The Watcher

I've been working on this FOREVER, cause I wanted to get it just right. And now I have!

Vedette Timon sighed as she rested her fingers in the fence. Her short blue-black hair fluttered slightly in the small breeze. Her emerald-green eyes, rimmed by black eyeliner, stared through the fence constantly, as if all the watching would finally pay off, and Jonathan would suddenly appear. That’s what Vedette was wishing, anyways. Although, nobody seemed to be hearing her wishes, because they sat in the air, unfulfilled, like a heavy cloud.

Vedette could hear a group of local teens playing basketball on a court behind her. She didn’t even spare them a glance. She just stood in silence, waiting, watching, as she had from dawn to dusk for the past two weeks. It was futile, really. There was honestly no reason for her to believe that Jonathan would keep his promise. She was just hoping - no, she was PRAYING - that this promise would have meant enough to him that he’d find her.

She began to blink her eyes furiously, trying to stop the tears that she had unintentionally started shedding. She was strong; she had to be to survive all alone. She didn’t cry; crying was for the weak. But really, it had been a long time since Vedette had cried, and it was such a foreign feeling. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had showed this much emotion. Actually, she could. The last time she had seen Jonathan…

No! She couldn’t think about that! She had to focus! This was the real world, and there was danger lurking around every corner! She did a quick check of the surrounding area. The only people in the vicinity were the basketball players, getting louder and more vulgar as they continued to play, and a homeless man sitting on a bench just fifty feet away. He was hunched over, and all Vedette could see was the ink-black hair on his head. The hair was so dark that even the sun, shining brightly over head, didn’t make it shine. It reminded her so much of Jonathan’s luscious locks, which she had loved to feel between her fingers every chance she could get…Wait! Could it be…?!

The homeless man sat up, and his eyes - they were beautiful; a dark, rich, ocean-at-midnight blue - met hers. It was! “JONATHAN!” Vedette yelled, frantic in the total and utter bliss of the moment. Finally, they would be reunited!

Jonathan jumped up from the bench and ran towards her, a gigantic grin lighting his face up. “Vedi!” he shouted urgently as he reached her spot of fence, though he was on the other side, “Meet me at the…” But Vedette was already running - actually, she was sprinting - towards the nearest gate in the fence, which, thankfully, was already open. She hurtled through it, and continued to sprint towards Jonathan…

She stopped suddenly. Jonathan had disappeared. What was going on? Had he just been a hallucination, a mirage, a figment of her - apparently very - overactive imagination? Vedette began to take short, gasping breaths. It wasn’t fair! Why did her mind have to play such cruel tricks on her?! Jonathan was the one thing she wanted most in the world, and her mind had shown him to her, only to steal him away again!

She began to blink furiously again; the tears she had been shedding before, having been forgotten when Jonathan ‘appeared’, had started once again. Through her blurry tears, she saw something black fall from the giant hedge that surrounded the whole park. The black ‘thing’ was vaguely man-shaped, and as its head fell to the side, its eyes wide-open, she saw two sapphires set deep into the face…

No! NO! Jonathan had been real! Her mind hadn’t been playing games with her! He had really found her at last! Through her joy - and her tears, which were now tears of joy - Vedette realized that something was wrong. Jonathan’s chest should have been rising and falling, signaling him breathing in and out. His eyes were blank, almost as if devoid of life.

“NO!” Vedette shrieked. This couldn’t be happening! She had just gotten him back! It wasn’t fair! Why had he been stolen away from her again?! She ran towards his lifeless body, her entire body shaking as she moved. She fell to her knees next to Jonathan’s body and knelt her head down, her body racked by sobs.

On Jonathan’s forehead was an arrow drawn through a sun. The Killers of Apollo had taken her family away from her when she was just a little girl, and now they had taken her only love from her as well! Would they stop at nothing to obtain the girl that had been evading them since she was only three years old?! Were they really that ruthless?! That cold-hearted?!

As Vedette looked at the cold, dead body of Jonathan Pizot, her best friend and the only thing that she had had to live for, she had her answer. Yes, they would kill anyone to possess her. The Killers of Apollo would kill anyone to possess Vedette Alice Timon, The Phoenix, The Girl Who Got Away.