I know, I know, long time. I hope the length and drama of this chapter makes up for it :) Please leave a review with encouragement. I'm really struggling with this story and it was my favourite!
This is taking too long. If you can't handle things, Daniel will ask me to take your place. I look forward to it. N.
Glancing up from the phone and through the stray strands of chocolate hair in front of her face, the young spy saw Alex, Sabina and Tom stood in line in front of the Playhouse. It was supposedly a Funhouse of sorts and the three were being coaxed into going in by a slightly round, short man, dressed too vivaciously for Hera to be entirely comfortable around.
At first Hera had been apprehensive about coming to the fair but then figured she may as well as she had to follow Alex everywhere anyway. The fair was alive with the hubbub of middle class London, everyone enjoying the Summer air and delicious ice cream from stalls. Children chased each other with swords made from balloons whilst the adults walked lazily behind them, smiling into wine glasses and chatting with friends. Things felt so peaceful here, so unremarkable, so easy. Hera looked back at her phone.
She grimaced as she looked down to the text message she had just received. Unsurprisingly it was from her least favourite member of Swallowtail; urging her to get a move on while there was still time. Hera knew she was taking her time, she had tried convincing herself that it was just to make Alex trust her again but she knew there was something else going on here. Hera was enjoying herself too much. She knew she was getting soft, losing her edge; she wasn't prepared to kill anyone today or have any faux duels with Molotov. The young spy sighed and placed her phone back in her jeans pocket while wondering when the last time she'd worn jeans was. She had become so accustomed to a lavish lifestyle that she never seemed to ear casual clothes.
Hera had to get a grip of the situation; Alex, Sabina, Tom…they weren't her friends. She needed to do her job and get back to the task at hand. Hera did not realise it fully but in the back of her mind, the young girl knew she was breaking, she was allowing herself to become close to people after years of learning to put up walls. If she did not put a stop to it soon, she could end up risking everything just to tell him how she really felt. But even she had no idea what was going on between them.
Upon hearing her name her thoughts were snuffed out like a candle in the wind. She looked over to her supposed friends and saw she was being beckoned by Sabina. There was definitely an air of calm and ease with Sabina now and Hera was grateful; she would hate to be on Sabina's bad side.
As Hera approached them, zigzagging her way through folks that smiled at her as she walked past them, Alex had to look away. Something was going on inside of him that made his head hurt and heart ache. He pulled Sabina in close and felt her put her hands on his chest. This is where he belonged. The blonde had to constantly remind himself of where his heart really was. Memories of nights in Venice began to shine brighter than the last few days of his relationship with Hera. Thoughts of her as a villain were fading away as she became closer to him. He had to put a stop to feeling this way.
"You chicken?" Tom asked her as she approached them. Hera squinted in the sunlight to look up at the board that hung above them, showing the name of the "house" they were stood in front of. It was a House of Mirrors.
"Never been called chicken before," Hera murmured back and shot him a sideways glance, "and I see no need to have it as a nickname now."
"Young lady," Hera had not even glanced at the owner of the fairground ride, who seemed to be quite in love with the character he was playing. "You will have bounteous amounts of fun," he beamed at her although all Hera could see was a bright purple waistcoat and vertically striped back and white trousers. "Especially with all the secret rooms for you to get lost in," he winked at her and this time she couldn't help but smile as he overly gestured at Tom.
I'm game." She shrugged and looked over to Sabina and Alex. Hera found it strange how Sabina seemed to call all the shots in the relationship. Whenever she had known Alex, he had always been decisive and in charge, he never followed like a lost puppy. Although, at some points in their careers together, Hera had seen elements of that long lost boy Alex never wanted to be.
"Sounds good to me," Sabina said and without even waiting for Alex to give input, she grabbed his hand and the four handed over tokens to the scary man and walked inside.
The house was unlike what Alex had thought it would be. It was actually very beautiful; the whole house, walls and doors, was a maze of mirrors. Everywhere he looked he saw the four of them stood, in frames stretching to the infinite, all gazing around in awe.
"Last one out buys everyone a drink!" Tom explained before rushing off, pushing against a mirror and finding that it was indeed a door. The other three showed each other looks of we-are-way-too-old-to-be-like-that. Until Sabina began to edge away from the other two.
"I think I'll try my luck this way." She said quietly before slipping through another secret door. Alex and Hera looked at each other with false smiles before both moving forwards quickly to try other doors. Hera's mirror opened and she took a quick glance at Alex who she saw escaping as well.
Exiting the room, Hera came to another just like it and smiled; it was a strange sight, seeing herself at so many different angles. A rush of exhilaration went through her as her smile widened. Hurling herself through mirror-doors, Hera passed herself as she ran through the maze, a whirl of light and colour shot passed her as she made her way through the Playhouse. Faster and faster, feeling herself get lost in a world of glass and reflection, she twirled and flew through it all. Once or twice she thought she saw another person but didn't stop to look again, she felt free and alone and away from everything-
"AHHH!" She screamed as she collided with another body and fell straight onto her behind. She rubbed the bottom of her thigh and looked up at Alex who held out a hand.
"Sorry about that," he said with no smile. Hera stood without taking his hand.
"It's fine." She responded, trying not to say anything that would start another argument, "let's get out of here," Hera forced a smile as she said this and walked towards a mirror. She pushed gently but nothing happened, she could see, over her shoulder, Alex's reflection pushing against a mirror opposite but it wouldn't budge. The pair moved around the room, gentle nudges on mirror turned to pushes with all their strength as they realised none of them would open. Their awkward smiles faded as they realised they were enclosed in this box of mirrors.
"What the hell?" Alex muttered as he pushed against the last mirror. "Isn't this the entrance?" he asked her and indicated towards a mirror. They could see a tiny creak with sunlight streaming through. Hera put her ear against the cold glass of the mirror and nodded as she heard the sounds of outside loud and clear. She took a step back.
Alex and his first love stood in silence, staring at the door to the Playhouse that would not open. For a second neither thought much about being stuck in the room by themselves but then they realised they were stuck with each other. Glancing over at each other quickly, the same feeling of nervousness and unease seeped from one to the other and Hera couldn't take the thought of being alone with him. She ran to the doors and banged her fist against it.
"Hey!" She shouted, "hey, we're stuck in here!" Her usually soft voice echoed throughout the room and she turned, hyper venting slightly out of desperation, to see Alex carefully scouring every inch of the walls to see if there was any escape. The blonde turned back to her and shook his head; they shared a look of embarrassment before a voice boomed over the Tannoy system.
"Um, hello people stuck in the House," the high-pitched male voice spoke uncertainly as Hera rolled her eyes. "The system seems to have locked you in," the two teenagers groaned; this kid sounded younger than them. "If you just give us ten minutes we'll be able to unlock the doors." Hera folded her arms in a huff and blew a stray strand of hair away from her face.
"It takes ten minutes to unlock these doors?" She wondered out loud and kicked the door with her heel. As the young spy tilted her head back to rest on the door, she spied Alex, out of the corner of her eye, simply shrug and go to stand opposite her
"Doesn't matter," he reassured her, "you only have to worry when someone's trying to kill me right?" Hera lifted her head back up to him as he said this, "and no one in here is going to kill me," Alex gestured around the room as Hera smiled. He seemed to notice the wicked smirk Hera had and stopped trying to improve the situation. The girl slid down the door and sat on the floor in front of him. Alex followed suit and the two sat in silence.
Ten minutes…a mental clock seemed to tick past the seconds…what were they going to do for ten minutes? Both of them looked around the room, begging for the ground to open up and swallow the other just so this agonizing feeling of want and confusion would evaporate.
"I always loved mirrors." Hera said suddenly. Alex looked up at her and frowned. "Not because I like to look at myself," she added sheepishly, "but because I always thought there was another world with you in it where everything was the other way around. So when you were sad here, there was a world where you were happy. I know it doesn't make any sense." Hera concluded and Alex looked around them, into the mirrors. It was strange to see himself now, at the age of nineteen, a year behind everyone else at school…but that didn't even seem to matter, a normal life didn't seem to matter. When he looked in the mirror now all he saw was someone who was lost. "But you know what used to really make my head spin?" She smiled as she said it but did not look at him, "I always wondered what side was real. What side of the mirror was I on?" Alex looked down to his hands in his lap and smiled. She was always like this, dreamy and almost fictional in her whimsical thoughts. He smile faded to nothingness.
Alex hated this. He hated this situation of being unaware of all the feelings filling up in the space between them. He hated that they were at a fair. He hated that he had to lie to himself. His blue eyes narrowed on the mirrored ceiling above him and he saw Hera sat opposite him, fiddling with the pear-shaped diamond around her neck. If she didn't care for him, would she still wear it? Lowering his gaze, he looked across to her. Her chocolate hair fell in luscious waves past her shoulders and her pink, full lips were just as untouched and perfect as he remembered. Why did things turn out this way? He was beginning to forget the answer.
"I've missed you." Hera said suddenly and bit her bottom lip, she looked up at him, begging for him to look at her but he didn't. "Nothing was the same without you." Alex finally looked at her, right into her eyes for what seemed like the first time. "I just want to-"
"What, Hera?" Alex spoke harshly and stood up.
"I just want to be honest." She said and stood to. "You know how hard it is for me to make myself vulnerable?"
"NO!" Alex shouted at the top of his lungs and Hera jumped, she had never heard Alex like this, he had never frightened her before. "No, I've forgotten," he spat at her, "because I've watched you do it like it was written in a play, acting out the lines to our enemies to seduce them." Alex put his head in his hands and looked at the ceiling, not truly knowing where this anger was coming from. Hera had begun to shake.
"You were my best friend." She said quietly.
"Fuck off." He spat the words out like venom. "Are you going go on to tell me how you never really knew your parents, how your life always seemed empty but now you've found me-" Alex was stopped mid-sentence as Hera struck her hand across his face. For a moment there was no feeling in his cheek but as the burning sensation of pain sunk in, he looked to her as though she were mad.
He was caught, off guard, by the Hera he had known three years ago in Venice. The beautiful, innocent, real woman he had come to know seemed to be back in the room as he could see in the cold stare in her eyes that what she felt was real.
"Did you ever care for me?" She asked slowly, her eyes beginning to glisten. She seemed far away, as though she weren't really looking at Alex but back into her memories of him. "When you were just you and I was just me…was that real?" She asked again. With confidence and a new power Hera had never witnessed, Alex put his hands on either side of her face and looked deep into her eyes. He shook his head. It was all an act, he knew it, she had done this to enemies when they were eighteen; making the man feel powerful and in charge by pretending to be vulnerable, she got them to do whatever they wanted. He knew it wasn't real, he just didn't know why it was working.
"You know how long it took to get over you?" Alex whispered and put his forehead against hers. They looked into each others eyes as Hera shook her head softly. They closed their eyes as Hera let out a slow breath. "Do you have any idea how much you made me hate you, when all I wanted was to be with you?" He said and with that his hands left her face and found her hips, he pulled her in close and kissed her.
Fingernails scraped against flesh as they wanted to be as close as possible. The girl let out a gasp as Alex bit her neck and when he heard this he moved away from her to look at her face. They seemed to search each other, as though asking if this were real.
"I have wanted to do that since the day I met you." Alex whispered and Hera felt no need to talk anymore, she grabbed him by the neck and bought him back into embrace. At some point Hera felt her back hit a wall but she didn't care. She was with him, with Alex, she could finally feel him and hold him and show him how crazy he drove her.
"OK." The kisses all stopped at once. The boy spoke over the Tannoy system as Alex and Hera broke apart; both were bought back to reality and looked at each other with widening eyes, realising their mistake. Alex took a few steps back and mouthed the word "no," shaking his head, thinking only of Sabina. How could he let himself be seduced?
Hera put a hand to her lips and looked to the floor; what had she done, he didn't love her. He abandoned her. They were both just holding on to the last piece of happiness they had had. She had a job to do. She couldn't do this.
"We're going to open the door now." And with that the door opened. Before Hera could turn to Alex and say anything he was out the door.
Alex Rider's room used to be filled with posters of football players, gadgets and empty plates of food. Now all that occupied it was his life with her. Perfume bottles and jewellery boxes now cluttered the desk, dresses hung in cupboards he never opened anymore and he knew he never wanted to go back to what there was before. Sabina had saved him; she had turned his whole life around. When he thought that he couldn't go on, she had been there for him, she was the one who truly cared.
He had made a mistake by letting himself be seduced by Hera. She was a murderer and a liar who sought only after her own happiness. It was pathetic, now that he thought about it. Hera was nothing to him. The girl he once knew was dead.
Sitting on the end of their bed now, Alex looked down to the box in his hands and knew what he had to do. Whether the decision was fuelled out of guilt, he did not know. Whether it was gratitude, he didn't know either. All he did know was that he loved her, when he was with her he was safe, he was content. Flipping open the lid of the box he looked down to the diamond ring inside and smiled. The stone was pear-shaped. It was perfect as was she. This was the right thing to do.
"Are you alright?" Tom asked, "you seem distracted." Hera was stood in her hallway with a cup of tea in her hand, absentmindedly twirling a piece of hair with her fingers. What had happened in the Playhouse was spinning through her mind; what was she feeling now? It's like they had given up on hating each other and just given in to temptation. But he abandoned her, left her staring into her own reflection.
"Hmmm?" She looked up to Tom and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry," she shook her head, "just…" she couldn't complete the thought for she had looked down at a table with the telephone on it and spotted pictures of a car. A Toyota Supra. With all sorts of annotations and diagrams beside it. "What is this?" She asked bluntly and Tom beamed.
"It's a little project of mine, sorry I shouldn't have left my work everywhere," Tom's sudden burst of confidence seemed to fizzle out as Hera did not seem impressed but put down her mug and starting shifting through the papers. "Do you…like cars?" Hera didn't seem to be listening and responded automatically.
"it's sort an occupational requirement." She murmured before putting all the papers down and turning to him. Eventually Hera remembered where she was and smiled at him. "I…" Hera's smile faded. The world turned dark and a giant wave of ice crashed through her. She found she could not speak. Looking over Tom's shoulder she saw, on the other side of the street, through an open window, Alex on one knee and a smile on Sabina's face. Hera heard her mug shatter into a million tiny pieces on the floor.
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