Welcome to Gaia! ::

A couple of weeks ago, Jada had gotten the notice that said the auditors, her family accountants, were coming to check over the books that Audrey had been keeping. It was their job, after all, to keep her wealthy and to help manage her affairs. Her father still controlled her stocks in her grandfather's company-- the controlling share-- but she received a portion of the dividends directly now. That meant that she had income coming in that a girl her age was not 'properly prepared' to deal with, according to many of the other stockholders. It also meant that she should be learning the business, not dawdling around going to college and aspiring to be a model, or whatever it was that she was going to do with her life this week. Yet she was not, and it was making other stockholders uncomfortable. What would happen in three years, when she gained control over half of her stocks, and then in another six after, when she controlled her full stocks? By 27 she should know the business, but if she actually clung to these pipe dreams, how would she find the time to buckle down? She needed to be a proficient businesswoman, not a little girl who hung about in a town full of terrorists. Hell, what would happen if she died? She had no children. She had no will. Her parents would be the beneficiaries- a lot of it probably to Szelem, who knew nothing about business and would probably make another marriage, and just 'let him deal with it.' Not that she chose bad husbands, but a woman her age could be manipulated by a smart enough man. She was getting to that vulnerable stage. (And she was pregnant.) It was sexist, perhaps, but the young Miss Chamberlyn was known for slipping her bodyguards-- and goodness knew a girl who couldn't even manage a can of pepper spray couldn't protect herself.

The auditors had come, scowling at her blue-haired friend and quizzing her about every aspect of the finances. Jada's large spending on makeup, and her hefty shoes budget? The boat that was being built in the Olympic size swimming pool at her parents home, the massive cost for miscellany? When Jada had warned her friend, she didn't know if Audrey would take her seriously, with everything else that she had on her plate. But she was actually kind of proud of how the girl handled herself, and tossed her a few mischievous winks over her shoulder. It was interesting, too, looking over the books. Jada liked surprising people, and she'd forgotten that no one knew just how well she hid behind the facade of being... well... T's and A. They had pored over every receipt, every penny, and scowled at everything Jada pointed out. No convenient skipping for you, boys. After they'd left the first day, Jada had raised an eyebrow. “Honesty,” she told Audrey, almost disgusted, shaking her head. “I think they'll be more worried about the fact you aren't embezzling than if you did.” the bluenette had shrugged, smiled, and skipped out to meet Elzo driving in Jada's car. (It was faster.) Really, the black-haired young woman had to reflect-- why would Audrey embezzle? Jada paid her well enough (she thought, she rarely looked at the checks she signed for her) and she hardly denied Audrey anything she asked. Then with Elzo in the mix, the girl was spoiled rotten.

They had stayed a week, until the weirdness of the city had driven them off earlier than anticipated. Her hire was given the brief stamp of approval, but her personal choices would have to be discussed. After all, this 'Audrey' was an employee. She wasn't supposed to decline her employer's purchases, just make sure she stayed able to afford them. They went back to New York, and met with the board.

“First,” the head said, quietly, “I have to say that it is intensely obvious Miss Chamberlyn is either suicidal or in some manner self-destructive.” The news startled both her parents, who were glaring at each other over the board table. “She is covered in bruises, scratches, and her medical bills are a huge majority of her spending. Her sister could not once tell me where she was, or who she was with, but we observed several nights of her coming home either intoxicated or on drugs.” If Jada had known they had staked her house out, she would have been furious. Or had she known, and it all been a show? “I don't know how much of this is her playing the defiant teenager, trying to rebel against her position, but it is a clear sign of some mental distress.” Szelem felt a brief pang of guilt for what she was about to do to her daughter. What she had done to her daughter. The divorce, and her friends deaths, and the coma, and so many hospitalized around her? And now she was alone in that town, with two siblings staying in her home, while she and her ex-husband spit poison at each other about the baby in her belly- the baby conceived before she and Michael had separated. “We have to say that her choice of employee is acceptable, but that there needs to be some constraints put back on her.”

“It is legally her money.” Michael said it blandly. “What do you suggest?”

“Have her put in an institution.” Someone else suggested. “Rehab, or an asylum. For goodness sake, if your daughter is out getting drunk every night, she needs something. Have the funds put back in trust. Force her to leave that town, give up control. She'll ruin this entire company.”

“She's eighteen.” another person stressed. “She won't get any control, any power, until she is grown up. And at twenty-one, we can do something about it without cutting her off from her funds. Force her to learn it, force her to sell out.”

“You could force her to grow up now.” the first man stressed.

“Michael, Jada has always struck me as a beautiful, intelligent girl. If she is acting out now, there is more wrong than just a divorce and the sudden flood of money.” It was Vic, Michael's second-in-command, speaking up at last. “We've all known her since she came up to our knees. “I remember Lucian bringing her into the office when she was three, and sitting her behind his desk and letting her be the 'boss' for a day. We all had peanut butter for lunch, and the secretaries were playing dolls with her.” She'd known how to win people over even then, and not much had changed. If Jada cared about what you thought, you were inundated with the good points. “She doesn't realize the severity of keeping this up. Make her see a psychiatrist.”

“We could,” Szelem said lightly, and pulled out a few pieces of paper from her folder, “Bring my father's will into consideration.”

There was silence at the table, each of them frowning again, deeper than before. “Szelem, you are beating a dead horse with that will.” Michael grunted it.

“And look!” she mocked him. “It's standing up for me.” there was more muttering, and she passed the papers down the table. “If Jada gets married, control of her stocks can be immediately passed into their hands, should the Board agree. I have a solution which can solve everything.” Michael was shaking his head, and Vic looked disgusted. “Find her a husband who can control her, gentlemen. We have someone who can run the business- and I am sure marriage will give her the maturity she needs to be the vivacious Trophy Wife that my ex-husband and I know she can be.”

There was silence. In the past, they'd rejected talk of it offhand. Szelem had been gunning for that money, or a son-in-law who would give her access to it, for years. Now Jada was eighteen, and a young adult. There was no reason to just reject it... “Do you have anyone in mind?” one of the women spoke up first, breaking the awkward, thoughtful silence.

Szelem smiled. “A few options.”

Jada woke up from Elysion as the sun rose over the volcanoes and the cooling lava. She woke to her body choking, arching into the air, trying to heave back up the blood that had been pouring down the back of her throat from her nose, the pain in her bruised body more than she could stand with no adrenaline coursing through her veins to keep her standing. She couldn't scream, couldn't scream, couldn't let herself scream- it would wake Szelem and Lucas on the second floor, probably traveling down to wake Zora on the third floor. The heiress rolled out of her bed, trying to ignore the blood that poured onto the expensive Persian rug that covered her hardwood floors, crawling and stumbling her way to the bathroom. She couldn't even make it to the toilet before she was heaving, vomiting from the pain and the bile in her stomach. When she was done, she pushed to her feet, moving around the foul-smelling puddle on the floor and grabbing her washcloth from next to the sink. The shower was cold when she sat on the edge of the tub, turning on the cold water.

Across the room the mirror was reflecting a battered woman, barely even so, a child with one eye swollen mostly shut. Jada's white tank top was sticky with blood, and her boy-shorts had not covered enough of her to keep her from getting blood on her legs as she'd crawled across the floor. She felt like she was hemorrhaging out or something, even though she knew she wasn't. If it was that bad, she'd be unconscious or something. She was overreacting. She was... oh, s**t, there was so much blood. She'd never hurt like this but once, maybe twice, and there had been a hospital there each time. At least with the Salamanders she'd been unconscious. And the wound had cauterized itself on impact. She hadn't had to watch herself... She looked like she'd butchered a damn animal, not like she'd just woken up from a night's sleep. The cloth was cold, dripping when she lifted it towards her face hesitantly. Before it touched the skin she paused, swallowing a lump of goo in her throat and trying not to think about what it was. Her hands were shaking, and she didn't trust that her nose wasn't broken.

Breathe out.

She closed her eyes against the cold, burying her face in the cool cloth and slipping her face into it, gasping as she felt the coarse material rub against the small cuts and the pressure of her fingers on the bruises. Her left eye wouldn't open at all. It was a sad realization, and Jada slid into the garden tub, resting her body against the edge and letting herself slump. Her right cheek was numb, and she had a wiggly tooth. Jada didn't want to go to the doctor, but she might have to. Her knee hurt, she realized, and one of her ribs was sore. Though really, in a way it was no less than she deserved for not using her power up until the bitter end. She could have helped people, she could have avoided being so injured, if she had only given in to the lure of her powers. Andromache wouldn't be hurt like this, and then again she also wouldn't be crying like this, tears squeezing out through swollen tear ducts. Then again, the former Scylla had been, in the heiresses opinion, the taller, sexier version of Xena: Warrior Princess. True, Andromache had also been lonelier. She had no Gabrielle, not even an Ares. It had been next to impossible for a woman who made her place in that 'man's world' to be allowed to show weakness. To show that she was a woman at all.

Jada couldn't start to pity her. To start pitying Andromache, or to start pitying herself would be mental suicide. Self-pity, her mother whispered in her ear, Is a parasite. A destructive, insidious little worm. You grab it, and you yank it, and you step on it.

Ugh, her bathroom smelled like metal and stomach acid. At least she could smell at all, though. She pulled off her bloodied top and rose up, peeling off her boy shorts. The water was pink, starting to flood the tub, but she stood and washed off the blood into it as it pooled around her toes, checking herself for previously unnoticed cuts or bruises. Her body screamed as the water beat against her flesh, and when she couldn't take it anymore she pushed out of the shower, ignoring the pink water dripping onto the floor. Her hair cling to her knees, trailing down the curves of her body until she peeled it away from her, holding it out in her hand. There was blood in her hair too, she could see the pink dripping from the ends of her hair and onto the floor. She couldn't take aspirin for the pain. It thinned the blood. She would have to take acetaminophen. She popped three pills, one too many for healthy, swallowing them down dry. They tasted disgusting. In the mirror, her naked body looked a little like a calico cat, with splotches in green, blue and purple, with a little red and skintone for highlight.

The teenager ached. She hurt. She looked like she'd been beaten half to death. Damn, she even had bruises on her bottom- her tailbone was almost black, the red crescent moon of her court standing out proudly on her skin where it was nestled just above her cheeks. It was the color of blood. The color of war. Her eye was completely shut now, the color spreading out neatly over her face. Thank goodness her nose hadn't actually broken. A nose job to try and fix it would suck. As it was, she was going to be ugly. Szelem would be horrified, especially as she'd come to town to-- well, no, Jada didn't want to think about it.

What could she say to try and explain this? What could she say to try and wash this out of the mind of her siblings? This was the first time she had absolutely no explanation. Her car had been stolen on Valentines day, and just found in a lake yesterday. And probably everyone among Jada's family and friends knew she couldn't get a man, much less keep one. She couldn't attract normal boys, only old men and nutjobs. A guy her age that she might attract was probably a drug pusher or a mafia wannabe, and while Jada's taste in men sucked, she wasn't that desperate.

Jada, what did mother tell you about pity?

Alright, so a boyfriend excuse wouldn't fly. Besides, Szelem would probably demand to meet him immediately. The only thing left to claim would be a robbery, or the victim of a random assault on the street. And if she used either of those yet again, the bodyguards would be back, en masse. She was already ducking and dodging them enough to make her parents uncomfortable. Michael, at least. She might be able to make it out the door before anyone noticed her, but it would be tight, and they would certainly notice the taxi pulling up. The other option was to henshin, but she was in no condition to accept the risks that came with it. Still, there were more important things. How was she going to get her sheets out? The towels she would have to use to clean up the mess on the floor? Her persian carpet, her clothes?

If it had only been a simple nosebleed, she could have claimed allergies. A simple nosebleed in her sleep, escalated to vomiting. But with these bruises... She had no makeup that could cover this. After all, if she'd punched herself in her sleep, the angle would be all wrong. She was out of the shower, and the cold water was running, so she took the time to get one of the garnet towels out of the closet and drop it on the floor, starting to sop up her mess. She didn't want the tile to stain, after all. Her knees ached as she crawled across the floor, and she heard her spine give an unpleasant crack that felt incredibly nice. It took what seemed like forever, listening to the sound of water, and she had to use her Navy towels too; at last the floor was clean, the sheets pulled off her bed, and the bundle tossed in a hamper that she could take downstairs later. She remade the bed, and then stepped back into the shower. The pink was clear one wash later, but she gave it another for good luck. Her body was glowing a bright red when she stepped out of the water, every inch of her scrubbed clean. She carefully dried her hair, put on makeup. It was impossible to hide her eye. She would have to brave the downstairs, for ice.

For a while it was quiet, no one there to hear her tiptoe across the floor. Her head was in the freezer, and she was finishing her icepack, when Zora came into the room, yawning. “Morning, Jayj.” she told her sister's back, scratching her butt. “Whatcha getting?”

“I was in the mood for something cold.” Jada said, head muffled.

“Oh.” Zora said, pouring herself some cereal. “Hey, I need the milk.”

“Oh, sure.” Jada said, and turned away, managing to keep her face from Zora's. Lucas was standing in the door, and he screamed when he saw her eye. Fffff. “Hey, hush, you'll wake up mom.”

“What?”

Zora tugged on her older sister's arm, pulling her around to see her. Her redheaded little sister was already so tall at thirteen, coming up to almost Jada's height. “What happened to you?!”

“Shh. Nothing. I... I don't want mom to know.”

“I don't know how you're going to hide this. Who did this to you?”

“... I tripped.” Jada said lamely.

“Jada!”

“No one is coming back for you, are they?” Lucas' voice wibbled a bit, and Jada saw, in one glorious moment, a reprieve. She could lie. She could say he hadn't died, say that he was still out there. The morgue had been a mistake, it hadn't been the stalker. But god, it would mean more bodyguards. It would mean no freedom. It would mean lying, not just little fibs.

“No, baby. No one is coming for me.” she said softly, feeling her last hope for giving no excuse slide through her fingers. “I really did trip.”

“You're a liar, Jada Chamberlyn.” Zora whispered, so only her sister could hear. “You're a liar.”

Most of the people in Jada Chamberlyn's life didn't get the opportunity to be assaulted by her love as often as Jada would like. The heiress was, it seemed, a clingier person than she had ever thought she would turn out to be. She wanted to spend time with the people that she cared for, and that was human enough, especially for a child who had gone from adored and loved to cosseted and spoiled, but not touched. It didn't bother Zora and Kayley as much, because they'd never known Szelem's love, and Lucas had always had his big sisters to hold him and show him the physical touch that their mother had denied them later in life. So, Jada valued her people, and what with being Jada and being Scylla, trying to balance her two lives-- she resented it.

Most mornings, even on Saturdays, Jada rose at 6 in the morning. She drank a few glasses of water, popping her vitamin and grabbing a piece of string cheese from the fridge before she left the house in sweatpants and a tank top, clean sneakers on her feet. She took a jacket if it was cold, but only if it was freezing to the point of ice did she do her morning jog indoors. Most mornings were still dark and damp from the evenings dew that early- she was out of the house by 6:15. In the 45 minutes that she allotted herself to her jog, she could variably do anything from 5-8 miles depending on all sorts of factors. She liked jogging. Liked leaving all of her stress behind, all the strain, all her nightmares. Jogging let her outrun her fears, so that she could face each morning with a positive attitude. Some people confused her with a morning person- she considered it being a driven one. By 7am she was home, kicking her siblings out of their beds if they had stayed over on a school night. Lucas would get her last-minute help on his math homework, Zora would log in and check her email, and then they would be out of the house, poptarts in hand. Once they were gone she went upstairs to cean off the sweat from her run and to start her day with the right foot- luxury. Her bathroom was large and inviting, so it was no hardship for her to light a candle and spend half an hour soaking away the bruises and any soreness in her muscles that lingered from her jog or patrol the night before.

By 8:00 she was blowing her hair dry, dragging something out of her closet to wear. Some days it was a dress, others it was pants. Most days, lately, she didn't care. She always looked classy, after all. It was hard not to when you had her taste in clothes. (That was her ego speaking.) By 9 her hair and makeup would be done and the taxi would be out front. She would grab her bag and a quick breakfast- typically a piece of fruit and some kind of drinkable yogurt, and lock the door behind her, neither bothering to set her alarm, or lock the windows. Castor, her Toyger kitten, would normally cry after her if she'd forgotten to kiss him goodbye (or feed him) which usually prompted her to remember some piece of furniture or another that would need replacing- he had a thing for chewing on wood, or her cushions, or whatever he thought she'd notice and disregard. The remembered was usually forgotten by the time she got to DCU.

This semester she had six courses. One was a comparison on the effects of religion as a fantasy, then there was her statistics, business management, business ethics, a Humanities, and the Japanese course her father had encouraged her to take, so she could eavesdrop on some of their foreign partners. Her homework time was suffering by her Scylla activities, however, so for the first time, it looked like Jada might being home a B. (Ironically it was in her management course. They had just discussed time management last week.) Her classes were formatted for maximum free time; she went from 10-3 Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesdays and Thursdays she had a class from 10-12 and another from 3-5. Noon to three, between classes, had therefore become most of her shopping time. For a girl who had once gone shopping daily, the cutback was painful-- though Audrey didn't mind the lack of receipts turned in at the end of the week.

From 4 to 5 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday Jada had a kickboxing class, followed by a yoga class on Mondays. On Wednesday and Friday after her kickboxing class, she would do free exercise. By 5:30 she would be leaving the gym, freshly showered and ready for dinner. And by 8:00 she was home, finishing homework and being ready to 'go to bed' by 10:00-- which actually meant she was on her way to do her patrol from 10-1am, falling into bed for her five hours of sleep. The only real differences in this schedule was that on Tuesdays and Thursdays she would instead go home after class and jog for half an hour while catching up on something for class. The heiress had been considering adding a fencing class to her list, or going back to the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes she had taken back in High School, but thus far she hadn't found the time. It was there, but only if she gave up on a social life altogether. On Fridays and Saturdays she would sometimes stay out later, until midnight, but really... it was mostly to keep up the socialite appearance. As she pointed out to Ares once, she wouldn't be as useful to the Court if she wasn't bothering to at least try to keep up appearances, now would she? People would pry too much.

Saturdays during the day were the best time to catch up with her homework, and was also the day she was most often found actively attending the BMC meetings. Sometimes it was scary, Jada had decided, watching Fallon, the girl she had come to love as a friend, turning into someone else. Then again, Audrey was changing too. She and Elzo were together so much, and Jada always felt like a third wheel as soon as they saw each other. Was that what love was? (She would have to consult her cheesy romance novels.) Sometimes it was easier being around the battle-dazed Fallon than the love-dazed Audrey. War was easier to understand. Then there was the much-neglected Johnny-- he didn't seem to miss her much, or mind not seeing her outside of meetings, though, seemingly content with text messages. There, too, Jada was relieved of guilt. Elke... Elke was a traitorous... Jada hadn't spoken to her, or texted her, since the day that the senshi of Innocence had saved the Negaverse agent from Scylla. To be fair, though, Elke had hardly tried to contact her either. There had just been nothing.

Sundays were the day that Jada rested. She would wake up anywhere from 8 to 9 in the morning (only rarely later) and take a shower before anything else. She would slip into a bathing suit, slide on a pair of jeans, a tank top, a jacket, and thick socks. It was a half-hour drive out to the stables where she boarded Lady Luck, but until 1:00, she was Lady's, often slipping Fallon's horse Taillevent (or Talon) an apple or sugar.

It was in retrospective moments that Jada realized that maybe the fault wasn't on Scylla, or having no time, but on herself as well. One person by one person, she had closed herself off to the outside world. Little by little she had closed her mind to new people, filled up her day with useless things to keep her mind and body busy. Did she want more people to love? More people to watch get hurt, or watch die because she was powerless, in the end, to do anything to stop the madness? No, Jada had enough chinks in her armor, and she wasn't looking to let them grow or get bigger.

Still, she loved all of her 'chinks.' There was just so little time (by her own design) to tell any of them, except via text message. All of her friends, plus Zora and her father, would get anywhere from 8-10 scheduled texts daily. At 9:30, they were woken by her “Good morning! The word of the day is ___” Then there was the noontime, “Mmm, lunch. I'm having ___. What about you?” At three, there was either a “Yay, I am free!” or a “Boo, class!” There would be status updates while she trained (“I think I bruised my butt. Ow.”) followed by an “I'm hungry. Thinking about dinner.” Rarely, she would ask them to join her, but they almost never seemed to make it, much less all at once. Before 'bed' was the “Sweet dreams.” Really, that was why Jada loved her phone. It was her connection to anyone she wanted to talk to, during any hour that she could be herself.

It was interesting. When Jada was younger, she didn't think as much about being alone. Now she did, and sometimes it bothered her. Did it mean she'd regressed? Weren't you supposed to need people less as you got older? Not that Jada Needed anyone at all, she corrected herself. She had several other people that she saw commonly after all= people in her own social circle who might not be among her list of closest friends but were still acquaintances. She went to dinner every Wednesday with a small group from school, and on Tuesdays she would go and flirt with the waiter at a bakery downtown. She had social contact, and the polite physical contact of high society.

It wasn't High Society that had been there for her when she was hurt. That had seen her through her crazy stalker, her debut ball, her parents divorce. It had been her friends, her little siblings, even her damn cat. It had been their love and their strength.

So once a week, before bed, she sent out a simple text. Fallon, Audrey, Zora, Johnny, Elzo, Marlo... and Elke's name would sit there for a moment before it was deleted, reluctantly.

“I love you. Thank you for being there for me.”