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

- Text Size +

Author's Chapter Notes:

First of all, thanks a lot to Antoinette, my lovely beta reader, she's helping me with the translation... Once again, forgive my lacks with the language! :) I hope I did a good work anyway, and I'd also love to have some opinion from you. This chapter was very fun to write because I do hate the character appearing in the lines you're going to read. So if there's any Zoe fan...Time to go away! :P


CATHERINE PARKER’S MANOR

10.19 p.m.

Even if the memory of their first time at The Centre hadn’t returned immediately after watching the video, Jarod got what he wanted in the end. After a few hours spent together in the bedroom, he was awake, watching Miss Parker sleeping relaxed and satisfied. While he stroked her soft and warm shoulders, he finally remembered everything. Even that night of many years before he had done the very same gesture. He had caressed her without closing his eyes because of the great excitement he had experienced in making love to her.  
Now, instead, he wondered who might have watched those DSAs. They might have been in everyone’s hands, from security technicians assigned to his bedroom to Mr. Raines and Mr. Parker. The only one he could bet on was Sydney, he could have never lied about such an important thing, unless they had brainwashed him too.
Parker opened her eyes, smiling for her companion’s delicate and kind touch.
“Did you remember?” she asked.

“Every detail. Now everything’s back in its right place.”
Parker turned to see him, “It’s more difficult to me. Some moments are deeper than others, anyway.”
Jarod was dying to reveal something to her, but he didn’t know if that was the right moment and place. He feared he could make her jealous. But she was feeling his inner uneasiness.
“Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
He nodded, but he kept his face lowered for the shame.
“You remember the woman I met in Oregon, Nia Pedron?” he whispered, fearing the worst.
She flared up when she listened to the name of another woman, especially that woman.
“I was sure that…well…that I had my first time with her.” he explained, getting that off his chest.
Parker nervously ran a hand on her eyes.  
“Jarod, you don’t owe me any explanation.” she tried to stopped him. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear about this.
“No, I must say this, Parker…I’m sorry I forgot…”
Miss Parker couldn’t believe her ears. Was he really apologizing because he didn’t remember something that had been stolen by him?
“Jarod…What should I say!?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, I’m far from being Mother Theresa! We can’t keep hanging on the past, or we’ll get crazy! We both slept with other people, that’s not a secret. But what matters is that now we are here, together. God, you were the one who sent me Tommy, can you realize that?” she asked, a bit upset.
Jarod slowly nodded. “And today I feel ashamed because if I could go back…I wouldn’t.”
Parker slightly winced, “Jarod…You would do it, because back then you couldn’t imagine what we had shared before. The good thing is that we’ve always kept this bond between us, which sometimes took us far from each other, sometimes closer, as if we were connected by an invisible rubber band.”
“You think that if they hadn’t done this to us…You would have really helped me leave The Centre when I was eighteen? You’d have kept your promise to return to Blue Cove…because you loved me?”
“I have no doubt.” She replied with resolution. “Young Miss Parker was a bloody impudent girl. She knew what she wanted and she loved you very much, maybe even more than the Miss Parker you’ve got here now.”
He didn’t seem so convinced.
“Jarod, don’t you see we were unconditionally in love with each other? Think about the watch, the friendship with Angelo, think about the blue rose! You filled me with gifts, and once you grew older you started doing just the same. Sometimes with a pinch of sarcasm, like the time you left me that slide with the flu…”
Jarod smiled at the memory of that prank.
“But other times you were sweet and delicate, like when you sent me the chocolate candy and asked me to be your Valentine. I’ll tell you a secret. I sweated blood not to ask you to run to my house, that night.”  


“They say it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Do you believe that's true?”
Jarod called Miss Parker, as he often did when it was late at night. He liked to hear her voice before going to sleep, he felt less homesick and less afraid of the future.
“If you're lonely, call a 900 number!” she answered, sarcastic as usual. Jarod hated her manners, but most of the times he ignored her jokes and tried to make her think.
“Did you read my book?”
“I skimmed through it. You paint a pretty sad picture.”
“I just write the way I see it. How did we end up like this?” he asked her, in a whisper.
“Like what?” she answered, guessing what Boy Genius wanted to discuss.
“Alone, searching. It's ironic, because we both want the same things. Someone to care about, someone to care about us.”
Parker was literally melting at Jarod’s words, but she couldn’t and didn’t want to show it. Her relationship with her prey had to be aseptic and impersonal.
“Do you think we'll ever find that kind of love in our lives?” he naively asked her, hoping to receive a sincere answer, for once.
Parker hesitated a second, breathing fast, but with her heart pounding. Her deep inner self wanted to answer that they could look for that answer together, but obviously her reason got the upper hand.  
“What the hell do you want from me Jarod?” she finally answered, pretending to be annoyed.
Jarod shook his face, finding himself facing the wall that woman had raised against him.
“Open the box!” he concluded, with anger.
Then Miss Parker found the “Be my Valentine” candy inside the little container. That was a weird request, but also so clear. Did Jarod still feel something for her?
She didn’t want to think about that. She took the candy and ate it, wondering where he was in that moment.


Jarod laughed and kissed her.
“The point is, forget the past, Jarod. Let’s use the beautiful memories we had the chance to discover as a new beginning. Not everyone is given a second chance.”
Jarod nodded and got quiet for a while, lying down with his head on the pillow, staring at the ceiling.
Parker was burning with curiosity. Since Jarod had mentioned her, she had wanted to ask him what happened between them.
“Jarod…What about Zoe?” she questioned him, leaning on her elbow to hold her head.
Jarod just stared at her, he didn’t flinch. He didn’t feel at ease talking about that with Miss Parker. So he snorted.  
“Come on, you can tell me. I talked to you about Tommy.”
Maybe she was right. He had to tell her the truth. He raised himself to better look at her.
“Zoe was kidnapped by The Centre, you know” he started to tell, noticing that she was nodding. “By Cox and Lyle. They used her to lure me. I’ve been able to set her free just thanks to my dad, because I was too much involved in Ethan’s research.”    
Parker thought about those moments, but she didn’t want to interrupt.
“A few days later, I went looking for Zoe to set matters straight. I was determined to tell her everything about The Centre, the truth about my family, about you. You know, I…felt for her.”
Those words hurt her, but she didn’t show, she didn’t have the right.
“We met a few days before my departure for Carthis. I explained to her what I had found out about our mothers, and I asked her to be patient, because I had to leave for Scotland. I didn’t realize that I was talking about you, too…”


Zoe was sitting on the couch with Jarod and she was listening to him telling all the details about his anomalous relationship with Miss Parker.
“She’s always been my friend, when we were kids. She’s the only connection I have with that place, aside Sydney.”
“A bond…To the person who’s been hunting you for five years?” Zoe asked, a bit perplexed.
Jarod sighed. How could he make her understand the deep affection that tied him to Miss Parker?
Zoe had realized that Jarod’s emotions weren’t the ones a man feels for his playfellow. She felt very jealous, at that moment.
“I help her to discover what happened to her mother. I give her clues to find the truth, to open her eyes about The Centre, but I don’t always succeed…I often call her to talk, to tell her about me, about her, or about our past.”
Zoe licked her lips, feeling the tension growing. So, Jarod often called Miss Parker, but he never found the time to call her?
“Jarod…it seems to me that you overestimate the importance of this woman to you. She always treated you like a fugitive, someone to chase and capture…Her brother kidnapped me, and…”
“She has nothing to do with Lyle!” he shouted, feeling that he had to stand up for Miss Parker. And who knew why. Zoe shut up immediately.    
“Whatever I find out on that island, I’ll have to share…to…”
“Help her, I got it!” she concluded. She stood up and put her hands on her hips. Jarod looked at her without understanding her behavior.
“Jarod…Do you realize you’ve been talking about this woman for half-an-hour, by now?”
“I’m sorry, I thought you wanted to know everything about…”
“You” she stopped him. “About your life, about who you really are. Not about the woman you had a huge crush for when you were a kid!”
Jarod felt something flaring up, inside. Even if he had to admit he felt something for Miss Parker for almost his whole life, Zoe wasn’t allowed to belittle it that way. How could she dare define it a “crush”?
Guessing that she had to change the argument, Zoe turned the conversation, “I want to be with you, Jarod. I want to go with you on that island…”
“No way!” he replied. “It’s too dangerous, and that’s none of your business.”
As soon as he said those words, he regretted them. He knew Zoe was hurt, but he still had a weight on his chest and he wanted to take revenge because she had defined him a teenager with-the-easy-crush.
“I’m sorry, Zoe. But The Centre might be there. I don’t want them to find you with me, they could use you against me. And I care for you too much to see that happening.”
She nodded, a bit cheered up, but also sad because of his lack of trust. She held him and stroked his hair.
“I love you, Jarod.” she confessed him. He didn’t answer, his thoughts fixed on a twelve-year-old girl with brown hair…


“When I left for Carthis, I didn’t regret leaving her at home…You were on that island, and at least I didn’t run the risk to have her kidnapped by The Centre again. Then something changed.”
“What?” she asked, sensing that her moment was coming, but anxious to hear him saying that.
Jarod approached her until they were practically nose to nose, but without touching her. “You almost kissed me.” he whispered.
Parker smiled, and that was one of the first times in her adult life that she flushed as an eleven-year-old girl.
“Once I was back in the States, I started to realize what I was feeling for you. I’d been trying to deny it so many times, mostly because you insisted in not wanting to give us a chance. But after the island, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You pushed me away…” he stopped, thinking about that conversation inside the car, when Parker had withdrawn her hand from Jarod’s. “And yet, you got on that plane, and by doing so…you saved my life.”
“I needed answers.” she tried to say.
“That’s not all. I persuaded you to make sense of those days, I succeeded in make you realize that the ending of the story was up to you. When you appeared in the aircraft hold, my heart just jumped. I didn’t say anything, we were surrounded by my nemesis, but…in that moment I understood you cared for me too.”
Parker nodded, smiling. That was true: if she had boarded that plane it hadn’t been just to find out who her father really was…She had done it because of Jarod, too.
She stroked his face, almost to thank him for those beautiful words.
“And Zoe?” Miss Parker asked, realizing that she felt almost sorry for her.
“Even if my real feelings had come to the surface, I tried to ignore them for a while. That’s why you haven’t heard from me for months, I needed to take a break from The Centre, from Sydney, from you. I couldn’t accept being in love with the only woman who was forbidden to me, the only one I couldn’t have. So, I decided to try and hang around with Zoe, at least to clear my head.”


She greeted him warmly, kissing him and saying how happy she was that Jarod had seen his mother again, even if for a few seconds.
Jarod told her everything, trying to leave out a little detail; Parker’s presence on the island.
“Jarod, who was there with you? “We” went at Ocee’s, “we” found the ruins of the crypt keeper’s cottage, “we” found the Scrolls. But who’s “we”? Did your father come with you?”   
“I haven’t seen him in a few days…And I don’t believe you really wanna know the answer.” he confessed. But after all, he had to be honest with Zoe, if he wanted it to work.
Zoe quickly realized. “Miss Parker…”
Jarod nodded.
“Zoe, nothing happened!” he lied, to her and to himself. He knew perfectly well that an almost-kiss with Parker meant much more than any other relationship he had ever had with any other woman.
“Of course, a night alone on a desert island and nothing happened!”
“Zoe!” he screamed, upset by the fact she would question his loyalty. But was he really upset? If they hadn’t been interrupted by Ocee, in that special moment…What would have happened?
“Jarod…Can you realize…that you’re in love with this woman?”
Jarod shut up and tried to silence the thing he felt on his whenever someone mentioned Miss Parker. Like when Broots had believed het to be responsible for framing him at the Data Annex and he had stood up for her. Like when, at the bank, he had ordered the thief to let her go. Like when, on the island, they had almost kissed…
“Jarod, I love you…But I can’t share you with another woman, so I need to know. Do you love her?”
Jarod was moving his eyes fast, while dozens of memories filled up his brain. Those of when they were kids at The Centre, but also the ones as adults. Their phone calls. The tense silences full of emotions. The sarcastic jokes that brightened his days. The way Parker got mad when he hid the truth from her and offered it with his one of his games. Those moments when they found themselves forced to be together somewhere. His surprise visits to help her find the truth about Thomas…He couldn’t pretend anymore. That was the only truth.
“I’ve always loved her.” he answered, more himself than Zoe.
She gave an impatient sigh. She was crying.
“Zoe…” he whispered.
“No, Jarod…I don’t want to hear anymore. I can’t be number two, I deserve more!”
He hugged her. “You deserve much more…You deserve a man who loves you for the great strength you communicate.”
“But I wanted you to be that man!” she whined.  
Jarod dried her tears, “I’m sorry Zoe…But I can’t lie to myself anymore: I love Miss Parker.”
That revelation caught him off guard, but he couldn’t help but smile at the idea.  
“How could you love the woman who has been chasing you all this time?” Zoe asked, disappointed.
Jarod grimaced, “She would have never caught me if I hadn’t left her souvenirs everywhere.”
Zoe flared up at the idea. Therefore, Jarod wanted her to follow him on purpose, so that she could find him!
“I love you Zoe, you can always count on me, whatever happens. And promise me you’ll take care of yourself and of your condition.” he asked her, thinking about her cancer.
She nodded, still crying. Then she took her bag and went towards the door.
“What will you do when you tell her you love her…And she’ll take you back to The Centre as an answer?” she asked him, angry.
Jarod contemplated the idea. He wasn’t sure he could make Miss Parker surrender and admit her feelings. And yet, he had to try.
“I’ll go back to run, and she’ll go back to chase” he answered her, winking.


Even if Miss Parker felt like she had just won the lottery, she didn’t want Jarod to think badly of her. After all, Zoe never did anything to her, she just got Jarod’s attention during a moment of their lives when the two of them hadn’t seen each other much. She hade made him happy, for a while. But she could never break the bond between them.
“You miss her?” Parker asked, playing the victim of the situation.
Jarod cunningly looked at her, realizing that she wanted to draw him in a trap to see how he would come out of it.
“I’ll always love her” he answered. “But as a friend. Anyway, I doubt she’ll look for me, she’s too much stubborn to do so.”
“And will you? Maybe one day you’re going to get tired of me and you’ll wish to go back and live all the fun you had with her…”
Jarod got closer, “Never heard a more foolish nonsense. Getting tired of you? If I could, I’d live every second I have losing myself inside your eyes.”
Parker kissed him, “You’re too sweet to me.”
“Just because I love you too damn much. And because you’re wonderful. And lethal!”
“Mmm…the last word is the one I prefer.” she answered, kissing and holding him.
He held her for a while, happy because that embarrassing confession moment was over. Then he came back to their present and what they had to do.
“You realize that The Centre must have had a very good reason to divide us and do that to us?”
She nodded sadly.
“And you realize…that if we were able to be together so much in those years it was just because those videos were used to study my reactions…and maybe even yours?”
“We were two perfect Lab-Rats: the Pretender and the girl with inner sense.” she whispered.
Jarod suddenly was reminded of something.
“Alex told me!” he screamed.
“What?” she asked.


“Jarod, you turned a routine Triumvirate assignment into something wonderfully personal to me…”
Alex was talking through the bars separating him from Jarod, who was hurt and tired for his chasing.
“Luring you was simple. It's that flaw in your character that made it so easy. Always risking your life for somebody who's not important to you world.”
Then Jarod got mad and stood up, charging the iron gate, “The Ambassador is important to the world!” he shouted.
But Alex seemed amused, “Not the world. Your world. The Swedish Ambassador? She's nothing to your world.”
Jarod was laying his head on the wall, shattered and unable to respond, when Alex professed the one truth he considered the most important.
“But Miss Parker is.”
Jarod looked up at him, his eyes might have incinerate Alex with a glance. How could he possibly know about her? Did he have any plans, for her?
“In fact, you have no idea how important to your life she really is…”
Jarod glared at him, more and more worried, wide-eyed for the anger.
“And after today, you'll never know.”
Alex ran away, while Jarod stood up and charged the iron gate calling his name to make him come back.


“So this is why you came to save me?” she asked, shocked by his story.
“Yes. He drove me mad, I couldn’t control myself anymore. When I realized he wanted to use you to hurt me, I couldn’t help but run to find you!”
“Oh, Jarod.” she whispered, realizing how sweet and in love he already was, while she was stupid and arrogant. She thought he deserved a respectable kiss, right then.
“Anyway” he continued, getting away from her and clearing his throat, trying not to fall into the temptation of jumping  her again, “Uhm…Alex knew a lot. He was the one who told me The Centre didn’t want me back just because I’m a pretender. He revealed me how much important you were to me. Maybe that was the moment I really understood.”
“Understood what?”
“That I’d never stopped loving you…even if a few days before you had pointed a knife on me!”
Thinking about the threats to convince him to help her find the lost memory about the conversation he had with Catherine, Parker giggled and put a hand on her forehead.
“Another thing to add to the forgive-me-for-list.” she mumbled.
“You will not believe this, maybe…” he replied, “But I found your attitude incredibly sexy.”


“You look surprised to be here.”
“Well, I'm surprised I'm still alive…”
“Dead men tell no tales.”
Parker had brought Jarod to a safe place, ready to interrogate him about the DSA they had recovered that recorded the meeting he had with Catherine years before.
“I'm assuming, since we're here, this has nothing to do with Centre business…”
“No…”
Then Miss Parker took off a knife and menacingly approached Jarod, pointing the blade to his jaw.
“It's about me. I need your help.”
The blade went down to the prisoner’s chest, securely tied with a rope. The knife movement was slow and almost endearing.
“Tell me what I need to know…and you're outta here…”
“And I should believe you're going to let me just walk away, hmm?” Jarod asked, intensely looking at her. Sydney was watching the scene in silence, not daring to interrupt.
Then Parker cut the rope tying Jarod, willing to gain a bit of his trust.


“A woman with a blade has her charm.” Miss Parker explained.
“Not any woman…My Ice Queen. And yet I have a feeling that if Sydney hadn’t been there with you…you would have jumped on me at any time.”
Parker wanted to dissent, but honestly she couldn’t. Having Jarod tied up, defenseless, in front of her, it had awakened her animal instinct, that day. Perhaps it was also the memories starting to resurface, but she had shut them up when she had cut the rope tying Jarod.
“You looked at me as if you wanted to eat me with your very eyes.” he continued, making fun of her.
“I wasn’t that crazy about you as I am now!”
“No, you weren’t, but there has always been a great tension between us, I felt it under my skin every time we crossed paths, like when we were in that bank, or in Bahia Grande. And you felt it too, you can’t deny it.”
“Jarod…” she started, smiling, “In that bank you were always hanging on my coat-tails.”
“Well…You had such a good perfume, that day. The same you have now.” he explained, smelling her scent almost intoxicating.


“I know it's not easy reading those letters…” Jarod said, while taking care of Fenigor.
“Look, I broke into your father's house, trying to find something about my past, but instead, I found out about yours…”
Miss Parker was still exhausted by reading those letters she had never received before.
“Your mother deserved a better fate than what she got.”
“You're damn right she did.” she interrupted him.
“She used to send me letters on my birthday, holidays. I never knew about these.”
Jarod looked at her, no, he was contemplating her. When that woman was sad, it was a torture for him to look at her. But she was also damned beautiful every time she was touched by Catherine’s memory.
“My father paid me a visit this morning, talking about how you taint the memory of my mother with lies.”
“And you believed him?”


“I hadn’t believed him for a long time, Jarod. But it wasn’t easy to admit it. You were always the only one who helped me find the truth about my past. If I have a bit of peace, I owe it to you.”
He sighed. He’d hoped for years to hear her pronouncing those very words, it was like a liberation for him, the man who had tried to open her eyes in any possible way.  
“Why do you think Fenigor lied to us?”
“You mean about your mother’s murder?” Jarod asked, thinking about the man’s last words, accusing his father of shooting Catherine.
Parker nodded, sadly. After a long talk with Major Charles, she had understood what kind of man he really was. He was exactly like his son; loyal, trustful and honest. He could have never touched a hair to the very one person who was trying to help him rescue Jarod.
“I guess we’ll never know. Who knows what he was thinking, when he told us my father killed your mother…Without counting that Catherine didn’t actually died in that elevator, as we found out later.”
“My mother’s execution by Raines is an indelible memory printed in my mind, one of those I’d love to erase.” she replied.
“And yet…Sometimes I think about what Ocee told us on the island.”
“What?”


“Your mother came to me for herbs.” the old woman explained to Jarod and Miss Parker, referring to Margaret. “Complaining of headaches. But it was easy, even for a blind woman…to see that it was heart that was aching. And that she feared for her life…”
“Ocee, what was my mother searching for?” Jarod asked, worried.
“To find out who you are.”
“What do you mean, who I am?” he answered, not knowing about the Scrolls yet.
“All I know is what she spoke. She and another woman had been trying to discover the truth for a long time. That must have been your mother.” Ocee continued, addressing to Miss Parker.
She couldn’t keep a giggle, “You sure you're blind?”
“Sight may come from one's eyes but the vision comes from one's heart.”


“She was right, you know?” she said. “Since I’ve been learning how to use my inner sense…I’ve been realizing that even more.”
“Ocee spoke with my mother for a long time on the island. Maybe she isn’t alone out there…Maybe…
“My mother’s still alive…” she continued in a whisper.
She hadn’t dared to get to that subject, hoping that Jarod would. But since they went on the Island of Carthis, she had been reminding herself that, in spite of the video of Catherine’s murder after Ethan’s birth, they had never found her body. And most of all she had trusted Raines to run from her father, that filthy worm. May it all have been a plan, may Catherine still be out there, perhaps with Margaret? The voices didn’t talk much, she hadn’t learned to distinguish them yet. But her inner sense showed her the way and she couldn’t ignore it. They had to watch the last DSA.
Miss Parker stood up and got dressed, leaving Jarod dismayed.
“I thought you wanted to wait ‘till morning.”
“I feel the key to all could be in that last DSA, Jarod. We have to watch it now.”
This time he was the one to be reluctant. He didn’t want to find a new wonderful memory lived with Parker that he had forgotten. When she finished putting on her jeans and shirt, she gave him her hand, “Come with me. This time, I’m going to protect you.”
Jarod nodded.


The last DSA was inserted in the viewer by Parker’s trembling hands. As soon as it started, they both realized it was different from the others. It wasn’t The Centre, but the house in the woods where Catherine had given birth to Ethan. The video didn’t have a precise date, so Jarod and Miss Parker couldn’t understand what year it was, at the beginning.
The video was framing an empty couch, suddenly occupied by nothing less than their mothers, Catherine and Margaret.
“My God!” Parker screamed.
“Together!” he echoed her.

“Children” Catherine’s voice said, she took the hand of her friend, who couldn’t help but crying. “If everything went as I’m foreseeing, now you two, our greatest treasures…are together watching this video. You couldn’t have found it, unless you were together.”
Catherine was smiling. There was no doubt: the video had been shot after 1970. She was thinner than when she had delivered their brother, and she seemed emaciated. Margaret, instead, seemed to have suddenly aged, compared to the beautiful picture Jarod had of hers.
“We don’t have much time. We can’t tell you everything now, but it’s the moment for you to know some important things, which will guide you for the future waiting for you.”
Margaret sobbed and held Catherine’s hand.
“Jarod, my boy, I know it won’t be easy for you to understand this, but you must believe me; if we disappeared, we’ve done it for your own good.”
Parker sent her partner a soft look.
“Our common friend at The Centre stole these DSAs before they could end up in the wrong hands and disappear. They’re the last evidence of the great love that always bonded you, since you were kids. Unfortunately, they’ve decided to delete your memories, and we can’t do anything to avoid it, destiny has already been fulfilled.”
“But who did it, Catherine?” Jarod asked, as if the woman could hear him.
“Your connection is too stron…” Catherine went on. “They want to separate you from one another and make you enemies. They’ll send Charlotte far away. They’ll train you to be a hunter. While you, Jarod…you’ll be forced to go on with your simulations for so many years.”
“Oh, my boy.” Margaret whispered. Jarod touched the video tenderly, as if he could feel her mother’s skin.
“When you find this video, I hope you already know about the Scrolls.” Catherine spoke again. This time it was Jarod who stared at Miss Parker, his heart beating wildly.
“They hold the truth about your future, Jarod. But I foresee that you won’t be able to read them soon, because my husband will get in the way between you and truth, as always. I’m sorry darling, but I’ve always had to lie to you about my relationship with your father, because I couldn’t make him discover my big plan.”
“But what plan, Mama?”
“The two of you on your own could never destroy The Centre. But now that you’re together, the time has come. You must continue the project that Margaret and I have started. The Scrolls may reveal your future, but you will have to decide how to make it come true. The Centre destroyed so many lives and it is still so powerful. You’ll have to demolish it piece by piece, by unearthing its trades and discovering all the corrupted people who ruined our lives, starting with your father, honey.”
Miss Parker was crying.
Then Margaret intervened. “I hope you find your brother and sister, Jarod…Catherine and I have moved in shadows for years not to let them discover us. If they found us, they’d kill us. The only way to survive was to fake Catherine’s death and run. But the love I have for your father and my kids, it gives me the strength to go on and fight. Catherine is sure we’ll see each other again.”
The woman smiled, leading Miss Parker to wonder how could she be so strong, after all she had been through.
“You must find your brother, Ethan. I’m sure you’ll do everything possible to help him and with him you’ll be able to find us. We’ll be a family again. And there’s one final thing you should know.”
Margaret squinted, ready for the worst revelation.
“A terrible secret is hidden at The Centre. Something my inner sense cannot foresee yet. It’s like if something born from the two of you lies in the most hidden depth of The Centre.”
Again, Parker and Jarod looked at each other in worry.
“Years will go by, Margaret and I will disappear. Maybe we won’t meet for a very long time.” Catherine said, getting to the conclusion. “But when it happens, it will be to put an end to The Centre, I promise. Until then…Take care of each other, as you’ve always done. Jarod, remember the promise you made me.”
He sighed, thinking about how much he’d always taken care of Miss Parker.
“Darling, be strong and trust your inner sense. It’ll help you finding Ethan. It’ll help you to survive.”
“We have to go.” Margaret said to her, between a sob and the other “We love you very much.”
After that, the women stood up and the camera turned off.


Miss Parker didn’t know what to say. That revelation was far too much. Although her mother didn’t say anything concrete, she had confirmed the suspects of the last few days. Stolen memories, lies, the bond with Jarod. And maybe she was still alive! Now they knew that everything was happening for a reason.
“You saw them?” Jarod asked, happy as a child.   
Parker smiled when she saw him so sweet and vulnerable, “Yeah…Jarod, they’re out there, and they’re waiting for us. We must carry out their work, we’re the only ones who can.”
“How?” he asked. After so many fights, this one seemed impossible to face.
“I’m going back to The Centre.”
Jarod stood up and started to walk fast, back and forth. “No way. You’re coming with me, and we’re taking Sydney and Broots, too!”
Parker giggled. “And how can we find the truth, Jarod?” She stood up too and reached him, but Jarod was avoiding her gaze.
“Listen, Boy Wonder” he couldn’t help but notice her coming back to nicknames. “If Broots, Syd and I are inside, we can do some serious damage. Now that we’re finally on the same side, we won’t investigate separately. It won’t be you-send-me-a-clue to make me discover something, it’s you and me, together, investigating to end this thing!”
“But you’re taking a risk. If they find out we’re cooperating, they will kill you.”
“You once told me that sometimes, the risks we take are worth it.”
“Your father isn’t there to protect you anymore. However I’ve detested him, while he was there I knew that nobody would dare to touch you. Now there are only Lyle…and Raines.” he said, almost growling the last name.
“Well, a brother’s always protective of his twin sister, isn't he?”
“Parker…” he replied, not feeling like joking in that moment.
“Jarod, I can take care of myself. We need to investigate on several fronts. We’re going to try and discover the truth about the Scrolls. We need to monitor the Triumvirate’s movements, I’ll find out if my father – if we want to call him so – is dead or alive, and I’ll find those damned Scrolls.”
“And what should I do, staying out there, pretending to be someone I’m not as if nothing has changed? I haven’t got the strength nor the will to be so selfless. It’s the moment to think about myself, and about us.”
“You’re absolutely right. In fact, I don’t intend to let you run again. I don’t want you to disappear without me following you, Jarod.” she replied, while smiling.
“Meaning?”
“Well, apparently, nothing will have to change. You run, I chase.”
Jarod raised an eyebrow and started to understand what she was talking about. But could that work?
“So let me get this…” he said, getting a few steps far from her, “I’m running as if nothing had changed…leaving clues for you and Sydney all around the States…”
“And the three of us chase you, exactly.”
Jarod came back near her and held her. “With the small difference that now, if you find me, you don’t take me back to The Centre.”
Parker smiled. “You really are a Genius, Jarod. But there’s a fact. I can’t vouch for my brother’s good will, he’s not sleeping with you.”
Jarod laughed. Yes, this might work. If Parker and Sydney helped him from the  inside, with a bit of Broots’s computer skills…
“It might work…”
“It must work. And you can look for Ethan in the meantime…I miss him, I need him.”
“Me too. He’s important to us both, your mother had foreseen that, when she was pregnant…but…”
“But?”
“I also need you. I can’t just run as I’ve always done now that we’ve finally found each other.”
“But you won’t have to run from me, Jarod, just from The Centre. And my door is always open for you. It’s going to be so cool to find you in my house when I’m coming back from a very intense day spent chasing you!”
Jarod imagined for a while Lyle discovering him and Parker hidden inside her house, maybe after his sister had been traveling the States in the hope of finding him.
“I’ll always bring you flowers.” he whispered, kissing her.
“Only if they’re blue roses.” she replied, answering the kiss.
Jarod was feeling his heart breaking, now, because he knew that the moment of goodbyes had come.
He stroked her face and stared at her, trying to fix an indelible image of that moment in his memory. He leaned his forehead against hers again, he just stayed right there for a few seconds, in silence.
“I don’t want to leave you.” he managed to whisper.
“You have to, sweetheart.”
Jarod moved his head and looked at her, smiling. Did she really call him that?
“Be careful.”
Parker smiled, “You’ll be on the run again, hunted by my brother and Raines…And you come and ask me to be careful?”
Jarod grimaced and moved away, not before giving her a pat on her butt, almost to punish her for the joke. He took the stolen DSAs and put them in the box, then he closed the computer inside its suitcase and took it, ready to go. He reached the door and opened it.
“Uh, Jarod!” she stopped him.
He turned around, standing in the doorway. Parker reached him and put a hand on his chest, intensely looking at him in the eyes.
“I had no doubt your pretending skills were so good under the sheets.”
He burst into laugh and kissed her, then he blended into the night. As he had suddenly appeared in her life two days before, now he had disappeared again.





Chapter End Notes:

If you're reading, I hope to have comments too! Even if you want to insult me! And I'd love to know how does it seem to you and how you feel about it! Many things are still going to happen!






You must login (register) to review.