Chapter Thirteen
Reading was another simple pleasure of mine, one that allowed me to escape into worlds that were much more interesting than my own. I had to admit though, ever since meeting Shadow, my life was far from boring.
Just fresh off my date with him, I decided to unwind by spending the following sun-filled day on the patio of my favorite coffee shop, whisked away in the arms of a sexy book. As I sipped on my Americano and lost myself to an adjective-laced sex scene, I was abruptly interrupted.
“I saw you last night.”
It was Justin.
I was at a loss for words. I had tried texting him for over a week and each one of my messages was met with silence. I missed his friendship terribly.
“Justin,” I said, surprised. “I haven’t spoken to you for so long. Please, sit down?”
He looked at me with sour eyes and shook his head.
“I saw you last night,” he repeated himself. “You and your date, that rich guy, were at McDonalds.”
“You were there too?”
Justin shook his head. “I was coming back from the bar and I saw you through the window. Not a place I expected a loaded man to take a girl on a date.”
“I guess I didn’t mingle to o well in the classy restaurant,” I said, smiling.
Justin glared at me, angry at first, but the look of hurt that followed made me want to reach out and hug him. It was quite the dilemma. How do you console someone when you were the person that hurt them in the first place?
“I’m sorry Justin,” I began, but he was quick to cut me off.
“No, don’t,” he said. “I really can’t talk to you right now.”
He walked away from the table, breaking off a piece of the happiness I felt earlier this morning, dragging it in the dirt behind him.
I noticed a few awkward glances from the couple sitting at the table next to me. Typically, I would make some rude comment or snarl at them like a wild jungle cat, but I was in no mood for a fight today. Instead, I picked up my coffee and took my reading to the park across the street from the coffee shop.
I settled myself on an empty park bench, cracked open my smutty book and tried to lose myself in a world far away from my emotional problems.
However, my encounter with Justin left me frazzled and no matter how hard I tried to concentrate on the words in my book, I just couldn’t do it.
And then I received my second visit of the day.
“You’re the Golden Virgin,” a voice said with a noticeable British accent that sounded familiar. I looked up from my book and saw a thin man in a beige suit and white dress shirt, his short blonde hair slicked back to one side, his face dressed with a neatly trimmed beard. He looked at me with dark eyes that were filled with venom. Tucked underneath his arm was a large envelope.
“Do I know you?” I asked, feeling rather uncomfortable underneath the man’s gaze.
He sat down next to me and lit a cigarette, not bothering to look at me, as if I were insignificant in whatever world he was living in.
“We met before,” he said in between drags. “Though last time, we were both wearing masks.”
“You were at the party,” I deduced.
“Yes, a rather dreadful affair and a complete waste of time,” he snickered. “Shadow made a mockery of the entire ritual by choosing you.”
“Thanks.”
“In addition, that primitive ape who sits on the throne decided to lay his hands on me.”
Inside my head, all cylinders were firing as I realized who he was. I said his name aloud. “Lucien.”
“So virgin, which I highly doubt you are, what makes you so special and deserving to be chosen?”
“I’m not special at all,” I replied truthfully. “I shit the same way everyone else does.”
I saw Lucien crack a slight smile, but quickly suppressed it by taking a generous puff of his cigarette.
“You’re out of your element,” he stated. “You don’t belong in our organization and the fact that you’ve been chosen for such a prestigious position taints the blood of the Midnight Society.”
“Since when is marriage considered a position?”
“Don’t be na?ve. For centuries marriages were about forging alliances and building empires, not some trivial act of love.”
“You must have a hard time with dating.”
“I’ve looked into you, Aria Valencia. You’re nothing more than a lowly arts student,” Lucien continued. “There’s no such thing as the Golden Virgin. Calisto was spinning tall tales again. You have no influential bearing on our society.”
“And what makes you so high and mighty?” I asked. “You’re probably some over-glorified suit and tie guy, running some boring business where you spend your days crunching numbers in a cubicle while talking to other equally boring business people. How do you enrich the little people in any way?”
“I own Kingdom United, the world’s most famous football club, or known to you American Neanderthals as ‘soccer.’ I unite my city and give them something to cheer for each and every week.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Okay, that is pretty cool. But you’re still a dick.”
“Let me give you some simple advice,” Lucien said, his eyes directed on me for the first time during the conversation. “Stay away from Shadow. He is possessed by demons from his past that have driven him insane. The man’s a sociopath and the darkness that controls him is like a flesh-eating disease, one that will consume anyone close to him.”
“That’s rather dramatic.”
“I love the Society,” Lucien said, “And it saddens me to know that the destruction of our organization is imminent under Shadow’s leadership. He will burn it to the ground like the mad Emperor Nero, and the rest of us will crumble like ash.”
“Sounds like a sad story,” I said in a mocking tone. I always hated the melodramatic types, making everything sound more Shakespearean than things really were.
“Of course you don’t take me seriously,” Lucien muttered. “What else can I expect from an arts student? Someone who chooses you r area of studies can’t be taking life seriously.”
I had enough.
“Look, are you going to sit here all day and play guidance counselor?” I raised my sexy novel to his face. “I have some erotic smut that needs to be read, and no offense, you’re killing the mood.”
“Stupid girl,” Lucien said as he rose from his seat, just before handing me the blank envelope, which was resting on his lap the entire time.
“If it’s naked pictures of you, I don’t want it. I get nauseous when I stare at assholes for long periods of time.”
“I’m giving you the opportunity to discover the mystery behind Shadow,” Lucien replied. “He’s an emotionally unstable man, and the information in this envelope will unlock his troubled past. I think you’ll find it a much more fascinating read than the filth you American’s pass as literature these days.”
“Are we done here?” I asked, annoyed.
Lucien flashed me a sly smile. “If you have any common sense, I won’t be seeing you ever again,” he said, just before adding, “Virgin,” mockingly.
I watched the bastard stroll away from me at a casual gait, hands buried in his pockets while whistling a cheerful tune. I was left alone with my erotic book in my hand and the mysterious envelope in my lap.
Whatever was inside was probably poisonous pro paganda with the sole intention of soiling Shadow’s reputation. The best thing for me to do was to set the envelope on fire. Extreme measures, yes, but logical at the same time.
Everyone deserved to have his or her p ersonal skeletons buried and laid to rest, Shadow included.
Who was I kidding?
“Fuck,” I muttered as I gave into the temptation and ripped open the envelope, uncovering the mysterious contents inside.
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