Miracle Ch. 02

Hello to you all beauties.

I'm very excited to be here with all of you.

Sending a lot of love and good wishes to you all.

This is the second part of Miracle.

********

Evander had never met this girl in his life, but, everything about her just infuriated him from the beginning for no clear reason. Or, maybe he had one reason for it, and it was in the way she just stared at him.

Like she knew every dark and forbidden secret inside his messed up mind, and it was like she was judging him for that. But since when did he even care about what others thought about him? As far as he was concerned it didn't matter to him what anyone in this world thought about him. Most of the people were just small and insignificant. So why even her simple act of staring in to his eyes made him mad?

If he wanted to describe what he just did to her in one word he would pick revenge. He was taking revenge. For what?He had absolutely no fucking idea.

Evander stared at the girl's shivering back. She was crying quietly. He felt a tightening inside his chest. It was hard for him to breath and this was an unfamiliar sensation. Something he hadn't felt for years. He could remember the last time he had that similar feeling. It was at that damn funeral when he was thirteen. The day he lost everything. His soul. His heart. His life. His conscious. He left those things behind in that funeral several years ago. So how could he still feel anything?

Evander cursed himself under his breath. He had never punished anyone in that position. There was no eye contact. It was a necessity to watch the face. Gauge the reactions. It was his job to read expressions and he was brilliant at it.

It dawned on him then and there that he wasn't even brave enough to face this girl as he was hitting her. He was the one who was a coward. Not her.

How could he stare in to her eyes now? What would he see if she stared at him? Did she see the monster inside him? the heartless bastard?

He had probably succeeded in making her afraid of him but he was also now the one who was afraid of her.

He did believe in comforting his charges after the end of a punishment. The time after a punishment was for the person to reflect on the actions that brought about those punishments and also to decide about how to change their behavior accordingly so as to avoid the same fate in the future.

He had never wanted to touch someone since the day he lost his entire life. But after so many years, at that precise time, he really wanted to gather that girl in his arms and offer her some comfort.

Even if she was the same person that had been described to him, she didn't deserve this treatment. No one did.

He had no problem killing people, if he thought they deserved it. He was way past that point. But he still believed in a just and fair world.

At that point the best thing he could do for that girl and for himself was to quickly get out of there. Something that, if he had done sooner, he could have avoided this terrible situation.

He needed a clear mind and around that girl reason just flew away. His head was beginning to explode, with the sea of questions he had no answer for.

And again for the first time in many years, he had a throbbing headache.

Evander considered emotions to be useless, and emotional people to be weak. He always prided himself in not being tied by emotions and recommended Ethan and the others to distance themselves from getting emotional.

Evander started to walk toward the girl, to free her from the wall hook. He planned to avoid staring at her as much as possible. He wasn't ready for that.

That damn scent of roses invaded him again as he got closer. She must have felt him getting close, because her shivers and sobs got worse. She was covered in sweat.

He expected her to be meek and calm, as he freed her arms and picked her up, this time in his arms. He was in for a big surprise, because the minute Alyia was free, she started her kicking and struggling again. Did that girl ever get tired of fighting? He didn't think there was any more energy left inside her. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen that much stamina and fierceness in anyone. That much courage. She deserved respect.

Despite her fists and kicks, Evander took her toward the other corner of the room where there was a hidden door. The door opened as soon as he got near to the doorway and touched it.

Evander entered the room, carrying a struggling Alyia in his arms. He knew he had to talk to her. Say something. However, he couldn't even look in to her eyes.

The room was a windowless, small room with no furniture, except a thick mattress in the center.

Quickly turning her flailing body in his arms, he managed to put her down on her belly on the mattress gently.

Before Alyia had a chance to move, the door was shut closed and the devil was gone.

Outside the room, Evander just leaned against the nearest wall and sighed. Just as he was putting her down on the mattress he got a glimpse of her tear-stained eyes regarding him with an expression of utter disdain.

Everything about this girl was honest and deep. Even the hatred in her eyes cut through him like a knife.

He was quite literally at a loss and just like the routine of that damn day and all the first times he had experienced, he didn't have a plan. He hoped that he could think more clearly now that she was not around.

He had fucked up officially but he didn't have time to feel sorry for her or for himself. He had to have a conversation with Ethan and every other person who had any contact with her since picking her up from the prison.

Alyia looked around the dimly lit room in despair. It didn't escape her attention, that he didn't just shove her inside. He put her gently on the mattress and made sure her abused bottom didn't make any contact with the mattress, which, felt surprisingly very soft. It was probably the single merciful thing he had done for her since she met him first. She couldn't decide what to think of his actions. Normally he shouldn't care if she was in pain.

Alyia was exhausted from all the fighting and also in an enormous amount of pain both physically and mentally.

She felt utterly demeaned and humiliated. During the twenty five years she lived she couldn't remember ever hurting a single soul. Hell, she made sure, she didn't kill an ant while she walked on the ground. What had she done that she deserved this treatment? She didn't think it was possible to hate someone without even knowing them. She barely knew this man's name and apart from those barely familiar emerald green eyes, which, now she associated no longer with the color of summer leaves but more to the color of sin, Alyia was sure she had never met him in her entire life. She willed her brain to remember the last memory she had before finding herself trapped in this torture chamber. She fought to keep her eyes open, but soon she succumbed to a deep sleep.

Evander paced back and forth impatiently in his spacious, state of the art, work office. His office was located in the top floor of one of the many skyscrapers in the small city of 'Azure'. The city itself was surrounded by acres of dessert.

One of the interesting things about that small city was that, it was literally non-existent to the general population. The whole city was engulfed by a very special tent that made it invisible to the human eyes and also to the radar technology. This city didn't exist on any ordinary map. The specific material used to build that tent had been invented entirely by Azure's team of scientists, and the formula wasn't available to anyone, except a few high ranks in the city council.

The initial idea of creation of a specific place dedicated to the recovery of the soul, was originally Evander's idea.

He believed that the origin of human's conflicts were in the absence of a proper training for the mind.

His sole focus had always been on creating a shelter for the unfortunate people who were cast away by the society. He believed that many of the criminals who were sitting in prison cells or correction facilities had the potential to be a useful member of a society, provided they received a proper treatment for mind.

Evander's father, Thomas Peirce, was a world renowned neurologist who also had a PHD in psychology and sociology.

Thomas had always encouraged his son to expand 'Azure's field of activities further. Currently, there were over five hundred scientists working fulltime at the medical, farming, psychiatry, industry, education, engineering, biotechnology, artificial intelligence and space technology centers of Azure.

Of course they had an entire section of the city dedicated to the development of military, aircraft and submarine technology.

Azure was originally founded and built by Evander, but now was run by the city council, which he was part of it.

The city also hired several hundred professionals in multiple fields, who lived in the city with their families. In addition to signing an NDA, all the people who lived inside the city and knew about it's existence, had a body GPS tracker.

The citizens had all gone through extensive background checks and interviews before being allowed to enter the city. They were allowed to leave the city but, but were strictly prohibited from revealing the nature of their jobs and the location of where they lived to the outside world. This was one of the city's principal laws and those who broke that law faced a very severe punishment.

However, almost all of the citizens spent their entire time inside the city. After entering the city for the first time they rarely left.

Evander couldn't remember the last time he was so restless. He had to get himself together and find out the real identity of the girl currently lying down inside one of his rooms. He could see her small figure on the screen of his flat office panel. There were tiny monitoring cameras installed inside every wall of the every building in Azure. She was on the exact spot he had left her just minutes ago. She certainly wasn't the person their information claimed she was.

Evander sat at his desk with new resolution. He went through the police reports and then began to watch the video sent from the state prison again. He could already tell that, there was something wrong about the video. As he ran it through the software on his computer, he discovered the nauseating truth, which confirmed all his suspicions from the very beginning. That video was not authentic. It was doctored. As the software took the pixels apart, he found out, why the girl's body language differed from the ones in the videos. Someone had combined two videos together! The picture of the girl in the video was of two different girls merged together.

What the fuck.... Evander muttered as he ran his hands through his hair for the umpteenth time that day.

The second horrifying discovery came as he put her name through the search engines of his computer.

Alyia. Monroe twenty five years old, She was studying art history and she had multiple social media accounts. None of them even resembled the life depicted by Ethan's prints.

And apparently, she was suddenly the most wanted person on the planet on the dark web!

Multiple different organizations had posted very generous prizes for anyone, who could catch her alive or dead!

How in the hell had Ethan missed those information?....Evander felt like his head was about to explode. How could so many things go wrong all at once?

"Pamela, I want you to contact Ethan and all the staff who were involved in the project L-465 right away. I don't care where they are, or what they are doing, they should all be in our main conference room in fifteen minutes." Evander knew that the tone of his voice alone, was enough for everyone to come running from wherever the hell they were.

Approximately forty five minutes later he was sitting across the table staring at two of the few who were involved in creating this mess.

Anthony Marks and John Davidson. The two men who had been assigned to pick up a girl by the name of Angela Sims.

They both have been paid generously to exchange the girls a couple miles from the prison gate.

Instead of picking up Angela Sims, and bringing her to Azure, they had just let the criminal go free and brought Alyia to him.

It was a total disaster. Not only they had a criminal on the loose, but also, much worse than that, they had a complete stranger in their program.

'And you have just beat the shit out of that innocent girl'. Evander heard the voice in his head.

Evander had multiple urgent issues on his hands. To find the original source that orchestrated the whole plan, kill him and all the other people involved, and then to decide about what to do with Alyia. Monroe.

He couldn't just let her go. Aside from all the obvious reasons, he knew the second she was out of Azure, someone would grab her for the Prize on her head. Perhaps she wasn't as innocent as he thought? Otherwise, why the sudden interest from virtually every agency in the world?

Evander couldn't tie the two pick up men to anyone. Their money had gone straight to an untraceable foreign account. They had just received an anonymous message telling them what to do.

The two sumbags had been caught by his people in Arizona's airport. About to board a plane out of the country. The two of them looked terrified. Evander could literally smell the sheer terror on their faces. That was the effect he had on most people, especially when he was furious as hell. Was that how Alyia had felt? Terror? Dread? He thought with despair. Normally he wouldn't care what anyone thought about him, but just this one time, he didn't want to be seen as a monster. Not by her.

'No going back bro...You are officially the sickest bastard in her eyes now.' The voice whispered in his head again. Evander closed his eyes as feeling of misery washed through him.

He didn't want to waste a minute thinking about those two jerk's fates. Immediate death didn't do justice for them. He would deal with them later, and he knew they were already wishing they weren't born.

Evander also had to find out the mole inside the building. The one who had switched the real prints of Angela's information Ethan had left on his desk, with the ones about Alyia. That was easy. Thankfully there were cameras everywhere. That was a job for his security team.

Right now he had more pressing issues and on top of that list was, the biggest enigma of the century, which was finding out the real identity of the girl who was sleeping in his training room. And most importantly why on earth had she ended up there?

Among all the other thousands of firsts, was the fact that for the first time since he started the practice of rehabilitation for the human mind, he had no idea who his charge really was.

He always entered the zero Hall completely informed, prepared and with a definite plan.

Alyia. Monroe, could be a criminal far more dangerous and also smarter than a simple shoplifter but, still the despairing thought that she was an innocent girl which lurked in his brain from the beginning, seemed more true.

He had zero tolerance for surprises and mistakes like this. And this wasn't at all a simple mistake. It was at the very least a huge disaster.

He had to close down the entire psyche facility and stop all the new projects. He had already contacted the head of his security and they were all hard at work. But they would not admit any new charges until, everything was crystal clear and he was certain of the safety of the charges, the staff, and all the citizens.

He considered this to be an attack to his ward and his city. The responsible person was clearly someone of great influence, who also had good knowledge of the city and the security detail.

If Alyia was some underground criminal who had ended up on his hands by the other gangs, then he had no problem dealing with a new challenge.

However the voice in his head was loud and clear. She was NOT a criminal of any sort. Then what was she?!! And why in God's name did he decide to ignore the voice in his head in the beginning?

Evander was back in his office. He could see her clearly through the many cameras and flat screens in his office. She was still in the same position. Those cameras not only provided high resolution picture, but also detected any evidence of a live creature in the room and had access to her body's vital sign. Her heart rate and her breathing pattern indicated she was still asleep. Aside from all that happened to her she seemed so peaceful. Serene.

Evander sat back at his desk and put his head in his hands.

"Sir, your sister is coming in." His assistant's voice reflected in the room.

Right on cue, probably for the first time in her life, was his sister Tania, who walked right through his office doors, like she owned the place!

His P.A, Pamela was very uncomfortable with this routine. She had tried in multiple occasions to get Tania to wait in the lobby, until she had permission from her boss that his sister could enter. However Tania had never cared about the rules in her entire life.

Even he had long given up hope to change her behavior. And there were always so many fights about different matters with her that he had decided to smartly pick his battles where his sister was concerned. And, well, the simple fact was that she wasn't intimidated by him.

No one, even his parents dared to step inside his office or even his home complex unannounced and without prior notice. But that little minx would come and go as she pleased! And she didn't even bother to knock. It was irritating and at the same time endearing.

"Hey big bro......What's up?" Tania chirped as she pranced inside. Pamela his personal assistant was following close behind her and looking apologetic.

Evander signaled with his hand to Pamela that it was okay and she could go away. It was not fair to blame Pamela for something he himself had not been able to fix during the years. Or maybe he had never tried hard enough. He had never been strict enough with his sister.

As per Azure's strict rules for citizens, everyone was required by the city's council to have a mentor. For children that individual was mostly one of parents or the older siblings, if they were qualified, but as soon as turning eighteen, every adult should register the name of their mentor in city's database. For married couples, one had to be the other's mentor.

The mentor's job and responsibility was to guide that person's behavior.

Corporal punishment in the form of spanking with hand or other implements, were allowed and even encouraged, as means of training, as long as there was no permanent damage. However, punishment was only allowed by that person's mentor.

There were multiple set of rules designed for the citizen's to follow. Both in their personal life and in the society. Those rules helped the citizens to improve their mental and physical health. The mentor's job was to make sure those rules were followed by the one under his or her care.

Mentors were selected very carefully. They had to pass numerous exams to get the certificate to become one.

Being a mentor was considered a job by the city and the mentors, if not a member of family, were paid.

Evander was one of those citizens, specifically qualified to be a mentor. However because of his own busy schedule and being the chief of the 'Mind health program' he rejected every requests of being someone's mentor.

However, unfortunately for him he was Tania's mentor. He hated that role. Mainly because he couldn't be strict enough to her and that occasionally led to some very undesirable outcomes for both of them. But since a child, Tania had insisted him to be her mentor, and she could be quite tenacious when she wanted something. She just didn't give up.