Arc 3 - Chapter 11 - Baby, You Got Me Like Ooh!

Blake woke up and found herself not enclosed in Adam's loving, suffocating embrace. This might have been cause for concern, but she knew well what it meant. She felt that familiar ache in her heart, but tried not to think about it. Adam always came home, in the end.

So Blake lay there, on her side with a bit of half-dried drool on her pillow, stuffed her hands between her thighs to keep them warm. Right about now, her mind would have run through the list of questions that came to her every morning without fail. Ah, there they were. Would she go to school today and patch up her ruined friendships? Would she call her parents and patch up her ruined family life? Would Adam finally leave her? Would she finally leave him? There was nothing really stopping her. Her parents had promised she could come home whenever. She could pack all her things before noon, leave a note of solemn farewell, and go back to her old, boring life. No more anxiety. No more uncertainty. No more fear of a potentially miserable future.

Of course, then she had to contend with the fact that such a choice, if made, would render all the efforts and sacrifices she'd put into this relationship entirely pointless. What would people think when they found out? What would Sun do? What would Yang say? They'd think her a fool. A failure. And what about things Adam had promised her? To be her one and only. To move to Mistral together once she was eighteen. To travel the world and experience everything it had to offer. To make a family, grow old, die together. That was the future he'd promised. That was the future she'd dreamed of. If she left Adam, what then would she have? Who then would she have?

Blake closed her eyes and began to push those thoughts to the back of her mind. Slowly, the rising tension in her mind faded away. Such thoughts were never gone. They beat on the locked door without rest until it gave way, then Blake would push them back and lock it again. That was how it worked. For now, though, there was a temporary, momentary peace. She searched her memories for a happier image.

Jaune's ax chopped one of those monsters in half, just before it could tear Blake to pieces.

Blake pursed her lips. That was the furthest thing from a happy thought. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to form another image.

It caught her by the arm. Its massive jaw came down on her. Then harmlessly fell in half, while a blonde warrior held out his hand to help her up.

Blake's heart lurched. Happy thoughts, damn it. She threw the blanket over her head and willed the proper thoughts to the front of her mind. Reading in an empty library. Painting a new masterpiece. Hugging her parents. Laughing with Adam. Wholesome. Perfect. Happy. There was nothing better.

Jaune grabbed her by the arm. Terribly, irresistibly strong. Stay close, he commanded. Don't worry, you're safe with me.

Blake pushed herself out of bed and stormed into the bathroom, all the while trying to tame her wicked thoughts. When it wasn't her normal worries plaguing her, it was the slightly more traumatic experience of being hunted by demons in an alternate dimension, while a problem kid from her school fought them off with medieval weapons and magic. The average thing teenage girls go through, obviously. Those thoughts found their way into her mind and were considerably harder to reject, given how fresh they were. She could still recall her every emotion, amplified by the extreme circumstances. Fear at being mutilated by monsters, uncertain if she would ever return home, regretting every awful thing she'd ever done and wishing she could take it all back.

The strange, almost unnatural sense of hope she felt when Jaune promised to protect her.

No. Blake forced herself to stop. It had been his fault that any of that had happened in the first place, she was quite certain of it. The fact that he refused to tell her anything all but proved that fact. He was the one who'd put her in danger. He was no hero, no savior. He had far too dark of a personality to be the knight in shining armor. She found he was much more of a black knight, somehow. Roguish, cold, fierce, passionate. An anti-hero. The crazy, dangerous, exciting bad boy type…

Blake threw her face in her hands and let out a muffled scream. It was going to be yet another long and stressful day. And it was all Jaune's stupid, stupid fault.

Secret government organizations, Blake typed into the search engine.

She rarely felt embarrassed for looking up something online, even for such things that she should have been ashamed of looking up, but in this case, it was for entirely non-lewd reasons. Really, how else were you meant to search for information on a secret government organization that rescues people from alternate dimensions? Blake felt like there were agents observing her search history right now, laughing at her foolishness, knowing damn well she had no other options. Still, the desire to know more outweighed the humiliation of being watched. It didn't quite outweigh the possibility of being kidnapped, probably interrogated, likely tortured, or certainly killed if these people discovered what she was doing, but Blake tried not to think too much about that.

She was by herself, naturally. Having opted out of lunch in favor of parking herself in her favorite corner of the school library, and once again wasting her time on looking for answers. The results got her nowhere, like always. She used phrases like secret agents, black demons, alternate dimension theory, and even obscure government conspiracies. She'd used dozens of different words, switched up the sentence structure, and clicked on pages with less traffic. Two weeks of this, and gaining nothing even resembling a lead.

Admittedly, Blake had tried telling Adam about it, and in about as delicate a manner as possible while omitting a few of the more unbelievable details. Adam, sensibly, had said she needed to stop reading those silly supernatural romance novels. She didn't try again after that.

So that was what Blake spent her lunch period on. Trying to condense her life-changing experience into a few easily interpretable words online over and over, meeting the same failure again and again. Eventually, she closed her computer and leaned into her chair, staring bitterly at the faraway bookshelf and wishing she could burn it with a glare. Blake didn't even know why she was angry. No secret government organization worth its salt would allow themselves to be discovered through a simple online search. No doubt they'd scrubbed away every word of their existence—maybe even had a whole division of computer geniuses that monitored the internet to keep information on them away from the public. Such ideas seemed fun and interesting within the confines of ambiguous existence, but somehow when a conspiracy theory turned out to be true it became terrifying as well as annoying.

Maybe Jaune was right. All she could do was go back to her everyday life.

Blake grumbled so low that she didn't even hear herself say, "What life?"

Going back to her life had sounded like sweet medicine when her life was in danger, but now she barely knew what to do with herself, especially when Adam wasn't home. Or even when he was. All she did anymore, outside of taking care of the house, was go to the community center. and while Jaune and her were "friends" now, that hadn't changed her life in the slightest. He certainly didn't act like a traditional friend. He never invited her anywhere or cared to ask how she was doing—admittedly, neither did she, but this was about her needs, damn it. Basically, only her friendship in years amounted to a mutual understanding to tolerate one another and nothing more.

She thought about that Oobleck man, about the binding contract of silence they'd had to take. Blake didn't plan to say anything, of course. But now she considered the fact that she hadn't gotten anything out of the deal. She thought again to pester Jaune with questions, but he'd proven that he would not cave. She needed some kind of leverage. She needed to find out more, then present him with what she knew, then force him to tell her even more.

Then Blake asked herself why. What would be the point? Government secrets? Eldritch monsters? A brooding young man with a mysterious streak and hidden intentions? None of that was any of her business. She was just a normal girl. A nobody. Why would she be interested? Hell, she was starting to understand why Adam told her to stop reading those supernatural romance books. This sounded like the plot of one she'd read before.

Blake felt a shiver of anticipation run up her back. Thought for a long, quiet moment.

Yes, it sounded exactly like one of her books. The ones she'd stay up all night reading, glued to the pages, wishing badly that she could transport herself into the story and live out the protagonist's adventures of magic and love. A fantasy, of course. Such things could never happen.

Except…

No. She forced herself to stop. This was real life. Real life, damn it. Her life had been in danger, she'd cried herself near to death, and spent many sleepless nights being thankful for being alive. The only reason she was alive was because Jaune saved her. Just like a dashing, daring, brave supernatural-romance novel edgy bad boy love interest would. Perhaps he was secretly a werewolf. Or a vampire. Whoa…

No! Blake palmed her forehead. She could not entertain these fantasies. She was not a part of this madness and did not intend to start. She was not the main character. This was not a story. There was no crazy adventure to go on that would let her escape her horrible happy life. Thankfully. Unfortunately…

"You shouldn't be looking that stuff up."

Blake nearly jumped out of her seat and ended up fumbling to catch her laptop before it could fall out of her lap. Leaning over her shoulder from behind was Pyrrha, sending a rather sly smile her way, just as if she got a kick out of sneaking up on people and whispering in their ears. "What the—" Blake almost yelled, then remembered she was in a library. "What's wrong with you?"

Pyrrha stood up straight and hid her hands behind her back. The almost smile was gone now, replaced with a neutral frown, as if she'd had her allotment of enjoyment for the day and now returned to a state of complete disinterest in the world. She turned around and approached the nearby shelf, began tracing the book spines with a finger. "I could ask you the same. Why are you looking up information on those people?"

Blake tried to calm her startled heart. "Who says I'm looking them up? Maybe I just like conspiracy theories."

Pyrrha didn't even turn to her as she asked, "So you don't want to know anything about them?"

Blake raised an eyebrow. What was her angle? "I didn't say that, but I'm not exactly fiending for answers. It's none of my business."

"Of course," said Pyrrha as she plucked a book from the shelf and observed the cover.

A moment of silence passed between them, one that Blake found suspicious right away. Pyrrha had given her a weird feeling since that whole incident and that wasn't looking to change anytime soon. Instead of the emotional mess she'd been, she seemed rather aloof and cool, even a little uncanny, like an android that could pass perfectly for a human, if not for its middling understanding of human behavior. It was clear Pyrrha would venture the conversation no further, so Blake did. "Are you saying you know something?"

Pyrrha put the book back. "Only as much as you do."

"Then congrats, we're both in the dark."

This time Pyrrha did turn to her, with a very convincing look of confusion. "Jaune didn't tell you?"

Blake blinked. "Didn't tell me what?"

"Oh," Pyrrha blinked back, the very picture of a child who had said something they shouldn't have. "My apologies. I shouldn't have said anything."

Blake stood before she could walk away. "What is it? What didn't he tell me?"

Pyrrha eyed her up and down for a moment as if she were trying to work out some piece missing in a puzzle. "It was a test. What he did to us. I guess you didn't pass, otherwise, he would've told you."

"A test? What, he brought us into that place on purpose? For what?"

"To see if we had potential."

"For?"

"For doing what he does, I guess."

Blake swallowed and felt that lump get caught in her throat. "And what, you passed? How?"

Pyrrha shrugged. "I don't really know. He just came to talk to me and offered me a job."

"What did you say?"

Pyrrha looked aside. "I turned it down. I don't think fighting those monsters sounds like something a sane person would do."

Blake dropped back into her chair in total disbelief over this new realization. That Jaune had been lying all along about dragging them into that hellscape, that he'd done it on purpose to scout them for potential agents in that weird society, and worse, that he had judged her unworthy of the job somehow. How had Pyrrha, who had burst into a bawling mess not three minutes into that escapade, gotten an offer to join that world and not her? Perhaps bawling like a maniac was the requirement. Blake rather thought she would still reasonably pass if that was the case. "What in the world?"

"Sorry. I didn't mean to say anything. I guess I thought he talked to both of us."

She'd guessed wrong. Blake put up a disinterested frown. "Trust me, I'm glad he only approached you. You were smart to turn it down. It's what I would've done." After all, Blake wanted a normal life. She didn't need that kind of excitement in her life. No excitement at all, honestly. A dull, pleasure-free life was the life for her.

Again the room fell silent, and this time Pyrrha broke it. "I did find out something, though."

"Really now? And what is that?"

Pyrrha pulled up a chair to sit beside her. "I overheard one of those agents talking about it when we were in that shelter. You can't tell anyone I told you."

"I won't. Tell me."

"One of them said that… there's this club in downtown Vale. At Hogarth Library. I guess they pose themselves as a social club, but… actually, they have meetings about all the things we saw."

"So they're agents?"

Pyrrha shook her head. "I think they said a few might be ex-agents. But it's mostly normal people who went through the same things we did."

A group of people who'd all gone through this insanity? If that wasn't a goldmine of information then Blake didn't know what else could be. "Do they have a name?"

"The Book Buddies Club. I guess the group is small. Those agents were just kind of laughing at them. Said that they knew so much, but most people still think they're crazy." Pyrrha got to her feet then. "I don't care what you do and I won't tell, but don't get me involved in it. I just want to be normal."

"Same. I'm not going to do anything." Blake half-lied.

Pyrrha stared at her for a moment, then turned and walked off, without even a backward glance. Blake watched her go, waiting a good minute after she was out of sight for good measure.

Well, she had a lead now, didn't she? It seemed rather strange that such information could be so easily overheard for an organization hell-bent on secrecy, but Blake thanked her luck. Still, that didn't make this little investigation of hers any less dangerous. These Book Buddies could be a trap for those who tried to uncover secrets they weren't meant to know. Or worse, they could be a group of actually insane people. Then again, perhaps being insane didn't inherently mean you had no idea what you were talking about.

Of course, she was only doing this to satisfy her curiosity. Once a few questions were answered, she'd be content. Honestly, had Jaune answered her questions from the get-go, she wouldn't have to do this at all. Perhaps she might not have failed his stupid little test.

If she got caught, she could just blame him.

You know I don't like you going on your own. It's not safe. Wait until I get home and we'll go together. - My Love

Blake looked at his response and felt extremely stupid. Hardly a rare feeling. Had she really expected a different answer? She knew that Adam always worried about her and preferred to be there to protect her. Certainly, he wouldn't be comfortable letting her go into town on her own. She could be kidnapped or assaulted. Even if it was the broad afternoon and she was in a public space she never went anywhere seedy, even with company. Adam did not like to take risks. He loved her so much that he preferred that she only go places with him. It was understandable. Even noble.

So why did it feel so unfair?

She stood there at the bus stop, having been ready to go. For some reason having thought, well it's been a long time, and Adam had said that he'd forgiven her. Perhaps he would be willing to loosen the leash, so to speak. She'd not been thinking. Now she stood at the cusp of a terrifying prospect.

Obey or disobey?

It went without saying what disobedience would mean if she got caught. He would never trust her again. He might even break up with her. He had said as much when she'd come begging for him to take her back. The best way to stay in her love's graces was to do as he said and wait. To do what he said. Asked. She meant, asked. That was what a good and faithful partner would do.

Then Blake had a dangerous, tempting thought. Adam wouldn't find out.

She felt bad for lying, but technically it wouldn't be a lie when he came home, right? She only needed to go to one meeting of these Trutherseekers to find out… whatever she needed to find out. There was no way Adam would ever find out. It was a dangerous thought. If only because she feared that he might somehow find out. That he'd read her mind and know what she's done. Was it worth it, then? Maybe she'd better go home now while she still—

"Young lady! Hey!"

Blake looked up to see that the bus was there. The door was wide open and the driver glared at her impatiently. It didn't help Blake make up her mind, but she forced herself to get on, even though the back of her mind screamed for her not to. Adam would never find out, she told herself as she found a seat. He would not be home for two days, anyway. He would never know. Hopefully.

Hogarth Library was a big building. Tall and white, wide with many stories and hundreds of windows, sitting on a corner in downtown Vale. The bus hadn't dropped her off there so she'd had to make a twenty-minute walk to get there, but seeing the logo made it unmistakable. Too plain looking a place to be hiding a secret club that discussed government secrets.

From what she'd gleaned from information online, the Book Buddies wore the cover of a regular book club that met twice a week there. There hadn't been much else information on the site, and she suspected that was on purpose so they didn't stand out to any agents that might by scouring the web.

She entered the building and after a few minutes of navigation, found the help desk. A woman in her fifties stared dead-eyed into a computer as she chewed a piece of gum, very evidently happy with her lot in life. Blake cleared her throat and the woman's mean eyes found hers. "I'm looking for the… er, Book Buddies Club?"

The librarian rolled her eyes. "Those quacks? Second floor down the hall, private study room twelve. You can't miss them."

Blake gave her a wean smile as she headed up the elevator, wondering if perhaps this had been a bad idea, after all. Seemed that the club already had some kind of a reputation, and she wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. It was too late to go back though, wasn't it? The bus wouldn't come around again for another hour. Best to just do this, and if it turned out to be a bust, then nothing was lost.

She saw them now, perhaps a dozen people of varying ages all sat around a table in a small room sectioned into a lonely corner. Blake wondered if she might see someone from her time in that shelter, but no such luck. She imagined most people really did intend on getting back to their normal lives, rather than doing whatever the hell Blake called herself doing. Once again she reassured herself that this was all for the sake of clarity. A few questions answered, then she'd go home. That was it.

There was a man at the head of the table who looked sallow and pale, and though she couldn't hear him, he seemed to be talking with intensity, almost anger, while those around him nodded with enraptured enthusiasm. Didn't take any further clues to work him out as the leader of this little group of rebels. Blake took in a deep breath. Here went nothing.

She pushed the door open and everyone looked up at her in unison. Just as if they'd been expecting her. Maybe they had been. What was that she'd thought about this being a trap? Yet she'd come anyway? What a decision that seemed now. No one said anything right away, instead waiting on her.

"Um," Blake uttered, "Is this the Book Buddies Club?"

The pale man's eyes were weirdly wide with attention, as if he were taking her entire form at once. "It is. Are you a fan of literature, young lady?"

"Er, yeah. I dabble."

"And what genres are to your interest?"

No going back now. Blake answered him with one simple word, "Truth."

A collective silence as everyone stared at her. Suspicion was replaced with intrigue, like a room of fellow alcoholics welcoming the story of a new member.

The leader gave a slow, purposeful nod. He waved his hand toward an empty chair. "Welcome, sister. Have a seat. Tell us your story."

Blake swallowed but did as she was told. She closed the door with a soft click and took the seat, everyone's eyes on her. She looked at the club leader, looking crazy-eyed but attentive. "Your name?" he asked.

"Blake."

"Alright, Blake. What do you know?"

"Not enough. But I want to know more. I need to know more."

"Why?"

Blake hadn't really thought of an answer and so decided to wing it. "I have a right to know. We all have a right to know."

A chorus of nods went around the room. The leader even adopted a small, pleased smile. "You speak true, sister. We have all been exposed to secrets which perhaps we'd have been happier not knowing. No less, their existence compels our curiosity. Begs investigation into the depths. There are many questions and few answers. But if enlightenment is what you desire, you will find it here." he paused. "But do you think you're truly prepared for it? What do you mean to do with this knowledge?"

Blake looked around, not sure how to answer. "All I want is clarity. Just… so I can sleep better. That's all."

None of them looked like they believed her, and Blake couldn't blame them, because Blake didn't even believe herself. Who had she been kidding? The honest truth was that after this horrible, awful, life-changing secret had been exposed to her, she couldn't help but crave more. Craved that mystery, that excitement, that danger. Blake wanted to know more about this world.

So that she could become a part of it.

See you in the next one!

ISA