Okay, so there is a HUGE reason why I updated early. Are you ready?
I have read The Mark of Athena.
And if you, my dear The Start of Pain reader, haven't heard of The Mark of Athena and/or The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and/or The Heroes of Olympus, this is my advice: Go to the nearest freaking bookstore right now and buy them. ASAFreakingP.
Anyways, for five straight hours I've been in Mr Rick the most awesome author Riordan's world and when I came back to reality all I could think was:
BEST EIGHT POUNDS I HAVE EVER SPENT.
And then, I realized that I have to wait another year (or less than) for the next book to come. Another thought crossed my mind:
LET ME HIBERNATE, LET ME HIBERNATE UNTIL THE NEXT BOOK COMES.
*lets out a long, slow breath to calm herself down* I am so sorry for the amazing fan-girl moment, but you see, Rick Riordan is the reason why I'm on the 39 Clues archive in the first place. If he hadn't written the first book, The Maze of Bones, I wouldn't even dare buy the thin, hardbound book which had a rather high pricing for my liking. So yeah. He's my role model and reading a book of his inspires me to write.
That was another fangirl rant, wasn't it?
Before I could say more about my obsession with Rick Riordan's epic writing, I will now thank my awesome reviewers. Seriously, guys. TEN freaking reviews in less than a week?! All of you never cease to amaze me and fill my heart with lots of love and all that mushy stuff. Honestly. Thank you, beachbum999 (here it is XD), addicted2reading9 (have you freaking read it?! Oh my freaking gods!), Shimmering Icicles (I hope I'll get to explain everything by the end. And by the end, I mean the next chapter. Haha. Oh gods, that sounded like the ending of the story will be in the next chapter. Excuse my ADHD), magicdemi-god223 (Ohohoho. The next chapter shall explain. Hopefully.), emmelinekat (you made me cry! Waah! I can't believe that I'm actually successful in showing the characters – especially the OCs – the way I wanted them to be. Thank you so much! I know, right? Why can't quadratic equations factorise themselves if it was so important?!), ILuvHamiltonHolt (I know! Have you freaking read it?!) clara0414 (oh my gods! I missed that much? Thank you for pointing all of those out. Seriously. What would I do without you? XD Ugh, tenses. It's always the tenses, huh? And I am a hardcore Hamilton/Sinead shipper. I just want Hamilton to have a little bit of competition. LOL. Thank you for the luck!) and NatalieKFan (here it is XD).
Nearly a whole page on Word for just the AN?! What is wrong with me?
On with chapter. Enjoy 'cause that's what matters most.
oooooOooooo
Chapter 12
"This is it," Sinead declared. She gestured at the closed door with a black square on its side. Written on plain white font on the dark square is the room number: 203. "This was Uncle Alistair's room."
Amy frowned at the normal-looking door. "All or nothing, then," she heaved the surprisingly heavy door open. It groaned under the force and as it swung wide enough for each of them to sneak inside, they saw what was making it heavy. Somebody had done a fairly poor job of barring the door with scrap metal rods a half-inch thick and a feet long, crisscrossing from top to bottom. They were hastily taped with a heavy duty, black tape and the groaning sound from awhile ago was from some of these rods rubbing against each other and on the wall.
"Well, that was useless," Evan noted drily, looking at the metal rods with disdain.
Jake ran his hand over one. "Either they don't think anybody would dare break in or they just simply couldn't care less," he said.
"Let's get to work, people. Chop, chop," Sinead ordered, caring less about the idiocy of the people who supposed to keep the room locked and clapping her hands together. "Up march!" With that, she and Amy went to work, and tried to heave the surprisingly heavy mattress up. There were groans and grunts from their end.
"Sounds like something a Holt would say," Evan confided to Jake.
Jake sniffed. "I wonder why that is," he drawled sarcastically. Evan raised his eyebrows at this comment. Jake shrugged. "Holt's already ten steps ahead of me. Who would've thought?" he explained with a tone of disbelief. He looked at Evan like the latter had better cards than his. "Be thankful Kabra's not so quick."
Evan yawned and stretched his arms over his head before sauntering over to the girls. Before he could walk another step however, he told Jake, "I wouldn't say he's not. He moves slow, but digs deep." Then, he pushed his sleeves up his arms and went over to help heave the mattress up.
Jake rolled his eyes because of the strange wording and the useless help Evan's offering.
xxxOOOxxx
The Russian security of The Hospital turned out to be multi-lingual. They've been shouting obscenities at Victoria in Russian, German, Mandarin and of course, English. The words they used are hugely in contrast with their neat uniforms.
And all that are getting on Victoria's nerves.
She could kill them now in less than five seconds from where she stood amongst the shadows. There were nine of them in the room and completely brainless. You should never lock the room where you suspect the infiltrator is hiding. That's exactly what these morons did. Obviously, these nincompoops are underestimating her. She smirked, flicking her wrist and then three, thin, menacingly sharp blades with wooden, cylindrical handles (almost like ice picks) slid down. She winced almost imperceptibly and cursed violently in her head when she remembered that one of the security crossbows on one of the entrances barely missed her arm. Victoria just hoped that those filthy Cahills know a good opportunity when they see one. Otherwise, her minute shedding of blood gains no advantage.
"Are you sure she went in here?" one of the idiots growled.
The other one must have nodded.
"You'd better be. Or else," the first guy threatened.
Victoria could hear the second guy swallow nervously. She rolled her eyes and shook her head sadly. So sad, she thought as she stealthily moved along the shadows. Wasting human resources this way. She's now a breath away from three of the guards. Without a moment's hesitation, she plunged one of her ice pick-like weapons on each of their jugular. No screams – which is the mode of killing she specializes in – and just as their bodies fell on the floor with a thud, the other six followed their friends to the grave.
Soundless. Almost painless.
Merciless.
Victoria looked down at her masterpiece. Nine, full-grown men at her feet, eyes wide open but not seeing anything. Dead as a doornail. The skills of a murderer. But the Vespers had a prettier name. Assassins. They were assassins. Trained.
She slammed against the wall, suddenly feeling another wave of memories flood her.
"I am so excited!" Alex exclaimed, bouncing up and down. I tried to catch his hand because Mrs. Kudryashov said we're supposed to be with our partners, so that we won't get lost. "I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so excited!" He keeps on squealing and squealing and jumping up and down.
"Alex, you're s'posed to hold my hand!" I complained, stomping my foot on the ground as hard as I could.
Alex looked at me. "Oopsies. Sorry, Vicky!" He quickly took my hand and began swinging our entwined fingers forwards and backwards. "I'm just really excited. We're gonna see a play! Aren't you excited?"
I nodded, smiling widely because Alex was smiling his really big smile. He really, really likes seeing plays, almost as much as I want chocolate-covered nougats. "Yep. Do you know that we're seeing that one about the mo..."
I can see Alex nodding enthusiastically at whatever I said, his lips moving into an eager response.
The white-hot searing pain erupted from where the dart had hit her earlier when she opened the door. She doubled over in pain and as spots filled her vision, she saw one of the guards she believed was dead, smirking his last at her. Was she losing her touch? How was he alive? She didn't know whether that thought was alarming, or comforting. Victoria felt a strong wave nausea as she saw a gaping hole in her upper arm, right where the dart hit home. She tried to swallow what she thought was bile. Blood gushed out of her wound and mouth.
They both fell into the deep abyss of unconsciousness; one, destined to never wake up again.
xxxOOOxxx
Natalie Kabra looked up from what this boy calls a taiyaki. It's bread shaped like a fish – she remembers that animal; funny, swimming, wriggling creatures – with warm chocolate inside. She remembers that sweet and brown thing, too. She remembers eating a huge Cadbury bar, waddling with her chubby toddler legs while trying to catch up with the lady in the red dress and very high heels, She knows that's Isabel, her mom. She remembers that annoyed grunt from her older brother because she keeps on getting the sweet, brown thing around her mouth and he says it's very poor people-ish.
The problem is... Who is her brother?
Dan is finishing his third taiyaki when he caught Natalie's worried and slightly troubled expression. Her lips are pursed tightly to the side and her eyebrows just as tightly scrunched. "What's wrong with you? That's clean, ya know?" Natalie might have lost her memory, but seriously, she's as much a clean-freak as before.
Natalie flinched from his voice. Which, at first, Dan thought was hilarious because no way in Olivia's name is the old Natalie Kabra gonna flinch over something as petty as somebody's voice. She might have shot him dead, but no flinching.
"Look, Nat –" Dan waited for the huge smack on the head even though he knows it won't come from this version of Natalie. "We really need to get going in about five minutes because your brother – the one with the black hair, not the brown hair 'cause that last one is the devil's spawn – will kill me if we're one second late."
"Why would he kill you?" Natalie breathed the word as if it was poison in her tongue.
Dan rolled his eyes exasperatedly. "It's an expression," he said drily. He waved his hand dismissively. "Just finish your snack, 'kay?"
Natalie gave her taiyaki a small nibble. "And you are?" she asked.
"I thought we already went over this," Dan said exasperatedly. He rolled his eyes to the sky. "I'm Dan Cahill. I'm a Madrigal while you're a –"
"I know that," Natalie insisted. Dan waited for the superior flipping of hair. Nothing. "You're my what?"she cleared.
Dan choked on his can of soda, spurting the fizzy stuff out of his mouth like fireworks. "Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" he exclaimed, waving his hands wildly in front of him. Natalie backed away from him, looking even more afraid with his actions. "Whoa! Let's get one more important thing straight around here. I am not yours, okay?" He shuddered violently at the thought. "Ugh, that sounded downright gross."
Natalie blushed – which again, should never have happened – at the huge misunderstanding. "But, th-that's not what I-I meant..." she protested weakly, tears forming in her eyes.
Dan slammed his face in his palms. "Oh, gods. Stop that. Just don't. Ian Cobra will kill me if I so much as glared at you." Natalie sniffled sadly in response.
This was going to be a long day.
And Dan's only thinking of the five-minute train ride to Tokyo.
xxxOOOxxx
Ian's foot won't stop tapping the floor and frankly, it was getting increasingly annoying. Hamilton counted a total of eighty-six taps on his right before he changed to his left. Hamilton is this close to hitting the back of Ian's head. Hard. Jonah breathed a huge sigh of impatience. Why does the time seem to be longer when you're waiting for something? He could have sworn only two minutes has passed, but it feels as though a good hour has gone.
"There they are!"
Jonah, Hamilton and Ian snapped up to that all-too-familiar, obnoxious yelling and followed the sound of it. Ian tore through the throngs of crowd around the Tokyo Tower. There! Dirty blonde hair. Ian hastily pushed against people and shoved. They found Dan as he pushed his way against people, too, mumbling 'sorry's and 'excuse me's as he went past them and towing Natalie with him. And when we say, towing, we mean literally towing.
As in hand-in-hand contact.
Ian stooped short.
And stared.
As Dan stopped in front of the group, slightly gasping for breath, Natalie quickly hid behind him, tightening the grip she has on his hand and putting the other hand on his shoulder.
Which made Ian glare.
Dan, bless his soul, caught on with Ian's glowering expression which was close to what he hoped he wouldn't see, but so different with what he thought Ian would be wearing when he sees Natalie safe. "This," he held their entwined fingers, "isn't exactly what you might think it looks like." Ian looked severely unconvinced. Dan held up his hands in surrender. "I didn't do anything!" he exclaimed, glancing behind him quickly. "When she woke up, she didn't know who I was and became that!" He shrugged his shoulders, indicating the clinging girl behind him.
"Oh boy..." Hamilton muttered. "What are we going to do?"
But Dan wasn't listening. Natalie was frantically whispering something in his ear. "Oh and she thinks you're out to kill her," Dan added, pointing at a speechless Ian Kabra.
Ian's feet absently brought him closer to the younger two. "Natalie?" he whispered gently.
There was a whimper as Natalie tugged Dan's sleeves. Hamilton and Jonah looked at each other helplessly.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Ian continued in a voice that he's never, ever used before. "I promise, see?" He held his empty hands up.
After a long, heartbreaking moment, Natalie slowly looked up. Identical amber eyes met. "You look like my brother," she croaked, her grip on Dan's shoulders never loosening.
Ian felt a growing lump in his throat. He swallowed at it. "I am your brother," he whispered, trying to keep his voice steady.
Natalie shook his head, waves of dark black hair falling gently. "No... My brother has brown hair," she told him innocently.
Ian didn't respond. He didn't say anything for a long time. Dan noticed that his poker face is nearly breaking. "Hey, uh, Nat. Uh, remember the bad guy I was talking about?" Natalie hesitantly nodded. "Yeah, well, the brown-haired one is the baddie, okay? This one's the real deal."
Ian seemed to be carved out of smooth marble. He didn't move; just looked at Natalie as if she was a puzzle piece and he couldn't figure which puzzle she was supposed to be. He looked just as lost as Natalie is.
"Oh, wow, look at the time," Hamilton said loudly, flicking his watch-less wrist and minutely glancing at it. Jonah sighed, pitying this weak display of changing the subject. "I'm very, very hungry. I say, we go it eat? Sounds like a plan? Yep, let's go."
Ian stood up, as flawlessly as ever which was disturbing, and was actually the first one to walk away. Dan followed after him with Natalie still tightly gripping his shoulders. Jonah shot Hamilton a dirty look. "Look, Hammer. I completely get how you want to ease the tension, but acting and you just don't mix, 'kay?" And he followed after Dan.
Hamilton frowned. "This is why I don't like breaking awkwardness."
oooooOooooo
Acting and Tomases don't mix? Who begs to differ? Any proud Tomas actors out there? XD
Okay, so spoiler alert for the next chapter. It would have a lot of Psychology thingy in it especially because my AS Psychology is amazing and just so... philosophical. Haha. I wanted to share it with you guys, so that my story wouldn't just be random plot twists. I hope you'd learn something from me at least. Haha. Mostly Science. 'Cause I hate Maths. Speaking of Maths, I just took this assessment exam to know whether I deserve to stay on the course or not. So, guys, please wish me luck. The results will come on Monday. Haha. As much as I find the subject difficult, I need it. A lot.
Moving on, I am pretty sure I have lots of mistakes again. Even though I really, really do my best spotting them when I read, re-read and re-read what I re-read every chapter I post. But, oh well. Haha.
SNEAK PEEK FOR CHAPTER 13:
Sinead huffed an aggravated breath out. "Gods, he makes me so infuriated! I can't believe I actually have him on my speed dial!" She glared at her phone, looking as if she was about to fling it out of sight. Down that filthy lake yards away from them, preferably.
Amy glanced at Jake and Evan, knowing that Sinead hadn't at the least bit heard her question. "Does that mean they're coming?" she asked them.
Jake snorted. "If it's beauty queen who asked Holt, I'm sure he's on a plane right about now."
Sinead heard that. "I cannot believe you made me call him," she accused flatly, like they just made her drink out of the toilet.
"And I can't believe a Tomas and an Ekat would actually date, much less get along."
Read, re-read and review?
Much Love, Peace Out!
Have a nice week everybody,
AngelicSpring