Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story

- Text Size +

Author's Chapter Notes:
Authors note: Thank you to my beta's, Terra, Jacci, Tina, Sarah and Katie. I appricate all the help i could get for this story. You are all Gems!
White snowflakes


White snowflakes landing,

Hiding everything from sight.

Disguising the evils,

That lurk in the night.



Parker had not been able to sleep that night, pacing up and down restlessly, playing over the short conversation she had had with Jarod. Why for once, could she not be civil to him, hear him out, talk to him and offer some form of comfort?

Parker had never once denied that the two of them had been friends, that she had enjoyed seeing him and playing with him. Even now when Jarod called, Parker was always secretly relieved to hear he was safe and doing okay. She would never in her life admit it though, not to Sydney, not to Jarod, not even to herself. It was a door she didn’t want to open, a path she was afraid to explore.

It played out the same way every time however, she was hostile and angry as Jarod tried to help her, he would be nice and friendly only to end up hurt most times. This time it was Parker who had been hurt, she was afraid she had just had the last phone call with Jarod that she ever would have. It was her fault as well, she could hear the desperation and depression in his voice and had just pushed him away as always. That was the rules of their stupid little game, and just for once why couldn’t she let it go? It was their rules after all, why did she have to accept them as her own? Jarod never did.

Glancing at the clock, Parker groaned softly to see it was nearly 4 am, it was officially Christmas Eve. Tonight she would have to attend the annual Centre Christmas Eve ball, get dressed up and look stunning, suffer the boring conversations with the old men, her father ignoring her, her brother taunting her. It was not something she wanted to do any year, but this year she was even more reluctant to go. Not after the phone call she had received.

Running her hand through her thick, brown hair, Parker moved upstairs and got changed into jeans and a jumper, not bothering with putting on her ice queen façade for this trip. She needed to get to Broots, needed him to try and trace that call she had, find out something to take her to Jarod.

Heading back downstairs and towards the door, Parker paused and went back to the Christmas tree she had lovingly decorated. It was the only thing she enjoyed about the Christmas tradition, the tree reminding her of happier times. Parker knew that was the only reason she still decorated it, something she could look at and remember the past, remember her mother. Grabbing two gifts, she blew the candles out that had almost melted all the way down and left her house and headed into the cold, white night of winter.


Jarod sat in the chair, his little tree on the coffee table with the few decorations that would fit on it. It looked pathetic and sad, like its life had been cut short for the pleasure of a human wanting to cheer their own life up.

As the years had dragged on, as his life had become shorter and shorter, Jarod had started to lose the bright hope that had once sustained him through the darkest of times. The hope that he would find his family, be with them, have a family of his own and be safe from the evils of the corporation that had imprisoned him for almost all of his life.

Every day that ticked by, every month and every year, that hope had slowly vanished to the point where it had disappeared entirely. What had been left now after the hope had gone and had turned into bitterness, was a depressed and jealous man, watching the lives and joys of others around him. The tired and lonely man stared out of the window, unable to sleep as his life played out in front of him.

The few memories he had of his life before the Centre were that of terror and panic, being stolen from his happy world. He saw his life in the Centre, the death and destruction, fear and pain forced upon him. Jarod only had a few happy memories from that part of his life and they had involved Miss Parker, someone who now hated and despised him. His only true friend had been lost to him because of the evil place that raised him.

When the pretender had escaped, his whole world turned upside down and inside out. Jarod could never have imagined such beauty and joy that he had seen around him, the discoveries he had made, the people he had met. And all it took to destroy that wondrous world around him was the evil men, the greedy men that had shown Jarod that not all things in this world were pure and loving. Those men who had tainted then ripped away his naive allusions to shreds had changed his entire life and view of his once perfect and peacefully world he had imagined.

As the years had passed him, those one or two despicable people had turned in to ten or twenty, then one or two hundred. Jarod’s eyes had opened to see what an evil, sad and lonely world it really was and much of it had been his own fault because of those simulations he had performed.

He focused on helping people, righting wrongs and finding his family. Every time he had helped someone he had gotten a buzz, a warm feeling in his body which only lasted a short time and still was getting shorter. Jarod knew he needed his family, needed love in his life and had been determined to find them.

There was no better time in his life that Jarod could remember than that first hug from his father, holding his sister's hand and seeing his mother, although they had never been able to hug each other and talk. Now, even those memories weren’t enough to sustain Jarod through the hard times and he had just given up. It was just too little, not enough to combat the darkness and despair he felt sometimes.

Jarod knew he needed to talk to Sydney, Sydney would make it better for him, but instead he had foolishly called Parker. What a mistake that had been, the hope of her helping him to feel better had been crushed as always and he had hung up feeling worse than before.

Tearing his eyes away from the beautiful white covered earth outside his window, Jarod moved to grab his jacket. He needed to go for a walk, he needed to clear his mind and think of all the good in the world, in his world. Not just the bad. If he did, Jarod was sure he would go insane thinking of all the murders and terrorist attacks, the kidnappings and rapes, the evil men and women ruining the lives of the innocent.


Parker had stared out the window the entire time Broots had worked, watching as the snow fell so softly and slowly. The snow seemed to change everything, the way people viewed the world, the way they acted, how things looked and felt.

The snow sometimes made things seem simpler, safer, happier, but most times to Parker, she believed it made things worse. It disguised the evils lurking out there, it covered offender's tracks, it hid the blood spilt in anger and hid those in the search of more power and control.

As a child, she had loved the snow, playing in it with her mother, how carefree it made her feel, how alive. Now however, no matter how beautiful a picture it painted, Parker found the snow to be sinister almost, a cloak for those things darker.

Swallowing the brandy, savouring the warmth it brought as it burnt down her throat, Parker’s thoughts once again travelled back to Jarod. What could have happened to break his spirit so? What had happened to Jarod to change him from the man she remembered to the one she had heard on the phone earlier? Where did the old, cocky, annoying Jarod go?

Parker was brought back to reality as Broots cleared his throat, shuffling nervously on the spot. Parker had to hide a smile at that, even in his own house, she managed to intimidate the poor tech.

“I have a location.” There was something different about Miss Parker this morning and it made Broots even more jittery than normal. “I managed to trace the call back through a system I created, it's very similar to the Hound. I put in the number of the line the call was made to…”

Parker growled at him, not in the mood to listen to his rambling. If he had a location, Parker wanted to know, no, she NEEDED to know this instant. Parker just had a very, very bad feeling about this and she wanted desperately to get to Jarod before he did something they all might regret.

“Jarod is in Dover,” Broots informed her, telling his boss where exactly he was. The way she was looking out that window, as if she were reliving her entire life frightened the tech slightly. Miss Parker had always been strong, determined, formidable. As he had watched her looking out that window though, she had looked so soft and vulnerable, scared.

“Should I call in a sweeper team?”

Shaking her head, the glass of brandy on the coffee table already as Parker headed for the door. “I don’t want anyone to know. This is between you and me. Got it?” Seeing Broots nod, Parker left his house almost running. If anything had happened to Jarod, if he was dead or dying, Parker would bring that bastard back to life so she could kill him once more.









You must login (register) to review.