her father was a lying bastard, something that she already knew.
Then, something caught her eye. She picked up the letter again, looking at her grandparents' flourish of a signature. Letting her eyes travel, she examined the tiny, printed letters below the signature line. George and Adele Solemnity.
Jade looked down at the document with furrowed eyebrows. Where had she heard the name Solemnity before? Jade mentally flipped through her mental memory bank. Solemnity, Solemnity, Solemnity…
She looked up as her memory bank hit a spot, and her eyes narrowed. No. It couldn't be. Solemnity. As in Kate Solemnity?
Jade pursed her lips, putting the thick manila folder back into its place in the drawer. There was no way the two were related. After all, she was sure there were thousands of people with the same last name.
Besides, her aunt was Sienna Robespierre, Jade thought triumphantly, only for her spirits to sink after she realized that Robespierre could very well be the surname of Sienna's husband, if she was married.
Jade pursed her lips tightly and gave the article a displeased look. How was this even possible? Sienna and Astoria were the only children of the Solemnities, so there was no way in hell this could be true…
Shit. Sienna's words came flooding back to her. What was the name again?
James.
The unfavored son, who had done something to get himself disowned. Jade had even asked about him during their little hotel rendezvous, but Sienna had brushed over that part, saying that it wasn't important, and Jade had forgotten about it soon enough in light of the other, more relevant revelations.
But one more thing just didn't add up. Kate Solemnity had gone to Beverly Hills Champion High School her freshmen year, and Arielle had been visiting their grandparents for six years. There was no way her sister hadn't made the connection. So, either Arielle was as stupider than Jade had thought, or there was something else that Jade didn't know about.
Great. More things Jade didn't know about.
Standing up unsteadily, Jade barely felt her movements, as her mind tried to wrap itself around this new development. There was simply no way that a someone like Kate—she'd been committed to an asylum for psychos, for goodness sake—could be related to Jade Lewallen. Things like that simply didn't happen to upstanding citizens like herself.
In fact, her mind was so busy trying to come up with valid excuses that it barely registered the ringing of her cell phone until it was almost too late.
Snatching her phone out of her clutch, Jade promptly answered it on the last ring. "Hello," Jade barked into the phone, without even bothering to check to see if it was a telemarketer, a first for her.
"Hello, Jade. I know this is somewhat late, but you did ask me to get this to you as soon as possible. It's not much, I'm telling you right now," Robert Haussler's voice came through the line, and there was the distinct sound of papers shuffling together. Jade's mind began to return back to normal, when she heard him speak. She'd almost forgotten that she'd hired the private detective earlier in the week to investigate Hannah, Blake, and Chase van Buren.
Well, those were about to take a back seat.
"Send me everything. Direct it to my private mailbox," Jade said crisply, sinking back into her father's leather chair, and spinning it around so that she wouldn't be looking at the door.
"Now, about my fee," Robert drawled over on his end, and Jade could almost hear the greediness in his voice. Nice to know that some things still remained the same around here.
"Your fee will be determined once I have examined your work," Jade replied shortly, not willing to pay without first examining the merchandise. Besides, he had said something about not finding much. She certainly wasn't going to hand over an exorbitant amount of money just to read about the boring lives of the van Burens. "Meanwhile, I have another assignment for you." She examined her nails closely, to see if her psychological tornado had done anything to it.
"But—" Robert began, and Jade could bet her left arm that he was about to whine and bitch about how he wasn't getting his proper due.
Well, Jade was fed up. Her night had been going down steadily, and she wasn't going to take anyone's crap. He was just going have to suck it up.
"Robert, I can easily take this somewhere else…" Jade said in a cold, menacing voice, letting the threat hang in the air. If he'd thought that he was something special because his mommy had told him so, she was about to put things into proper perspective for him and his over-swelled ego.
There was a short pause on the line as Robert picked up on her tone. And then, he gave a slightly audible grumble. "How may I help you? Who is it that you need this time?" Robert asked in a dejected voice, having realized that now was not a good time to challenge his employer. Who was in charge here had just been spelled out painfully clear to him.
"Me. I want you to investigate me." Jade let a devastating smile light her face up. It was so simple, yet she would never have thought of it if Robert hadn't called. Maybe he had been good for something, after all.
"You?" Robert choked over the telephone line, and Jade ground her fist into the chair arm at his dimwittedness. She really didn't think it had been that hard to understand what she'd said. Jade certainly hoped that he demonstrated a higher level of intelligence when handling her assignments.
"Yes, me. Jade Lewallen. I want you to find out everything you can about my family history. Grandparents, Uncles, Cousins, who I'm related to, family secrets. I want to know it all." Jade said. "Compile an analysis on my father too, on second thought. I want every single one of his little secrets laid out for me. It's time he learned a lesson." Jade specified clearly. She didn't need Robert to ruin the most important job she'd given him up to date.
"You shall have it as soon as I can get it," Robert promised, and Jade disconnected the line when she heard that.
Soon enough, she'd know everything there was to know about this messed up family. And when she did, it wasn't going to be pretty.
~*~
Winter felt completely at home, here on Lewallen grounds. Here, propped up on the couch, it felt nice to be relaxing on a weekend. She had almost fallen asleep after an exhausting night of alcohol and partying when she heard the music stop and a commotion start up all around her.
~*~
Ryder heard loud screams coming from downstairs before he saw the hordes of panicked teenagers. Immediately abandoning his post by the all-seeing video cameras, he opened the door, and rushed downstairs to see what all the fuss was about. After all, if there was a fire, he wanted to know about it.
"What is this all about?" He grabbed the nearest boy running by, who gasped as Ryder's arm tugged at his.
"The cops are here!" he yelled in a great distress, before wrenching his arm free and sprinting away to try to find an exit.
Ryder looked around, and couldn't blame the boy. There were beers and drugs and topless, passed out girls lying about everywhere. If this scene didn't scream teen out-of-control party, he didn't know what did. Everywhere around him, people were running about, trying to find a way out.
Unfortunately for everyone, he'd been here often enough to know that the Lewallen mansion spanned over a thousand square feet based on its first floor alone. The whole place was a maze, and in all the commotion, nobody could find the exit, which only upped the panic.
Even worse, Ryder did know where the back exit was. And it was located all the way at the other end of the house.
They were so fucked.
"Open up!" a voice bellowed from the front door, pounding the door incessantly. "This is the Los Angeles Police Department! If we have to break down this door, everybody is going to be in a lot more trouble!"
The pandemonium and panic level only increased at his words.
"Open the door before they start shooting!" an idiot screamed, not realizing in his drunken stupor that it was illegal for the police to shoot innocent bystanders, no matter how much alcohol they had in their systems.
"Everybody calm down," Duke shouted in the crowd, parting the masses like Moses and the Red Sea. "I can handle this." Duke strode resolutely up to the front door, his instant leadership instincts taking over, even while he was inebriated.
Some people in the crowd started crying when they realized what Duke was about to do.
"My daddy's going to kill me," a girl whimpered loudly from behind, as people tried to hide everything they could. Bottles were stuffed under the couches, and drugs were shoved into drawers. It was almost like a figment of a nightmare, as everybody watched Duke walk resolutely up to the front door and open it.
Two police officers stood outside the doorway, hands resting on holsters. They stepped into the foyer, and immediately knew what was going on.
"We need to talk to Mr. Lewallen and Mrs. van Buren," the first, taller officer spoke up, disgust evident in his tone. Even though all of them had tried valiantly to hide evidences of the party, there was only so much that could be shoved away in two minutes.
Ryder figured that the sight of a girl's bottom half sticking out under a couch was a pretty good clue of what had just been going on ten minutes ago.
"They're not available at the moment," Duke said almost calmly, as if he were a bored secretary taking calls for his boss.
"Then, we'd like to talk to whoever's responsible around here," the second officer said in a nasally voice that sounded like he had the flu.
A murmur went through the crowd when they heard his words. Within minutes, a general consensus had been reached and Jade Lewallen had been declared the winner. "Get Jade. She'll know what to do," people told each other, temporarily happy that the blame was going to fall square on someone else's shoulders. Someone ran off to find the missing person, while the others tried to slink away slowly.
When Jade Lewallen's trademark dark brown hair appeared, the crowd parted for the second time in five minutes, letting Jade through as she walked right up to the police officers. Confidence and command was in her every step, as she walked firmly, with her head held high. If the background were different, it would've looked like Jade was stepping forward to give a speech at the graduatin ceremony.
"I'm Jade Lewallen," she told the two in her cold, business-like voice to the taller officer. "And I would appreciate it if you told me what the two of you are doing in my house."
The officers, clearly recognizing that Jade Lewallen wasn't fazed as easily and was the one in charge, dialed their tone down to mere irritation. "We're here to see Mr. Lewallen and Mrs. van Buren."
"And what makes you think that I would tell you where they are?" Jade inquired coolly, not willing to betray the hope of all the teens in the room so easily, even if they deserved it.
"Look, Ms. Lewallen," the portly officer stepped up with a formidable expression on his own portly face. "We're just trying to do our job. We all know what has been going on in here, and frankly we don't have time for your bravery. Now, tell us. Where are they?"
Jade took a look behind her, and the public pleaded with her not to tell. Not only would they get in trouble for underage drinking and drug usage, but they'd also have to explain why their parents were stoned.
Jade turned back. She wasn't stupid enough to know that disrespecting a direct order like that would only lead to trouble. "They're at the Beverly Hills Hotel, first floor." She said, ignoring the cries of protests behind her.
They were all going to die. What would the world say when they found out that the sons and daughters of politicians, lawyers, doctors, and businessmen were out conducting themselves in such a manner?
"Thank you Ms. Lewallen," the smaller officer told her curtly while his taller colleague picked up his walkie-talkie and radioed his fellow officer.
"Officer Jenkins? Officer Greenhill on line here. Mr. Lewallen and Mrs. van Buren at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Contact them now and ask them to come to the Los Angeles State Hospital immediately. Mrs. van Buren's daughter was just involved in a car accident, and we need her to identify the body."