Double Life: out of mind

A/N: after such a long time... I woke up late but my eyes felt ok enough and I´ve been dying to post something and though this is bits and pieces...transitions... I wanted to put it something once again. Damn...dont wanna go to work lol

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“Where are you Nicky?” Natasha muttered as she observed Nic´s bank account records, it was all the same as it had been for days, years even. “Nicky, give me something…” she murmured as she checked Joshua’s phone records, she had to find the girl, a new mission was issued, if it didn’t get done soon Karl would intervene and who knows what would happen if he knew she was missing, moreover, her not reporting it was already putting herself in danger but she had to find the girl before giving any report. Nat went over every call, every text, every number in josh’s phone record, she was convinced he had to know something, they had been too close, too close too quick to not know but then Nichole knew well how to keep things to herself. Ashley had never known anything about her other life maybe Joshua didn’t either.

Natasha had searched the places where Nichole had gone when she´d received the texts and calls she´d made, it was a wide range that the signals covered but it was a parameter. The girl had been travelling fast, to separate places, too many places to look and she couldn’t put all her personnel to look for her specially without getting some word told to Karl.

She´d also tried to pin-point the girl through the e-mail she´d sent to the infirmary at Burgeoys and to Val, how could she had sent that from Nat´s personal account, she marveled at the girl´s ability, she wondered how and when she´d learned to do so, it was not something she´d been taught and she was already so good as to make it impossible to hack her computer. Nichole had always let believe Nat that she had access to it but now that she dug further she learned that was far from the true. “It´s private” was the message she got before a virus had infected her computer and then two more… so far that gave her a reason to keep trying to access there, if the girl had made sure to protect it, then it was worth seeing.

“Nicky, Nicky, where the heck are you?” Nat scrubbed a hand over her face when her phone startled her, her heart beat faster once she answered it.

“In short, you´re telling me it’s not possible to find Nichole?” Karl said with exasperation

“I think she does not want to live according to our plans anymore”

“First step is to find her –Karl went right down to business- go to the boy, they´ve been seen together and she spent New Year´s with them, he has to know something”

“What? No!” Nat was startled

“Yes”

“How…?” he wasn’t even supposed to know Nic hadn’t spent the time at the camp. Not even she knew where the girl had gone, yet, Karl knew

“The question is why you didn’t inform me of that? And how do I know it’s not the same now?”

“I didn’t know where she was! How could you?”

“I am the one to get answers here, Natalie” he said sternly using a name she hadn’t been called in years

“I’m sorry, it´s just… I couldn’t find out where she was then and it might help …to find her now” she lied

“It was a conversation I had with the boy´s father”

“But he doesn’t know you and Nichole are related”

“Of course not! Do you think I’m stupid?! It happened, that´s all that matters. The boy must know something, go to him” he commanded

“You didn’t say a thing about it”

“I have nothing to report to you but it is your job to do so! Find my daughter and bring her back, no matter what!” he growled and hung up. Natasha sighed heavily. It wasn’t over, he´d still make her pay one way or another, he only needed to have her finish this, he needed her to find the girl, it could be worse if she didn’t find her soon. The good part of the inopportune call was that now that he knew she had more resources, she could even use the boy, he´d send her to him, the bad part was that even if she won in their hide and seek game, it was almost certain that the girl wouldn’t come back willingly.

Nichole knew she was smart, even if she didn´t, Ibsen´s journal had told he she´d been designed to be smart and quick but so far after days and days of having ran away she still didn’t know what to do exactly. Her dilemma was if to prove and confirm everything, to demand an explanation from Karl, Natasha and even Alexander Arlington or if to just disappear, start over, be someone else… maybe, she thought, I can’t decide because I always let Karl and Nat do the thinking…. If I just disappear I´ll always wonder about this and if I stay I might get caught in all this again –she sighed.

She was moving one again to another location; she’d been using the public transportation, blending in the crowded hours of the morning or afternoon. As she rode a train she wondered about Mary Ann’s theory of Karl killing all the crew that participated in her making, shed said only the head, the Arlingtons were missing… for sure Karl would stick to his plan until he achieved his goal, he was like that, he´d been that for her mother, he´d been that for Camille, he´d been that to her a long time ago… determined to get the what they wanted, what they needed, a man of his word…

“Josh, what happened to Nichole?” Aaron asked leaning closer to his brother. They were the only two remaining on the table of the crowded place. As Nichole had asked of him, josh hadn’t been alone much, even after almost two months. He’d been surprised that Aaron hadn´t asked sooner. This Saturday he was out with Aaron and his friends, all of them were somewhere, not sitting, dancing perhaps. Aaron had declined Michelle’s invitation to dance

“She´s sick”

“What does she have?”

“How would I know?”

“Josh…” Aaron threw him a look “everybody knows you were close” he said. Josh took a sip of his drink to avoid commenting “she´s not in school is she?” Aaron prompted and took a sip of his own drink. Josh shook his head

“Is she in a hospital? Have you tried to contact her?”

“I have no way of doing that” he sighed

“She texted you last time, when we picked her up…”

“Yeah” his voice wasn’t heard through the loud music

“Then? Call her” Aaron said in a tone that said he was stupid for not doing it sooner. Josh finished his drink and chuckled humorlessly

“She doesn’t want me to call her” he confessed without thinking, his mind had started to get foggy

“Come on! Just call her; I can see that you want to”

“Do you think I haven’t tried that? She said not to call her”

“So, she´s not sick?” Aaron’s eyes expanded, josh chuckled

“I don’t get sick” he quoted the girl but Aaron had no way of knowing this, so he just took the drink from josh’s hand who chuckled some more

“Do you know where she is?”

“Nope”

“Do you know her address?”

“Nope”

“If you knew, would you go?”

“She wouldn’t like that” he chuckled again

“What are you man? A coward?”

“How are you going to find her?” josh asked as he took the drink again. Aaron looked at him with focused eyes

“There must be something in her things, in her room, we have to go see” he suggested

“What’s with you and getting in her room? You won’t find anything”

“How do you know?” Aaron challenged

“Fine, we´ll get in” josh stood up after a while of staring at his twin and started to walk out

“Wait!” Aaron put a hand on his twin´s shoulder “now?”

“You want to see it, I’m showing it to you” somewhere in his foggy mind josh knew he wasn’t his normal self but he couldn’t make himself care about that

“We can’t leave the guys here”

“Our car´s not the only one … they can go back just fine”