Chapter 20: Are the pieces falling together!?

“We’re done!” Claire leans back in her chair and shouts as we all throw the last of the paperwork into their respective piles.

“We did it! We really did it!” Dominic was crying tears of joy. “I’m done! I can finally relax and do nothing!” He got up from his chair and ran out of the room not daring to look back.

I, on the other hand was happy that we were finally done, but it wasn’t time to celebrate just yet. I still had to give the final schedule to the disciplinary committee. However, there was an issue I had going over to their room. Sarah, instead of having completely disappeared mysteriously, showed up again a few days ago. She was now acting as second in command over at the disciplinary committee.

Why does that bother me?

Well, I hurt her physically and then probably mentally. Despite her doing what she did, a small part of me still feels bad about it, because throwing someone to the ground ready to beat them, is not how you handle a situation. To top it all off I insulted her personality which, to be honest, was horrible after I got to know her.

So that’s that. I guess I really should man up and just go face her.

I wonder if she actually developed feelings for me, or was just trying to split myself and Claire up again. I want to think that she was just trying to split us up, as crushing her heart, might make me feel worse than I already do.

“Logan… want me to go with you?” Claire looks at the distress that was probably showing on my face and guessed what was going on in my head.

“No.” I shook my head and laughed, “Like normal, I am making the situation a bigger deal inside of my head. I just have to go and drop off the schedule, I don’t even have to go and actually talk to them.”

Claire smiles weakly as she stands up and walks to me. She kisses me on the cheek before leaving the student council room.

“I will see you tomorrow at the festival. I am going to see father again tonight. He said he has something important to talk to me about. Have a good night, Logan. And for the love of god, try to stay out of trouble for one night.” Claire walks out of the room and laughs as she waves.

Her personality has changed slightly since the incident with Sarah. She seems to support me more.

Her father, a.k.a. the Old Man, has been talking to her every other night since the incident, and I have no idea what goes on during these conversations, but every time I see Claire again it seems like she matures more and more.

“Logan, are you not curious as to the situation, so I inquire.” Saunderson speaks up after organizing a small stack of papers.

“Ah, I am very curious. However, if Claire doesn’t want to talk about it, I won’t force her. On the other hand, I haven’t even asked…” I suddenly frown.

Saunderson just stares at me silently. Slightly tilting his head forward to look more serious.

“I know what you are going to say! I know it!”

“The why has thou not done so, so I inquire.”

“I definitely didn’t forget about it!”

“Of course not, so I declare.”

*Thud!*

“Shut up!” My head makes contact with the student council’s marble table.

Saunderson walks over to where I was sitting at the table and picks up the small stack of papers.

“I shall offer my assistance to thou and as payment for said assistance, I would like you to follow me afterwards, so I declare.” Saunderson looks at me with a slightly mischievous smile. I can only assume that we are going to follow Claire to see what is going on. It isn’t the right way to go about it, but I guess I’ll take the… ‘Help’.

“Of course. Handing over the documents to the disciplinary committee will take no time at all.” I stood up and grabbed my own small stack of papers and started to head towards the room the disciplinary committee occupied.

“Onwards, so I declare!” Saunderson and I exit the room.

……

Nothing eventful happened when talking to the disciplinary committee. It was just a simple act of giving them stacks of paper, then leaving.

Saunderson and I arrived outside the Old Man’s mansion. I wonder what Saunderson has planned.

“So, Saunderson, as a young man of a famous assassin organisation, what kind of gadgets did you bring?”

Saunderson smiles.

“We shall use the most reliable of methods… Try to find an open window in to the correct room, so I declare.” Saunderson puffs out his chest in pride.

“Yeah,” I look at the cloudy sky, “Late October, of course someone will open a window.”

Saunderson suddenly falls on his face.

“I see, what a blunder I have made this time. I think we shall plan a new strategy, so I suggest.”

We walk to the side of the mansion that we guessed they might be at. I guessed it would be the Old Man’s study. It had a single window, maybe we could listen through the wall or something.

We sit against the wall beneath the window when suddenly we hear the window slide open.

“Man was it stuffy in there. I really should get a better ventilation system in here.” It was the Old Man opening the window.

Saunderson looks over to me with a smile. I guess luck truly is on our side today.

“So Claire. About our plan involving Logan, how is the progress?” Oh… the Old Man is starting off with a topic I don’t like.

“Almost complete, I’d say that he trusts me a hundred percent and it is only a matter of time before he falls into our trap.” I hear Claire say this a deep tone…

‘Trap’?

I feel out of the loop…

“Good.” The Old Man starts to talk again, “We need for you to completely win him over. Otherwise he may not trust you and may start to suspect that you are hiding things from him. Like what we talked about these last few meetings.”

“Good that we both agree.” I hear the sound of someone sitting in a chair, “He is a valuable asset. His organs are of the highest quality for, ‘Extraction’.”

My face goes completely pale as I look to Saunderson, he is slowly inching away. Don’t run away! I need help!

“Or, he could learn to realise that the entire property is monitored by surveillance cameras. And that I have a team of people report to me whenever someone who isn’t family enters the property.”

Saunderson stands and runs.

“My mission has been accomplished, I have things I need to be doing so I shall be leaving, so I declare.” He sprints over to the wall of the property and climbs out… I saw spikes in his shoes to help him climb that 20 foot tall wall.

I slowly stand up, knowing that they knew I was there.

“Ah, fancy seeing you here.” I scratch my head and smile slightly.

“Yes, indeed it is.” The Old Man smiles at me, “Why don’t you come in, we were just at the good part. The Black Market could use a healthy body like yours for organs you know.”

I slowly climb in the window under the intense stare of the two people in the room.

“I was just going for a stroll nearby and thought I should drop by to see how Claire was doing.”

“I see,” The Old Man nods slowly, “Then how might you explain sneaking the entire way, and then hiding out of view of the window?”

“Coincidence,” I nod my head, “Merely a coincidence. I tripped while looking for the right place!”

“Oh… That would be convincing if I didn’t have security footage that proved otherwise… so, I can guess why you are here though,” The Old Man pointed to Claire using his head, “You were upset that your wife was hiding things from you so you hired an assassin to help you spy on her.”

“Um… not quite…” I frown slightly as he almost nails it on the head. “I was convinced by Saunderson, and, I trusted Claire from the beginning… but she has gotten more mature recently so when Saunderson placed the doubt in my mind I had come to see what was going on for myself.”

“Okay then. That is fair enough. However, I would like you to note that it would have been easier to just come when Claire was not here and directly ask me, as I would like to be open with the person I plan to take over the company I run in a few years.”

My face twists slightly as I hear this. It isn’t like I don’t want to take over the company, it is just that I do not feel as if I am competent enough to be able to do such a thing.

“Well,” The Old Man smiles weakly, “I thought you would have that reaction and that is why we are looking into the details of your past in order to figure out what skills you would need… but it seems we have an interesting situation.”

I weakly nod my head, as soon as he mentioned my past, I immediately knew what the next topic would be.

“You and your parents are wanted in almost 50 countries around the world, mostly for crimes against the government. However, you only went places that had a large percentage of non-English speaking locals.”

“That’s…” I slowly lower my head. My past was found out… I didn’t really want to help in the crimes… I was someone that was brought along for the ride.

“Escaped from 19 juvenile prisons and even 3 maximum security prisons. All methods involved using only existing structures. 10 were unable to figure out your escape route and have given up hope of ever keeping you in their prisons, all of the 3 maximum security prisons included in the 10.”

And that’s why I am good at free running. I had to be able to get back to my parents after becoming a scapegoat on more than a single occasion.

“Yet you still stayed with your parents…” The Old Man shakes his head, “And they even came to the wedding to congratulate you, but not your birthday…”

“I can explain that… kind of. I never really had a chance to really talk to people, so I was raised thinking that doing such things was normal as we grew up, despite what we were taught in school. After I finished junior high school I realised something was wrong, I had been living a lie. I ran away from home and pursued my own studies and paid my own way through the first years of high school… and even now, I pay for everything using the money I have managed to save. But that’s that, and this is this. I probably have a ridiculous bounty on my head… feel free to do what you must.” I close my eyes and place my hands on my head. Waiting for myself to be tackled by police who swarmed into the room.

“Bounty? All of those countries are corrupt to the core. You being wanted is a thing of the past.” The old man smiles happily at me as I open my eyes.

“But…” I slowly open my mouth.

“Nothing a little money can’t fix. Anyways, there wasn’t any huge crimes on there, just dine and dash, slandering the leaders of various countries and sometimes their gods, resisting arrest, escaping from prison, and several other minor charges. To those of us in this world, those are everyday occurrences.”

I drop to my knees… feeling like thousands of pounds had just been lifted from my shoulders. Tears start to fall from my eyes.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!”

“Nope.” The Old Man shakes his head, “Don’t thank me. I am not the one who was in charge of clearing all of this for you…”

I look to Claire as she smiles happily at me.

“You are now a free man Logan. Free to travel the world again. Free to leave to anywhere without worrying.”

I tackle Claire in the chair she was sitting in, causing it to fall over. I was on the ground, crying and hugging her.

……

Well… I never worried about that stuff much anyways… If I was going to be dragged down by my parents again, what difference would it make?

I figured I could just run away again… like I always have… but… run away… to where?

I look at the roof of my dorm room. I don’t have anywhere left to run. I’m tired of running anyways.

Claire was finishing up the documents involving my freedom at the mansion, and I was told that it was better for me to go rest at the dorm and wait for Claire in the morning for the full day festival.

It will be my first real festival, I have never really had the chance to go to a festival before.

I’m excited.

Yet, at the same time, sad.

Claire was working herself for my sake. I need to think of something I can do for her. I should consult the Old Man. Maybe he will have some advice for me… he is Claire’s father… maybe… this might just work.

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Hello everyone!

It really has been too long since I last posted and I'm sure a lot of you are wondering why I stopped posting suddenly.

The main reason was that I had writer's block. I would sit in front of my laptop to type and... nothing. Nothing would come into my head. It was a really weird feeling. Various other things also happened, but those aren't worth mentioning.

I am glad to inform you that the seriousness will be over after this chapter. I don't know why these things get written. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but this is not a planned story. I write whatever i write and hope it fits together. This is not how I imagined it would be, but I am happy with the results so far. I hope all of you are enjoying this story.

There will be chapters everyday until Friday. This is my promise to you readers.

If you have any questions or concerns, don't be afraid to comment, or send me a PM. I am always willing to respond (If I have time [which I usually do])

As always, have a great day/night!