“Miss Chantel… What do those words mean?” A young dancer student, brown hair in pigtails, pointed at the wall outside of the dance studio.
The wall had big words in black and red graffiti saying: “Fucking traitor.”
“Noelle, why don’t we go inside and not look at that bad thing, okay?” Chantel said sweetly to the little dancer.
Chantel scooted the young students inside the dance studio. This was not something for a four-year-old to see. Her boss would not be too happy about this at all. The past couple days had been the most stressful for Chantel. First off, there were rising threats of vandalism at her workplace.
Vandals trashed the dance studio that she worked at periodically, which prevented Chantel from coming in for work. No work means no income for her. More strange things started coming up when Chantel started getting threatening letters from unknown sources.
At first, she thought they were just pranksters, but the letters turned into scary emails! Every email she opened made her skin crawl to the fact that these ‘pranksters’ were threatening her to not be a ‘snitch.’
Chantel felt confused on what these people were telling her not to snitch about until another email came up and said:
You owe the master your loyalty. This is just the beginning. Let out our secrets... You and your father will get it.
Pushing her chair back from her desk, Chantel slammed her laptop down. It did not take a second longer to figure out who the ‘pranksters’ were As she got up from her chair, the door swung open to reveal her father, stomping into her bedroom in a furious mood. Chantel stood frozen in place and swallowed the bile of fear down when her father looked at her.
“Ji-a, what have you done?!” Mr. Delisle shook the letter in her face and questioned. “You tell me who these people are!”
Chantel did not really tell her father about her dealings with the Rise of Light. There were already too many people who knew. Chantel did not want to put him in danger, if her hunch is right about the Rise of Light being the culprits sending these horrible letters.
“I can’t…. but what I am going to do is fix it. They are probably some teenage pranksters, dad. Listen, I gotta’ go. I have a gig tonight.” Chantel got her things together, but her father continued to pester her.
“Ji-a, it isn’t hard to tell there is fear in your eyes. There is something else going on with you. You need to tell me.” Mr. Delisle put his hands on her shoulders, which prompted the girl to stop.
Her father backed her into the corner. Was lying to him going to get her anywhere?
Chantel put down her stuff and faced him. She decided it was time to face the music, guiding her father to sit down in her chair, near her desk. Chantel confessed to him about everything. During the confession, the part about Roland and Georgina came up, which prompted Mr. Delisle to get up from the chair and grab her hand.
“Chantel, you need to get out of this group now,” Mr. Delisle warned, pulling her close to him.
“I didn’t join this group or anything, dad. I found some scary stuff at one of their meetings… dad, I think the label that my band is under on has a drug operation going on and drugging their artists. The Rise of Light had something to do with that and Jesse, Darren, and I are gonna go…” Chantel said, until her father closed her mouth to stop her from saying anything further.
“You cannot say a single word at all, Ji-a! Going to the police will not help you. What you need to do is leave town with me tonight,” Mr. Delisle told her, then Chantel pushed his hand off her mouth.
She opened her mouth and said, “I can’t just leave tonight! I have a gig! The band already lost Darren because of his broken arm. They can’t afford to lose a keyboardist at the last minute!”
“And I cannot afford to lose a daughter! That family that we still have in that cult group are dangerous people, Chantel!” Mr. Delisle exclaimed. Then he muttered. “Curse that, Cross boy, putting your life at risk!”
“This isn’t Darren's fault! He didn’t force me to dig into this, I did! All Darren did was support me the best he could!” Chantel yelled until she looked at her watch to see the time. “Look, Jesse and I are going to report this to the police, then we’re going to Rockwick for our band’s gig. We’ll talk about this later.” She went back to get her stuff together, then hurried out of the room.
However, the girl's father continued to follow her to stop her as he grabbed her arm once again. Chantel tried to pull away from him until she snapped at him before exiting the house. In her rage, she accidentally burned his arm when Mr. Delisle backed away from her. Chantel just stopped and stood in the hallway near the front door. She is speechless and could not believe she used her powers on her own father!
Watching her father holding his burned arm with his eyes wide in shock, Chantel’s lips mouthed a “sorry” to him, then walking out the door. Her father did not stop her at all.---
Chantel and Jesse reported what happened at the rave party to Underwood local authorities through an anonymous hotline before taking the bus to Rockwick's gig. Since Chantel was there, she had to report what she saw, but the problem is: How is she going to tell a bunch of Outsider police about underground cave basement about some serious illegal drugs? I guess Jesse, Darren, and Chantel should have thought this thing through. So instead, she warned the police that the area around Night Barista Tower. They should make a note about the suspicious activities, like shady business dealings going on over there. Chantel hoped that, despite Underwood being an Outsider Anchor Town. A couple Supernaturals must have to be secretly on the police force.
At least, the ones that cared about this incident. Chantel hung up the phone when she finished reporting the incident. She sighed before following Jesse to the bus stop. Maybe her father was right; this could be pointless to get to the police and the Rise of Light was already onto them! Jesse and Chantel sat together in one seat on the long ride to the Rockwick.
She shifted through her text messages and saw another threatening text message. This time it was from Roland:
If you think going to the police will save you, think again. The Master has eyes everywhere…
Chantel felt something caught in her throat when she saw that her cousin, her so-called long-lost cousin, was scaring her. Thoughts ran through her head when she read the sentence, “The Master has eyes everywhere…” After seeing how much Mikel has influenced Chantel’s time with the Rise of Light, she wonders how big his power and influence could go?
"Was reporting to the police the wrong move for us? Jesse and I even told the issue to Robert and Linda earlier, but what would these people do to us now?" She thought to herself.
There was no time to think about this as Jesse and Chantel had a gig to complete. The last leg before their contracts ended with Crimson Crown Music Group. Like last time, Chantel’s good friend, Sung-Hyun met them, but Darren was here with him. Darren had an earlier start, agreeing that Jesse and Chantel would meet up with him later at Rockwick. With no time to hang around, the four of them headed to their gig, which the venue was a place that the NorthEasters have been wanting to book at: Millenium Concert Hall.
When they arrived at the place, Sung-Hyun and Darren went their separate ways. The three of them headed to the backstage area, where Nicola greeted them, who looked a bit distressed. Chantel went up and greeted her, then stood next to her, while Jesse went to tune his guitar nearby them.
“You okay, Nicola?” Chantel asked, while Nicola rubbed the back of her neck.
“I just get jitters before the show. Nothing serious, but I’m more concerned about Linda… she has been acting a bit odd today,” Nicola tilted her head over to the direction where Linda is with her boyfriend, Dana.
Chantel observed over Nicola’s shoulder where Linda seemed like she was arguing with Dana about something. She could not make out what they were arguing about between Linda moving her arms a lot, frantically. Dana, however, grabbed Linda by the shoulders, shaking her. Continuing to watch this weird scene, Linda slapped him, then stomped away from him, leaving the boy in shock. Dana tried to follow her, only for other people to block his path. Chantel’s eyes and mouth dropped open when she saw this. She knew her band leader for a long time, and what she observed was not Linda’s usual behavior.
When Linda came over to Nicola and Chantel, she noticed that Linda threw a nasty glance at Nicola. She put her hands on her hips and commented, “Oh, I forgot. You’re the chick that’s replacing my problematic bassist for this gig.”
“What the hell…” Chantel thought to herself. There was something off about Linda.
The leader pulled Chantel aside, taking her to a private spot backstage, away from the other performers and their band.
Things were quiet for a moment, until Chantel bit her lip nervously and asked, “Um...Linda...you need to talk to me?”
“Yeah, I need to tell this to you straight, J-ia… um... after this gig is over, you’re fired,” Linda blurted this news out to her casually.
The sudden news of this hit her like a ton of bricks while she just stood there in place.
Chantel exclaimed, “I’m fired?! What?! I mean, we never discussed something like this, Linda. I thought we were going to continue with this lineup after we were done with Crimson Crown Music Group? Why the change? What did I do to get fired?”
“You just don’t fit the band image anymore. I'm reconstructing the band…” Linda shrugged her shoulders, which confused the girl even more.
“Okay, did you talk about it with Trenton, Darren, and Jesse? Heck, does Robert even know? I thought this was a group decision thing, Linda. Are you okay?” Chantel looked into Linda’s eyes as she saw her pupils dilated; something was clearly wrong with the leader when she saw the woman’s eyebrows twitching.
“Listen, why don’t you just stop asking fucking questions and just accept your firing, okay?” Linda just ignored every question that Chantel asked and walked away.
This was not normal for Linda. Clearly not normal for her to act like this. Linda rarely called her J-ia and never acted unprofessional. Things were even more suspicious when she noticed that Robert is not here. Maybe he was late. At least the leader knew how to manage them well on her own without him.
Chantel did not say a word about her sudden firing and kept the news to herself. She had to stay professional and not make a scene, dealing with whatever Linda was going through later. If this was going to be her last night as a member of the NorthEasters, she is going to have to make it count.
As the band got ready for showtime, Chantel switched the setting on her wristband when she finished releasing her powers in private with Nicola. Then, she headed back in to get her place on stage, until the announcer introduced the band.
Comments (0)
See all