Banished Pt. 20

I tried to focus on prolonging my orgasm for as long as I could, but before long, the outpouring of sperm subsided, and Cameron collapsed beside me, panting.

"That should do it, right?" she asked, looking worriedly up into my eyes, and I nodded, as I lay back beside her.

"It should," I replied, "but are you sure this is what you want?"

"Positive," she replied.

She moved into my arms and curled up, and before long, we were fast asleep.

***

Joanna took a quick look around as she made her way to the car.

"Ohh, nice. You got four drinks!" Elena said, as Joanna handed her the foam cup holder.

"Don't look so happy. Three of those are mine," Joanna replied, climbing into the car.

Elena frowned, shaking a head at her.

"I keep telling you. If you keep running exclusively on caffeine and sugar, you're gonna regret it in three or four years."

"If I live that long," Joanna muttered under her breath, and Elena sighed.

"Oh, come on. Don't be like that. We'll outlive all of those foolish old men, right?"

Joanna nodded, but she hadn't yet told Elena everything that she'd found out in the past few days and she knew that if she did, the girl might be much less optimistic; but as Elena caught the look in her eyes, she reached out and took Joanna's hand into hers.

"Right?" Elena asked again, and Joanna nodded, this time with more resolve.

"Right," she affirmed.

As she settled into her seat, however, Elena shot her a curious look.

"So, are you finally gonna tell me what we're doing out here?" she asked, and Joanna sighed.

"Sorry, Elle. The less you know, the less danger you're in."

"Oh, come on. Am I supposed to just keep waiting around like some damsel in distress while you do all the work? Put some faith in me, will ya?" Elena said, and Joanna studied her.

She swallowed uncomfortably, then nodded.

"Fine. You know that asset we're always talking about?"

"Nathan?"

"Yeah... we might have lost our authority to manage his group," Joanna explained, and Elena shook her head.

"Okay... so why are we staking out some apartment building?" she asked.

"Because... his sister might live here."

Elena bit her lip, as she thought about the situation.

"I thought they didn't usually have families?" she asked.

"They don't," Joanna answered.

"And if they do, it's usually people who have no ties to each other, right?"

"That's right," she confirmed again.

"Then why?" Elena asked, and Joanna let out another sigh.

"Because... someone is lying to me. And I'm not sure who it is just yet."

Elena studied Joanna for a bit.

"As in... the company?" Elena asked, and Joanna nodded.

"Yeah."

"Wait, if it is them, then what do you plan on doing?"

"I have no idea," Joanna confirmed. "At most, it'd mean I need to readjust my approach a bit. But otherwise, I know there's not a damn thing I can do about them. I just- I need to know where I stand. Where they stand."

Elena nodded slowly.

Joanna looked visibly distressed, and Elena reached over and placed a hand against her cheek.

"We'll get through it, okay? No matter what they throw at us, we'll get through it. Together."

Elena leaned in and kissed Joanna tenderly, and for a moment, all of the moments that Joanna walked into the office to find the girl she loved dearly blowing the vile man she had to work for flashed through her mind, and she felt a painful twang at her chest.

Joanna wanted to free her from that, but she'd need to be at least a chair on the inner circle to do so.

There was, however, one alternative that had been appealing to her recently:

Get rid of Domenico Ricci.

But the man was smart, and he didn't make mistakes.

And a huge part of her knew that he wasn't someone she wanted to make an enemy out of.

The two women waited around in the car for a bit, when Elena's boredom began to win out against her again.

"Okay, tell me more about this whole thing," Elena finally said, and Joanna sighed.

Might as well indulge her, she thought.

"Fine. There's some discrepancies between what I know about Nathan, and what I've found out about his life through, let's say, a different source."

"Okay... what kind of discrepancies?" Elena asked.

"Well, we thought he was an orphan living in and out of rehab, but he's apparently never been in any kind of rehab as far as I can tell, and was adopted since he was a baby."

"So, he has an adopted family?" Elena asked, and Joanna nodded as she took up a coffee cup and drained it in one swig.

"That's why we're here. His sister has an apartment in her name here, and apparently, he's been spotted quite frequently in the area," Joanna explained, and Elena scoffed.

"Frequently spotted? That sounds more like an affair than a typical brother-sister relationship," Elena said, smirking suggestively as she did, and Joanna rolled her eyes in response.

"I'll never understand why you assume everyone wants to fuck their sister or brother."

"Because it's sooo hot thinking about it," Elena said, and Joanna shifted a little at the comment.

Being stuck in the car was bad enough; she didn't need to add getting horny without relief to the list of inconveniences.

"So, how did you find out he's been spotted. Did you walk around showing people a photo of him, or something?"

"Not my own info," Joanna answered, although an image of Lawrence doing just that flashed in her mind, and she made a quick resolve to be more careful when interacting with him.

Elena seemed about to ask another question, when Joanna shot upright.

"What?" Elena asked, as Joanna pulled out her phone, and pulled up a pic. "Is that her?"

"It is..." she said softly, and Elena took the phone and looked over the picture, then shook her head.

"Jesus. She looks so... broken," Elena said.

"Almost like if she suddenly lost someone who she cared deeply for?" Joanna asked, and Elena's hand instinctively went to her mouth.

"We need to talk to her," the girl said, and Joanna's eyes went wide.

"What? No. We can't make contact; it's against company policy-"

"Fuck company policy. She needs to know he didn't just leave her like that!"

"Elle, wait!"

She was out the door before Joanna could stop her, but as she climbed out of the car, Elle was already making for the street.

"Hey! Hey, excuse me!" she called, but she'd hardly taken two steps off the pavement when-

*Shwish!

"ELENA!"

-a bus zoomed past at alarming speed, and the sound of flesh being turned into mush punctuated the extended horn that sounded with the vehicles' passing.

Joanna clutched at her head, wanting to scream as she fell to her knees, but no sound came out.

The girl across the street, Julienne, from what she'd learned, merely looked over her shoulder, but she didn't even seem to notice that anything had even happened, as she turned and headed into the apartment complex.

Joanna was shaking.

She felt like throwing up, or throwing herself into the street to join in the fate of the woman she'd loved, but before she could will herself to move, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up to see the last face she needed to see right now.

"I'm disappointed in you, Jo," the man said. "Elena was special to me. Why would you get her killed like that?"

"G-Get her killed?"

Her momentary confusion seemed to turn into anger in an instant, but as her face contorted with rage, the man raised a hand and smacked her across the face.

"She didn't know the company's rules like we did. It was your responsibility. Your-"

He clenched his fist, taking a step back, then a deep, calming breath.

"I came here personally because I couldn't lose two of my most important assets in the same day," the man said. "Now get up, before your misplaced presence here causes more death and destruction than it already has."

Joanna felt like she was in a daze, but Mr. Ricci didn't lead her back to her car.

Instead, he led her to his which was waiting across the lot behind her, the engine running and a driver waiting on them.

He ushered her into the back seat, then climbed in beside her.

"Take us to her apartment," Mr. Ricci commanded, and the man in the driver's seat nodded, taking off without another word.

"I-Is she...? Did that really just-"

Joanna was in shock, and could hardly finish the thought when the urge to vomit finally won out, and she unloaded on the back of the seat in front of her.

"Jesus Christ," Mr. Ricci said, but to Joanna's surprise, he began to rub her back.

"I'm sorry, Jo. I couldn't act until one of you actually violated protocol. To think she would try to talk to her, though," he said, shaking his head.

He looked saddened, but the genuineness of the expression only angered Joanna further.

What was Elena to him but a source of fulfillment of his every sexual fanciful wish?

She gritted her teeth, and as he caught the look on her face, he cracked a smile.

"Oh? You're angry with me? Didn't I tell you to stick with me? Didn't I tell you it would take you exactly where you needed to be?"

Joanna felt like screaming.

And then she did.

"WHAT FUCKING DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?!"

Elena was dead...

Everything she worked so hard for.

It was all unravelling before her.

"You think I wanted this for her? She wasn't even a good assistant, but she had a debt to pay, and I knew if I kept her close, I could keep you around."

Mr. Ricci let out a sigh.

"You need to pull it together, Jo. Elena wanted a better life for you too, and I know you probably can't process something like that right now, but there's a life waiting for you at the end of this still. Don't throw it all away now. Elena would have wanted-"

"Who gives a fuck what she wanted? She's dead! Nothing matters after that... it all just-"

She broke down, sobbing, and to her relief, her boss left her to it.

When the car pulled up in front of her apartment, she got out, standing wordlessly at the door, unsure of what to say.

"Think about it, okay Jo? You have a week. I can cover for you for that long since we already have a new candidate in the works. Think about it, and figure out if you get off the train here, or if you still want to fulfill that dream that Elena wanted for you."

Joanna nodded blankly.

As she made her way up to her floor, she felt like a stranger inside of her own body; as if she were watching her own movements from the outside, and as soon as she closed the door to her apartment shut, she collapsed against it and began to sob.

"I'm sorry," she muttered. "I'm so sorry."

She beat weakly against the floor, feeling as if something inside of her had died along with Elena, until a voice quite suddenly spoke to her:

"If it's any consolation, her death was quite inevitable, I'm afraid."

Joanna looked up at the unexpected intrusion into her private moment of grief to see the familiar silhouette of a man standing in the kitchen, a drink in hand.

"Inevitable?" she asked, furrowing her brow angrily as he stepped out of the shadow, and he nodded.

"Do you know what makes shifters so special?" he asked. "Most of you know us as the agents who slink between the branches of the company, doing the work that connects everything together. But more than that, do you know what we really do?"

Joanna stared at the man, and he smiled:

"We manipulate destiny."

Joanna shook her head as she tried to process what that really meant.

"You mean... you can see the future?" Joanna asked.

"Bingo."

"Then you killed her? Or you let her die," Joanna spat, but the man shook his head.

"You misunderstand. Elena was already dead from the day we met. There were no futures in existence from that point on in which she lived. Hell, there were but a handful in which you didn't die, but lucky for you, I finally figured it out."

She glared at the man.

"You called Domenico," she said, and the man nodded.

"A risky move, sure; but you're very important to him. And you're very important to us. Maybe, not in the way you imagined you might be, but nonetheless, you are."

The man picked up the decanter on the kitchen counter, then poured himself another glass, before taking a sip.

"What do you really want from me? It's not just Danica, is it?" Joanna asked, and he shook his head.

"Sorry. That was just the excuse to make contact. What I want right now is Lawrence. I have reason to believe he'll contact you sometime soon. Give him to me, and we'll work on getting you reinstated on Nathan's case."

The man drained his glass, then walked past Joanna and out the front door, but as it closed shut, she didn't feel like crying this time.

She felt a rage coursing through her.

She wanted him dead.

She wanted them all dead!

But there was no way to accomplish such a thing.

Joanna poured herself a glass of bourbon, then drained it, filling it up again, but as she drained it a second time, she felt a resolve coursing through her.

No matter what it takes, she thought. No matter what I have to do.

I'll make them pay!

She took a shower to clear her head before donning a tracksuit and heading out of the apartment to the nearby park where she'd first read the document that led her down this rabbit hole.

He would reach out to her, wouldn't he?

She was keeping an eye on her surroundings, looking for some kind of sign when-

*twack!

-she ran face first into a literal sign.

"Jesus lady, watch what you're doing!"

"Watch yourself unless you want to get fucking sued," she shot back, glaring at the man.

It was one of those idiots dressed in a mascot suit, holding up a sign that said 'Simon's Russian Sushi: now open around Francis Square'.

Francis Square?

That was on the other freaking side of town.

Who the hell would advertise this far out from a location anyway?

She was still scowling when the figure bowed apologetically.

"For you," the man's voice said, offering her a flyer, and as she took it, the figure turned and made a hasty retreat from the park area, and as a car pulled up and they ducked inside, Joanna eyed the flyer.

'Grand opening: 7PM tonight!' It read.

"Russian Sushi it is, I guess; whatever the fuck that is."

She made her usual circuit before catching a ride to pick up her car.

There was a note on the windshield which said 'don't dally', but even as she looked around, there was no sign that anything had even happened nearby, much less someone losing their life.

She thought about asking around to see if anyone had seen anything, but thinking better of it, she jumped in her car and headed home.

The car smelled faintly of Elena's perfume, and Joanna felt those emotions coursing through her again.

Bear it, she thought. Bear it for now.

She headed home and got dressed, then made her way to the square, but as she circled the area, there was no 'Simon's Russian Sushi' to be found anywhere.

Joanna grabbed the flyer, and turning it around, she caught a scrawling in the bottom right corner, but it was scrawled badly and very tiny.

She pulled over, and upon examination, the message read 'turn around'.

She glanced in her rearview mirror, and to her surprise, the blinking of headlights caught her eye.

The car moved to her rear, and after waiting for it to pass, she pulled out and gave pursuit.

They drove a few blocks from the place before coming to a stop in front of an apartment building.

There were parks all along the street, and as a hooded figure matching Lawrence's build got out and headed inside, she quickly followed, but the man was waiting on her just inside.

"Aren't you gonna ask if I was followed?" she asked, a bit cheekily, and Lawrence shook his head.

"We're dealing with something a bit more problematic than tailing can account for," he said.

"Then why risk contacting me today?" Joanna asked, and he sighed.

"It wasn't as much of a risk as you'd think. I'll explain everything," he said.

Joanna eyed him, but as he gestured to her to follow him upstairs, she warily complied.

It wasn't as if she had that much to lose anyway.

When she stepped into the cramped, dirty apartment, however, she froze, as sitting across from the entrance was a middle-aged woman wearing baggy pants and a loose, flower patterned top that was sheer enough for her modest breasts to show clearly through.

"What are you, some kind of budget fortune teller?" Joanna asked, and the woman smiled.

"I am. How did you know? Wait, are you a far seer too?"

Joanna sighed, massaging her forehead with agitation, but as she turned to the door, Lawrence moved to stop her.

"Just wait. I'll explain everything," he said again, and she sighed.

"It kinda feels like if I'm committing suicide in the dumbest fucking way possible right now," she shot, and the man nodded.

"Losing Elena must have hurt," he said. "I can't bring her back, but we can do something about them. About the people who did this," he pleaded, and as she looked over at him, she saw it.

The same thing she felt inside of her reflected behind his eyes.

"Who did you lose?" she asked, almost by instinct, and Lawrence sighed, withdrawing his hand.

"My wife. My little girl. They... they were banished," he said, and Joanna frowned.

"Wait- you know I can't do anything about that, right-?"

"I know, Jo. I know. I'm not trying to get you to perform a miracle for me. My family is probably already dead and I know it. But we can do something about them," he reiterated, and Joanna took a deep breath in.

"Fine. Who is she?" Joanna asked, gesturing to the woman who seemed to be sipping some sickly-looking green liquid out of a glass.

"You want one?" the woman asked, as she caught Joanna's glance at her drink. "It's my own special recipe," she declared, and Joanna suppressed the urge to gag.

"No thanks," she replied.

"This is Desiree," Lawrence offered.

The woman quickly wiped her hands against her baggy pants, leaving a blotchy, green residue, and as she extended the hand, Joanna recoiled.

"Joanna. Nice to meet you," Joanna said, bowing a little, and the woman laughed, a chirpy almost bird-like laugh, as she settled back into her swiveling chair.

Lawrence offered her a seat on the couch, and as he sat across from her, she looked at him expectantly.

"So, how am I not dead right now?" Joanna asked, and Lawrence cleared his throat.

"Do you know how the company's surveillance works?" he asked.

"Maybe," she answered.

Joanna was wary of letting them know just how much she knew, but Lawrence merely shook his head.

"This doesn't work unless we co-operate, Jo," Lawrence said, and she sighed.

"Fine. I know my phone is GPS tracked, but-"

"Not just your phone, Jo. They can track you without it. Without any electronics."

Joanna raised an eyebrow at this.

"How?" she asked, and Lawrence swallowed uncomfortably.

"From... our pledges," he finally answered, and Joanna stared at him in shock.

"Pledges? I never fucking pledged anything," she replied, standing up angrily, and he rose, raising a hand pleadingly.

"Just hear me out. We don't remember it because they wipe it from our memories, but every employee has pledged."

"To whom?" she asked. "And just- fucking how? Abilities don't exist in this..."

Her words trailed off, as she took a deep breath and settled back down.

"She's a far seer," Joanna muttered, nodding to Desiree. "Then, the shifters are far seers as well..."

She massaged her forehead, her mind reeling as she tried to process everything.

"If they can track me, then I really am dead now, huh? They'll know where I've been..." she said, and Lawrence shook his head.

"Not exactly," he said, and Joanna studied him.

"How?"

"Because there's an anomaly here. They haven't been able to catch it, because whoever it is knows how to use their ability well enough to evade them," he explained.