Chapter 1
As Clarke was walking back to the locker room to change after she had finished her shift at Ark Hospital, she thought about what lie she was going to tell her roommates for the following night. Octavia always had her late night workouts on Thursdays, so she wouldn’t be the issue. It was Raven she was worried about. No matter what she said, its like the girl could smell bullshit. She thought back to all the times she had been called out and smiled. At least she keeps me honest, she reasoned. At that last thought though, she began to frown because she had no idea how to actually lie to her best friend.
While the med student was lost in thought trying to come up with the easiest, most believable lie, Clarke was snapped out of her head by a familiar, but unfortunate voice.
“ Hey princess, thinking about our date?”
Her frown remained. What the hell was Finn doing here? Wasn’t he supposed to be working at some bike shop or something? She turned around trying to conceal most of her distaste.
“Hello Finn.” She said curtly, searching behind him for something she could use to weasel her way out of talking to him. Clarke spotted a male nurse whizzing by with some medical charts and decided this was her chance. She was about run over to him and excuse herself from the conversation when Finn grabbed her wrist.
“Whoa there” Finn said. “We all know you’re done for the day, so why don’t we just talk about when you are coming over so I can take you out.”
She yanked her wrist away and gave him a seething glare. “I don’t remember ever agreeing to a date. In fact I think I have turned you down every single time since we broke up”
Finn remained unfazed and pressed on. “Well how about I pick you up at 7 tomorrow and we can discuss how much you hate me over some wine.” He gave his usual snarky smirk. She was about to go off on him and tell him that she would rather be the stabbed guy on that gurney over there than go on a date with him, when she had a stroke of genius.
“Wait, did you say tomorrow night?” She questioned. Finn looked a little thrown off at her non-threatening response, but regained his composure.
“Yeah why? Would you rather it be tonight? Can’t wait to get back to my house can you princess?”
Focused on the gears turning in her head she took a second to respond. She finally looked up and said “I have a proposal for you. If you tell Raven when she interrogates you that we went out on a date tomorrow night, I will actually agree to a real date. You have exactly 3 seconds to respond or I am going to withdrawal my proposition and have security escort you out.” She finished and held up three fingers for him to see. She didn’t even get the first one down before he responded.
“Yes!” He said, sounding a little too eager.
“Great. I’ll call you with the details later. Oh and the only way this deal goes through is if you don’t mess up when talking to Raven.” She said while hurrying down the hallway to get to the locker room. This is probably the best idea you have ever come up with. She congratulated herself while changing out of her scrubs.
Clarke finally got to her apartment after a long ride home on the subway. It never ceased to amaze her what you could witness on a New York subway in an hour. She put the key in the lock and turned the knob, finalizing the details of the fake date she had planned in her head. As she opened the door and the first thing she noticed was the loud screeching and the smell of something burning that bombarded her senses.
Thinking something was on fire, she dropped her things to the floor and ran into the kitchen, ready to be a makeshift firefighter, only to find Octavia frantically trying to turn off the fire alarm on the ceiling while simultaneously swatting away smoke coming from whatever was in the oven. As her ear drums readjusted to silence, she looked up at Octavia and asked
“O, what the hell are you doing” “I was hungry and since Raven doesn’t do ANYTHING and you weren’t here, I tried to make something.” She pouted.
Clarke sighed “Next time just order takeout. We don’t need to loose all our earthy possessions because you can’t use an oven” she teased, helping clean up the blackened mound stuck to the pan.
Having finally restored the kitchen back to working order, they began to discuss what they were actually going to eat.
“Lets order pizza.” Octavia offered. “No, we just had that last night. Speaking of which, isn’t there still some left over? Why didn’t you just eat that instead of experimentally burning down our apartment?”
At that moment Raven whipped open her bedroom door and answered, “Because I ate it. Also, I vote for Indian” Clarke rolled her eyes. Of course Raven ate the last of the pizza. Raven strolled into the living room and turned on the TV. Octavia clapped her hands together “That’s a great idea Rae!” She said approvingly looking at Clarke for her answer. She shrugged in response. “Sounds good to me”.
The three girls finally got their food and sat down in the living room while Raven remained in control of the remote. “Raven, it’s not fair you get to choose the channel! No one wants to watch Financial News!” Octavia whined. Clarke had to agree.
While Raven played keep away the remote from Octavia, Clarke had no better choice but to tune into the show. A male reporter flashed back on the screen after the NASDAQ final numbers were shown for the day.
“And welcome back! NASDAQ closed in the green today while…” Clarke was momentarily distracted by her friends keep away game when Raven elbowed her in the side.
“Ow, what the hell!” Rubbing the rib that was hit. She snatched the remote from an unsuspecting Raven and said
“We will watch this for another five minutes and then Octavia and I get to choose. Sound fair?” She looked at her friends expectantly.” Both nodded and all three turned their attention back to the screen.
“…Now for our Business Noteworthy portion of the night. Lets start with Polis Corp. This huge corporation first gained publicity after suffering a huge blow with the death of former CEO Robert Woods and his wife during a car crash. That was 8 years ago. Now this company is back on the rise and gaining more publicity than ever before. This is in part due to its youngest CEO the history of the company, Alexandria Woods. The pragmatic daughter of the late Robert Woods, took over the company at the ripe age of 20. Now, at 25, she has managed to….”
A candid photo of a young woman in a dapper suit appeared on the screen. Clarke stared at the picture, noticing only the fierce, piercing green eyes staring back at her.
“Have you guys ever heard of her?” Clarke asked.
“Have I ever heard of her? Clarke you’re kidding right? You’ve never heard of Alexandria woods? She is everywhere! Though, to be fair, no one can seem to get any good gossip about her. People are just going crazy over her because she’s really hot” Octavia exclaimed.
“Yeah what Octavia said. Everyone at work seems to talk about her. Or at least knows who she is. She has created quite a name for herself.” Raven seconded.
Clarke was surprised to hear Raven talk about her work. She almost never mentions anything about her job. She and Octavia don’t even know where she works, only that she is an engineer of some sort. The fact that Raven mentioned this woman and her work in one sentence seemed significant to Clarke.
“Well sorry I’m not in the loop guys, I’m always stuck at the hospital!” Clarke argued. Octavia took this time to snatch the remote from her hands and proceed to turn on a soccer game. Both Raven and Clarke groaned simultaneously.
The next morning, Clarke jumped awake with only a faint memory; green. That’s the first time I’ve had a weird dream in a while. Clarke thought to herself. As she began her morning routine, she knew Raven would still be sleeping and Octavia would already be at her part time job. Clarke wanted to get ready in secret but Raven usually worked odd hours where she would sometimes leave for a couple hours and then come back or she would be gone for a couple of days. However she would always give us at least a day’s notice before she left. And Raven hadn’t said anything about it so she knew she would be at the house during the time Clarke wanted to get ready.
Clarke was going go meet her friend Anya today, who had first told her about the event that night. Anya was going to provide her details of what to wear and how to get in. Because the nature of the event was so secretive (and Clarke was told it was also illegal) she had to keep it hidden from everyone she knew in order not to implicate them.
Clarke knew this underground art auction was probably not the smartest idea, but it only happened once a year and you either had to be an invited buyer or have one of your pieces chosen to be in the auction itself. If your art was sold, it would also make a huge impact on the amount of commissions you would get as well as propel you up in the art world. There was no way to submit your piece because the auction had curators to search and secure the art. There were also some pieces being smuggled in. A.k.a stolen, which was the illegal aspect of this event. Clarke had heard that the art had already been finalized for the event four months ago. The only reason Clarke was even considered to participate after the fact was because her friend Anya had seen some of her art hanging in her apartment at a party. Anya supposedly knew the director of the event personally and told her about Clarke’s talent.
As she was about to leave to meet Anya, Raven walked out of her bedroom. She noticed Clarke with her purse and sunglasses.
”Where are you going” she asked. Clarke was prepared and responded “ Going to buy a new outfit for my date tonight.” She turned away from her friend and tried to walk out the door, knowing Raven wouldn’t let her leave without a further explanation.
“Wait a second with who?” she stopped Clarke. “With Finn…” Clarke tried her best to pretend to feel guilty. “No way!” Raven shot. “I don’t believe you. I’m gonna call him” Sure enough Raven whips out her phone and dials his number.”
All Finn had to do was get the story right and Clarke would have and excuse to get ready and be out late.
“Hello?” Finns voice sounded over the speakerphone. “Are you going on a date with Clarke tonight?” Raven asked. “Yeah why?” He answered. “How the fuck did you make that happen?” she said, staring at Clarke with a suspicious face. “My charms of course” Finn quipped. Clarke did a mental eye roll. She could practically hear his smirk on the phone. Raven continued staring at Clarke but instead of suspicious, she began to just look grossed out.
“Ew. Okay I don’t know how you managed that but make sure she gets home safe or I’ll cut your balls off. You and I both know I’m serious about that threat.” Raven said seriously.
“Are you her Mother or something? Jesus. Calm down, I’ll get her home safe.” “Like I said, you better” Raven responded and promptly hung up.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Raven asked, looking concerned. “I am only going so he can explain himself. We never really got a chance to talk after everything happened and I think it will give me some closure.” Clarke said. Raven raised and eyebrow but left it alone. It seemed she was in the clear so she headed towards the door.
Clarke returned home just around 7:00 P.M. and had 2 hours until a special car picked her up and took her to the secret location of the event. Anya also told her to dress formal and wear a mask to hide her identity. She asked Anya if that meant everyone would be wearing one.
“Yes but one will not be provided so bring your own.”
Clarke hadn’t had time to go and buy one so she searched through her closet to find a black feathered one belonging to her Halloween costume. She honestly didn’t remember even owning this. It will have to do. She thought. She tied it to the front of her face, carful not to disrupt her blonde curls, or her carefully applied make up.
Turning around to look at herself in the full-length mirror, she had to admit that the gold form fitting, floor length dress she had bought looked pretty good. She was stealing one last glance when she heard her phone buzz. A blocked number appeared on her screen. She unlocked her phone and answered. “Hello?” “Hello Ms. Griffin, Your ride is here.” “O-okay” She stuttered.
Why was she so nervous? She grabbed her clutch and headed down the stairs to her ride. Standing at the open backdoor to the SUV was a muscular man in a suit with a very noticeable face tattoo. He offered her a hand into the car.
“Thank you…um-“ “You can call me Niko” Clarke nodded. “Thank you Niko” Clarke replied. The man shut the door and proceeded to the driver’s side. Clarke immediately noticed that all the windows were blacked out. There was also a blacked out window between the front of the car and the back, just like in a limo. This meant she couldn’t see outside or see where she was headed. Man, they really take this secrecy thing seriously huh? She thought nervously.
Thirty minutes later, the SUV came to a stop and the door opened to let her out into what looked like the ally of an abandoned industrial building. Am I going to get murdered now?Great going Clarke. She mentally slapped her self.
Niko indicated for her to follow him though the door. While he led her down a long stretch of hallway, Clarke could feel her mask already coming untied. Of course, how could I forget? She did a mental face palm. I didn’t even end up wearing this mask with my costume on Halloween because it kept coming off.
They were finally nearing the end of the elegantly lit hallway, when she couldn’t help notice a painting on the wall. Distracted by the piece of art, Clarke didn’t notice Niko had stopped, waiting for someone to walk across the adjoining hallway. She kept walking and smashed right into something solid. Nearly falling, she tried to regained her balance and apologize, but when Clarke looked up to do so, her mask fell to the floor.
Before she could reach down and pick up her mask, her eyes met a pair of piecing green ones. They were surrounded by dark black eye makeup extending across the owners face, effectively concealing their identity. Instead of a mask, this person had opted for war paint it seemed. Slightly stunned, Clarke watched mesmerized as the person she just ran into bent down to pick up her mask. As the woman was handing her mask back to her, she tried to make amends.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t paying attention..."