ELARA~
Isla Matthews was the definition of a coward. She distorted my thoughts and disappeared afterwards. She hadn't come back that day, nor the day that followed.
I was presently on my bed replaying her words in my head. It felt like a record on repeat. I wanted to forget it, but I couldn't push the curiosity in me aside.
I picked up my phone again already annoyed by the sight of it. I had tried calling Richard for the hundredth time this week and still no bars.
The house had WiFi when I arrived. The guards had phones too. Now? Nothing. It felt like the world had been deliberately unplugged.
I switched to airplane mode and back, hoping for a sudden miracle and still nothing. Television? Static. WiFi? Gone. This was worse than the time my father thought clowns were appropriate for a six-year-old's birthday.
Then, it clicked. Every time Isla stepped into this house, the network breathed back to life. Every time she left, it died.
I found Ben and Sandre at the back of the house, smoking by the garden shed. They crushed their cigarettes the second they saw me, but the guilt was already written on their faces.
"Do you need anything, miss?" Sandre spoke first.
"There's a signal jammer in this house, isn't there?"
The look he shared with Ben answered before he even opened his mouth.
So I wasn't insane.
"It's not in my place to say, Miss" he replied quietly.
I laughed once in disbelief. Even the guards knew.
"I want it found, destroyed, and brought to me. Can you do that, Ben?" I said looking at Ben.
He pushed away from where he stood, I stepped back from the smoke, already annoyed.
"Your job is to protect me. Not cut me off from my family and the rest of the world." I snapped.
His jaw tightened slightly but he nodded once.
I retired to the living room pissed and hoping, praying even that I was wrong about the jammer and probably over thinking it.
Ben didn't report back, but an hour later, the front door heavy-thudded open.
Isla walked past me up to my room and I followed after her. "Signal jammer?" I didn't shout, I just asked calmly breaking the silence. She rubbed her eyes as she turned to my direction.
Had she not seen me? She staggered slightly as she walked down the stairs past me.
"So what, you're not going to say anything? Defend yourself maybe?"
"You didn't have to lie to get me here" she muttered. She turned into the kitchen, leaving me stunned. She walked out soon after with a bottle of water in hand, which I wasn't sure she had plans of drinking.
"And why would I lie? you're the last person I want to talk to right now"
She stopped by the door "That piece of shit" she turned toward me again "Elara…"
"Ms. Jones" I corrected, throwing her formality back at her.
She slammed the water bottle onto the dining table and ran both hands down her face, her breath hitching. "The internet isn't friendly. I did it to protect you."
"I am twenty-four years old! I've been famous since I was nineteen. I've survived stalkers and security breaches, and you think tweets will break me?"
"You're asthmatic!" she shot back, her voice suddenly loud, echoing through out the once quiet penthouse.
"You panic, you can't even…"
"I can't even what?" I stepped closer before I could stop myself. "Swim? Breathe? Function without a babysitter?"
I hurled my phone at her. It hissed past her ear, clattering against the wall. She didn't even flinch. "You don't know me. You watched me for two weeks and decided I was some broken doll who needed her strings cut."
She looked down at it for a second like her brain needed time to process what just happened. Then she bent, picked it up slowly and rubbed at her eyes again.
That was when I noticed it properly, the slight sway in her balance. The unfocused stare. The smell of alcohol beneath her perfume, she was drunk.
"I've made terrible decisions without thinking," she muttered with a dry laugh. "Clearly that hasn't stopped."
"You're unbelievable."
"I swear I wasn't trying to cage you." She leaned against the table for balance, fingers gripping the edge briefly. "You were spiraling and vulnerable and..."
"Vulnerable? Wow"
"I don't see any better words to use" her voice rose again. That sweet alluring voice of hers was hell to my ears now. "I can't even think when I'm this close to you"
She really deemed this the right time to drop bars. If she was convincing before, now? She wasn't.
"You're making this worse the more you speak" Her jaw tightened. God, even angry, she was unfairly beautiful.
"I'm making this worse?" She took a step closer "Which part of what I said was a lie?"
"Do not talk to me like you have good intentions" I breathed.
"Oh? what do you think I plan on doing?kidnapping you?" She was hovering over me now, her eyes locked on mine and keeping me in place.
"You wouldn't have listened to me if I told you not to ruin your sanity by going online."
"And what? you decide to cage me?" I managed to say.
"If my definition of care and protection means me being the villain in your eyes then fine" She held my gaze for half a second then looked away. "Hate me after the case, I genuinely don't care".
"You have no right acting like you own me" she chuckled, taking another step toward me, crowding me until I felt the cool plaster of the wall against my shoulder blades.
"And what exactly are you really thinking about now huh?" she asked, her voice dropping.
"The scandal…" she leaned closer, eyes dropping briefly to my mouth before returning to my eyes. "Or me?" My brain stopped working, completely.
"Is it that big of a question to answer?" she asked after a while, obviously trying to get some kind of reaction from me. And she was right, I didn't know which I was annoyed about.
"Say something" she pressed, her finger slowly pushing a stray lock of hair behind my ear.
My thoughts abandoned me. The room went silent, the only sound the hum of the refrigerator and the heavy, uneven rhythm of her breathing. She didn't move back. She just watched me.
Her eyes dropped to my lips, a brief, hungry flick of focus before snapping back to mine.
I couldn't breathe, and it had nothing to do with my asthma. I pushed her away with every bit of strength I had left and bolted for my room, slamming the door and locking it.
I leaned against the wood, my heart hammering. I didn't know what I was more terrified of. The signal jammer, the scandal, or the fact that when she asked the question, the scandal wasn't what was on my mind.