Redemption

Jordan crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently as the elevator smoothly dropped to the ground floor. It never halted once to let passengers on or off – at this time of day, not many people were left in the office – so technically it was going as fast as it was able. Reminding herself of this, she was able to eventually stop her foot’s light drum roll when she reached the fifth floor. At least she’d be able to outrun that woman – a bodyguard? How helpless did they think she was? She shook her head, and her toe resumed its furious tapping on the elevator floor. A light ding sounded as she finally reached the ground floor. Her arms unfolded from her chest and her thumbs slipped into her belt loops as the doors eased open.

And standing there, right in front of the elevator doors, was the woman who’d saved her.

Her face twisted into a scowl, and she glanced briefly at the Door Shut button before resolving to walk past the woman – her new bodyguard, Jordan’s mind spat contemptuously – and ignoring her. Jordan brushed past the ambiguous and casually dressed woman and proceeded through the front doors with no sound of footfalls on the marble floor following her. In fact, hers were the only she heard, and she was wearing sneakers.

Only after she’d walked the block and a half to her bus stop and sat on the bench to wait did she realize that the woman – what was her name, Charlie? – had been following her. Jordan jumped up immediately and stood at the curb, trying to wave down a taxi. A sharp whistle resounded in her ear, and a flash of movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She turned to see her uninvited savior standing next to her, arm in the air, as a taxi pulled up to them.

“Look, I don’t need you to follow me. I’m not a damsel in distress, I can take care of myself fine,” Jordan hissed.

Charlie blankly returned her hateful look, a careful mask, and responded, “Never said you were.”

Slightly taken aback, Jordan stood strong. She pulled open the door of the taxi, her hand flashing out to beat Charlie’s to the handle, and met her calm gaze, “Then if you could kindly stop following me, I’d appreciate it.” She made to get into the yellow car, but stopped when a hand placed itself on top of the door, halting its movements.

“That’s not my job,” Charlie said quietly, her sultry voice easily detectable through all the noise around them. Jordan stared at her for a minute, trying to figure out just what was going through her head. Overhead, a clap of thunder shredded the skies and rain began pouring down. The driver’s protests at being kept waiting now doubled in their fervent spurts.

Jordan smiled slyly. “Then start tomorrow,” she smirked, and shut the door to leave Charlie standing in the pouring rain as the cab pulled from the curb. Standing upright, Charlie turned and followed the cab’s progression down the street with her eyes until they rested on Ezekiel. She raised a single eyebrow in question.

“Follow her,” he said. “Help her out if she needs it. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t have to know.” A sharp nod, and Charlie trotted off down the street.

x x x x x x x x x

Once the cab pulled away from the curb, Jordan sat her head back with a sigh of frustration. For the past several years, she’d been struggling to be as independent as possible. Independence was always a goal for her. She hated the thought of having to rely on someone for anything. As soon as she was able, she moved out of her parents’ house; and while living with them, she didn’t ask much. Her mother always insisted that it wasn’t a problem to give her money so she could go out to the movies with some friends, but Jordan had always adamantly refused. She didn’t like taking people’s money, even it was from family. However, Jordan still managed to retain some friends and communicated to them through e-mail; most of them had grown up and gotten married, had kids.

Not Jordan. Sure, she’d had offers. It wasn’t that she was lacking in the possible dates department, she just didn’t take them. Her work consumed her. Work for her was independence: she never had to rely on someone to get something done, she did it herself. There wasn’t much that she couldn’t do on her own, as she had recently obtained what she’d been striving for all these years. And now, they wanted her to rely on a bodyguard – her mind spat the word with a vehemence like poison from its mouth – to keep her safe? She could damn well do that on her own! However, in order to keep her job – her life, as she saw it – she had to abide by the rules that were she was given. For the most part, her uppers had been very lenient in the way of how she worked; she was, after all, a brilliant scientist undertaking a groundbreaking and incredibly selfless project. Or, so she was told. Jordan didn’t much like the idea of praising herself: all was modest on her part. She’d been offered many chances at interviews, denying every one. She didn’t want to be lauded and praised and begged because she was, as a peer once put it, “saving the world.” To her, it was work. Something she wanted to do that needed to be done.

My work, she thought as she watched the rain roll down the windows after plummeting in a free-fall through the prematurely dark sky. However much Jordan detested taking charity, she freely gave it. The thought behind this process being that there were other people in the world who needed more help than she did. Now, though, she could relax: she’d done the heavy lifting. The only thing to do now would be to mass-produce the medicine. Yes, Jordan reflected to herself, she needed a small break.

Her yellow cab pulled up in front of her apartment building, rain still pounding the windows. Taking a glance at the meter, she tossed a few bills over the seat to cover it and stepped out of the car, dashed quickly across the sidewalk and under the eaves in front of the door before pulling out her keys and escaping into the safety of her apartment building. Three flights of stairs and a hallway later, she was in her apartment.

Jordan already had a plan in her head. Not feeling like she had the patience to sit in a bubble bath and soak for hours – and feeling the need to prove to herself that she didn’t warrant a bodyguard – she showered quickly, dressed in casual clothes and left, thanking her luck at not needing an umbrella.

x x x x x x x x x

Charlie pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her back pocket, tapped one out into her awaiting fingers, noting that she needed to grab a new pack on her way home, and had a lighter to the cigarette at her lips as she noticed the woman Ezekiel sent her to stalk leave her apartment. On the opposite side of the street, Charlie doubted the woman would see her. Her assumptions proved correct as Jordan set off down the street. Following her to a bar, Charlie slipped inside and watched her from across the club.

Clubs were not Charlie’s idea of fun. They were too loud, smelled like a mixture of alcohol and sweat, and she had to bear the horrid sight of people flailing about like they were having a seizure and pass for dancing, their lack of grace and dignity amplified through the use of a few drinks. It was nearly painful to watch. Charlie ordered a beer for pretense’s sake and kept her eyes on her stubborn new charge instead of the dance floor.

x x x x x x x x x

Jordan wisely avoided the dance floor, reckoning that she didn’t want to be around people who have seizures standing up. Instead, she lingered at the bar, a drink in her hand as she surveyed the pulsating mass with mild horror. Not being able to watch people make fools of themselves any longer, Jordan soon turned her head to people watch at the bar. She noted with surprise that people who came off the dance floor to get a drink were actually normal in appearance, having half-suspected that they had some sort of motion disability by the way they were jerking about on the floor. Some she might even consider reasonably attractive.

Her gaze turned to other people farther along the bar, more toward the corner. All were strangers, except a familiar face toward the back. Trying discreetly to crane her neck to see who it was, the face was hidden but the clothes looked like they belonged to someone she met... Could it be? No, that woman wouldn’t do that. Jordan swivelled back around to face away from the crowds and toward the bartender, hiding her face. She started tomorrow, why would her body guard even be here? Unless... unless she had direct orders to follow her. Shaking her head to rid her of these ridiculous, paranoid thoughts, Jordan couldn’t help but sneak one last peek toward the end of the bar and biting her lip out of nervous habit. There definitely was a person there with the same type of clothing and body build as her body guard did – thin enough to betray the strength in their stride – but it could just be a really slender guy. If only the guy in front of them would move– ah! There he goes!

However, just as she got a good look at the back of the person’s head, her sight was blocked by a body. Jordan’s gaze hardened as she glanced up at the man smiling down at her, and her thankful lips morphed into a grateful line as hard as her gaze while her teeth slid back behind them. For some reason, this man’s cocky smirk aggravated her far beyond the extent than it was when he had simply blocked her view. She was playing Sherlock Holmes, and she must figure out the mystery of the identity of the person at the end of the bar. Glaring at the idiot in front of her for a second more, her eyes tried to see around him to the object of her stare. She was able to make out the fact that they were now turned toward her so that she could see their face, but couldn’t quite make it out through the bodies – or rather, the single large body before her. Huffing in frustration, yet too polite to tell the guy to piss off, she resorted to ignoring him and turning back to the barkeep.

As she was taking a sip of her water, a voice shouted in her ear, “Can I buy you a drink?” Startled, Jordan shot bolt upright and snapped her head to the direction of the voice and saw the man who’d been giving her the slightly disturbing smile standing back up from where he’d bent over to burst her eardrum and her personal bubble. After debating whether she should pull a sarcastic remark out of her pocket and stamp “dumb ass” on his forehead with her words for potentially causing her hearing damage or just telling him she wasn’t interested, she shook her head no.

Apparently, though, he didn’t get the hint as he bought her a drink anyway – one she would never touch – and insisted on trying to make small talk while she tried repeatedly to get him to shove off. The moron wouldn’t get the hint, however, and became increasingly forward.

x x x x x x x x x

Charlie inwardly cursed the man in front of her for moving when she could tell Jordan was staring her down, as she was forced to shift her eyes to the painful sight taking place on the dance floor. Out of her periphery, she noticed the man settle in front of Jordan and began to chat with her. At this, Charlie rolled her eyes. She didn’t want to follow someone who... no, wait. Unless her keen eyes deceived her, Jordan was giving the man – the one who had been in front of Charlie – a very frightening death glare, her lips pressed firmly in a “get the fuck out of my way” face. Charlie wondered mildly who she would have to defend, the idiot hitting on Jordan or Jordan herself (who seemed very ready to kill the man in front of her, judging by her body language).

Jordan, however, seemed much more polite than Charlie gave her credit for – or maybe the man was just particularly inebriated – as she didn’t seem to be trying too hard to get him to go away. By shifting in her seat, Charlie was able to get a better look at Jordan and decided it wasn’t that Jordan wasn’t being covert in her distaste for him. Her body language was stiff, she leaned away from the man, she didn’t look at him except for a glare. Charlie’s eyebrow slid up easily in wonder at the man’s apparent ignorance of the situation he was getting himself into. When he began trying to touch Jordan, Charlie stood up and quickly walked along the bar, her beer in hand.

Upon approaching them, Charlie slid her arm easily around Jordan’s waist, halting the man’s speech as he sized Charlie up. She leaned into Jordan’s ear and whispered, “Play along really fast,” before standing up and smiling at her.

“Hey,” Charlie smiled at the man who, she now confirmed reeked of alcohol. It didn’t take one look into his eyes to determine what she knew from across the bar. “Thanks for keeping my girl entertained while I was gone, there was a long line at the loo. Are you ready to go, love?” Charlie added, turning to Jordan.

When Jordan nodded, the man interrupted, “Whoa now, we were just getting acquainted. I’m sure the young lady would like to stay here for a little while longer, don’t ya?” While the man flashed a smile that was anything but charming, his eyes belied his smile and Charlie could see that they weren’t going to get away easily. The longer Charlie looked into his eyes, the more confused and jumbled her thoughts became. Memories that were not her own invaded her senses, those of sadistic pleasure and horror-filled screams. Charlie blinked firmly and wrenched her gaze away from the criminal’s. However, she leaned in and growled in his ear, “If you don’t let us go right now, you’re going to pay for what you did to all those other girls, and I don’t play by the rules.”

Not to be intimidated, though, the man slid from his barstool and swung with an almighty hook that caught Charlie in the jaw. Unfazed, she dodged his continuous blows and threw a single, powerful punch that broke his nose and made him stumble back. Instead of continuing the fight – and seeing bouncers head their way through the swarms of people – Charlie grabbed Jordan’s hand and dragged her out the doors.