Author's Note: Well here is chapter two! Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to review! I hope you guys like this next chapter. If you catch any mistakes please let me know and I'd love to hear what you think so far! Oh, and by the way, apparently there is a villain in DC Comics named Roulette—which I wasn't aware of until a reviewer pointed it out—and I'd just like to clarify that Remy is not that Roulette. Sorry for any confusion that may have caused.
Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice.
Chapter Two: Welcome to the Party
"—and I told Todd he looks just like Matthew McConaughey except for, you know, the brown hair and green eyes. He's also not that muscular but—"
"Hey, Jenna." Remy stared straight ahead as they waited at the door.
"Yeah?" Jenna glanced over.
"Shut up."
"Fine, then I won't tell you all about Todd's cute friend Eric." Jenna let out a frustrated sigh and crossed her arms, probably thinking that her silence would somehow upset Remy.
As if, Remy scoffed internally. If anything, the fact that Jenna had finally shut up made Remy feel just slightly more relaxed. As they waited for someone to unlock the front door, Remy couldn't help but recall the shitty day she'd had.
Remy had dealt with Jenna's yammering all day and she hadn't complained once. She hadn't complained about the fact that Jenna had made Remy pay for lunch. She also hadn't complained about the fact that Jenna, upon entering Remy's car, sprayed an overpowering amount of perfume. All over the place. And of course she didn't complain when Jenna launched into the dramatic tale of how her cousin Meredith had come onto her recent paramour, Juan.
"I loved him, I really did," Jenna had burst out tearfully. "We were together for so long!" The Vietnamese woman doing Jenna's nails looked up at Remy in horror. Remy smiled grimly, hoping her expression passed for apologetic.
Nevertheless, Remy had turned to Jenna and made an attempt being sympathetic. "Two weeks. Such a shame."
"I know, God!" She cried, wiping the dripping mascara out from underneath her eyes. "That's what happens when you commit to someone! They just cheat and lie and—"
The other patrons were definitely looking at Jenna now. Upon seeing the manager of the nail salon start towards them, Remy quickly interrupted Jenna. "So. Tell me about Todd."
That had stopped the tears and Jenna had been more than happy to relate the story of how she and Todd met. Apparently Jenna was an expert on body language as well as human psychology, based on the type of assertions she was making.
"See Remy, I totally know he's the one since before we hooked up, he held my hand. And like kind of leaned over me, you know? That's body language for 'I'm totally into you.'"
Since then, Jenna hadn't shut up about Todd. By the time they had eaten lunch, gotten their nails done, gone shopping and then gotten on the road to the actual party, Remy knew Todd's entire life story. He moved here recently from Kentucky, attended Jump City Community College, and liked to smoke pot. He also had a dog name Chewy, wore boxer briefs, and hated playing Racquetball. It was all very pertinent information according to Jenna.
To say that Remy was sick of hearing about Todd was an understatement.
Remy considered Jenna's rants pointless and a complete waste of time. This party was entirely pointless, and Remy hated that she had agreed to this. Jenna glanced at Remy out of the corner of her eye as Remy fingered the pocket knife resting in the back of her jeans. The pounding music coming from behind Todd's front door was already getting on her nerves.
"You seriously brought that thing?" Jenna asked, disgusted.
Remy smiled grimly. "Never leave home without—"
The door swung open and Remy was greeted with the sweet stench of marijuana and booze. Throngs of people populated the front room, drinking and grinding up against each other as music blared out of a few very large speakers.
"Let's find Todd." Jenna wrapped her hand around Remy's wrist and tugged her into the crowd of people.
It would have been easy to break Jenna's hold on her wrist, but then again, what was the point? Remy had dug her own grave and enabled Jenna by agreeing to come.
The old expression about reaping what you sow flashed into Remy's mind briefly as the two girls pushed their way towards the kitchen. A random hand flashed out to grab at Jenna and Remy swatted it away, glaring at the guy. He simply shrugged and turned away, disappearing into the crowd as Jenna pulled Remy towards the beer keg.
"Get me a drink," Jenna ordered, her voice oddly assertive as she looked around the kitchen for Todd. "I'm goanna go look outside." Upon seeing Remy's flat expression, she put her hands up. "Brb, I promise!"
Remy nodded, not really caring whether or not Jenna was telling the truth. She was more or less irritated the Jenna thought she could boss Remy around. As Jenna snaked out through the back door, Remy went to the tap and filled up two of the red cups.
Cheers, she thought sardonically, taking a sip.
"If I said I want your body, would you hold it against me?" Erik laughed.
Remy stared at him, a flat expression on her face. "Did you really just ask me that?"
"I play the field and it looks like I just hit a home run with you." He grinned stupidly and Remy repressed the urge to strangle him. When he leaned closer, however, and his hands began to creep towards Remy's waist, she decided she didn't care about his health anymore.
"Oh you know what? I've got one for you!"
"Go for it, Rachel." Remy ignored the fact that he had been calling her Rachel all night. From the moment Jenna had introduced the two of them until now, it was an endless slew of cheesy pickup lines. Addressed to Rachel, not Remy.
"Did it hurt?" She asked.
He pointed at her cheesily and grinned. "When I fell from heaven? Oh yes."
"No, when you fell from the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down." Her frank expression as she sipped her beer was in total opposition to the look of horror on Erik's face. "Keep it in your pants asshole."
She set the now empty red cup on an end table and left a shocked Erik behind her. Remy felt Jenna's curious gaze wander towards her, but ignored it as she sauntered out the back door of Todd's house.
The night air was surprisingly chilly for a night in California, but it served as a cleanser for Remy's muddled thoughts. She was feeling slightly dizzy from the lack of air in Todd's living room and eagerly gulped in a few deep breaths. Of course, she had also been drinking beer all night—an attempt to drown out Jenna's chattiness and Erik's attempts at flirting—which didn't help much with clearing her head.
Stupid, Remy confirmed. She knew she had been stupid. Remy didn't drink and definitely should have. She didn't have the luxury of getting completely wasted at parties or staying out all hours dancing. Remy Vanderbilt was supposed to be concerned with far greater things. Things that meant something in the scheme of the world.
At least that's what she told herself as she slid down the back of Todd's fence until her butt hit the ground. She took out her phone and glanced at the time. It was already one-thirty in the morning. Remy sighed and pulled out her pocket knife, tossing it into the air and catching it repetitively.
Once, Remy would've wanted guys like Erik to pay attention to her. Once, she would have wanted a friend like Jenna, someone who was carefree and fun all the time. She might have even wanted to be like Jenna.
Remy stopped caught her knife and shoved it into her pocket, laughing out loud. Saying that she wanted to be like Jenna was entirely untrue. Jenna was unintelligent and easy, giving herself away to any guy who asked.
That wasn't Remy. Remy knew who she was and respected herself. She was imperfect, sure, but she didn't have a shitload of problems because of it. She knew that her nose was a little too turned up at the end, giving her a snotty appearance. She knew that her muddled hazel eyes were too close together and that her hairline was a tad too high. Remy was also aware of the fact that she wasn't exactly a sugar-sweet person.
Perhaps a nice personality would have offset the severe cheekbones and the dark circles under her eyes she had accrued from staying out all hours of the night. Maybe a sweet disposition would have offset the fact that she knew hew to kill a man with her bare hands. She mentally rolled her eyes, knowing deep in her gut that it wouldn't.
Remy decided she didn't care.
She stood up, dusting her jeans off. She was just putting her palm on the doorknob when her phone rang. Glancing down at the caller identification she felt at the familiar mixture of fear and adrenaline rush through her veins as she held the phone up to her ear.
"Hello?"
"I'm sending you the coordinates, Roulette. Be there in twenty minutes. You know the rules. Destroy the phone."
"Don't call me—" Click. Remy should've been used to this by now. The phone calls were always the same. A meeting place and a time limit, nothing more nothing less. Remy glanced down at her phone and saw that she was meeting her contact at the city park.
She pulled out her phone and sent a text to Jenna, letting her know that she was going for a walk before destroying the phone completely.
"Two minutes to spare. You have impeccable timing, Roulette." Her contact, Phase, chuckled from somewhere behind her in the bushes.
She had never actually seen his face or even the man himself—he was always hiding—but Remy could recognize the voice from a mile away. She shifted uncomfortably on the bench and calmed her shaking nerves by taking a deep breath.
"I told you not to call me Roulette," Remy snapped.
"Not quite feeling heroic anymore? What a shame," he tsked.
Remy stared straight ahead, resisting the urge to peel back the bushes and gut Phase from head to toe. "What is it now?"
"Close your eyes," he ordered. "I'm going to hand you the mission file."
Remy did as she was told, knowing full well that Phase would only make things more difficult for her if she didn't comply. She heard the bushes rustle slightly and felt a thick file folder slide onto the bench next to her.
"Everything you need to know about the target is in this file," Phase informed her.
"Another hit job?" Remy laughed blackly. "I'm beginning to see a pattern here Phase. Are the Shadows always this predictable?"
Remy felt a rock about the size of her fist pelt her in the back of the head. "Keep your voice down. It is a possibility that we are being watched."
Remy rubbed the back of her head and scowled off into the darkness of Jump City Regional Park. That was going to leave a mark. "Do you always make a habit of abusing the people you work with?"
"Give me one more reason to have you cancelled, Roulette," he warned, his voice taking on a harsher tone than normal.
Remy ran a hand through her hair, breathing out slowly. "I'm sick of doing these jobs Phase. This isn't what I wanted."
"Sure it is," Phase snorted. "You need money to save people. The Shadows saw potential in you. It's a win-win situation."
"I will never join the League of Shadows," Remy said, her voice low. "I am an indep—"
"An independent contractor. I know," Phase said disgusted. "But trust me, the Shadows won't give up so easily. Tell me, Roulette—"
Remy clenched her fists. "I told you to stop calling me that."
"—where would you be without us? You may not admit it, but before we took you under our wing, you were an amateur. Would you be able to do any good without our funding? Think about that."
"I just wanted to help people," she said quietly, hating how weak her voice sounded. She cleared her throat and took on a more assertive tone. "You said that this wouldn't interfere with my ambitions."
"You do good work for the Shadows," Phase chuckled and she could almost hear the smirk in his voice. "You're one of the most talented killers I've ever had the pleasure of meeting."
"I'm not a murderer," Remy insisted, a statement directed more towards herself rather than Phase. "I'm not."
"Don't be naïve. You were born this way, just like so many before you. It's in your blood."
Remy felt her temperature rising and she stood up. "I'm going to help people someday, Phase and when I'm able, I swear on pain of death that I will gut you."
He laughed as if her words were just so funny. "Thank you for making my point for me." Remy's face stung and she clutched the folder to her chest, trying to get a look at Phase through the bushes. "Face it Remy Vanderbilt, you're no hero."
"This meeting is over," she announced, standing up. "You can go back to stalking me from afar now, asshole."
Phase snorted and Remy heard the bushes rustle. "Be careful what you wish for Roulette."
Remy pushed open the door to her apartment, tiredly rubbing her eyes. Outside, the sky was already beginning to show the lightest hue of pink. At least it's Sunday, Remy consoled herself.
After her meeting with Phase, Remy had returned to the party to take Jenna home, only to find out that Jenna had left with Todd's friend Erik. A dejected Todd had tearfully confessed to Remy that Erik was a total sex god and that it was no wonder all of his girlfriends skipped out on him for Erik. Remy quickly extracted herself from that situation and thanked Todd for throwing the party, not really meaning it.
With nothing left to do, she had grabbed her keys and driven to the midtown Arbors—Jenna's apartment complex—to take a peek at her Dad's case files. Jenna's father was visiting her grandparents in Steel City after all and Jenna was probably still with Erik.
Clearly, having a friend as unintelligent as Jenna had its advantages, since Jenna had been more than happy to provide Remy with the passcode to turn off their security system. Remy had gotten into the apartment without any real problems and had been able to filch through a few files. She'd checked up on a few cold case murders that had never been solved and made copies for her own records. It had then been a simple matter of picking the lock on Sheriff Clark's bottom desk drawer where she was able to glance at his most recent cases, deciding that she could help speed things along for the brave boys in blue.
Roulette wasn't slowed down by bureaucracy. She could deliver justice more swiftly and well, more justly.
But now, as she slid her car keys onto the kitchen island and kicked off her sneakers, Remy didn't feel so certain. The conversation with Phase had left a sour taste in her mouth and she secretly wondered if he was right. The cases she had purchased from Travis still sat near the living room window sill.
Remy had been purchasing military grade weapons for quite some time now. It was almost, well, a habit to reach for her real gun first instead of her tranq darts. Remy shook her head, deciding that her recent bout of reflectiveness was due to the mixture of pot smoke and alcohol running through her blood, not the sudden appearance of an over-zealous conscience.
She picked up the cases and carried them into the bedroom where she slid them underneath the bed. Feeling too tired to turn on the lights, she felt around for the familiar drop off in the center of the floor. She pushed the cases in and they landed with a thud.
Satisfied, Remy got off the floor and opened her middle dresser drawer where she kept her extra cell phones. She activated a new one and reset the time to match her bedside clock. Three-thirty seven, the clock now read. Remy had basically another two hours before she had to be up and dressed, ready for work.
No point in going to sleep now, she decided, trading out her party clothes for her yoga pants and stretchy halter.
As she finished pulling on her top, the sound of a window creaking and a resounding thud reached her ears. With her heart in her throat, she sprinted out of her bedroom and into the kitchen.
Lying on the kitchen table, bound and gagged was a man dressed in black. She didn't recognize the face, but the rare blue flower pinned to his shirt—a flower that Remy knew grew only in the mountains of Tibet—gave his identity away.
Phase—the only active League of Shadows member in California—was lying bound and gagged on her kitchen table.
Her shock was the only thing preventing her from noticing the silent presence stepping up behind her. She felt the cool metal of a knife slide along the front of her throat.
"Don't move."