Part II: Chapter One

Pre-read note: Here's another twist! Ok, the problem right now though, other than the fact I'm writing New Wings instead of studying for my exams, is that I am not sure where Part II is heading. I'm tempted to leave it as a cliff-hanger, but at the same time, I do like conclusion. I am still writing, though, which means I'm writing without direction. Hopefully I figure out where it's going soon so I can finish the story. I really, really want it to be done, but in other ways I'm terrified to write the second draft. The second draft would be so... official. And if I'm not posting it online, what will I do? What will motivate me? 

Anyways, here's the beginning of part II. It's long but not dense. 

Part II, chapter one, section one:

“Sit down.”

I ignored the voice despite the stern edge to it.

“Sit down or you’re going to pace a hole through my floor.”

I looked up at the man, sitting calmly at his desk, unfazed by the current events, and bit my tongue. Swearing at him would get me nowhere anyways. But I couldn’t stop my feet from moving in circles through the small office space.

“Jake, sit down!”

The sudden burst of anger made me freeze. I caught his eye for a moment and noticed a change in them. They seemed a shade darker than they usually were.

I sighed and sat down across from the man at the desk, placing my hand in my hands.

“I’m sorry, John,” I said to the floor by my feet.

“You need to calm down, Jake. We’ll have orders from the head office soon enough.”

I swallowed words again. The orders from the head office were not the first thing on my mind. Although, I knew they were going to have an impact, a huge impact.

“John...”

“Yes, Jake.”

“You don’t think...”

I looked up at him, typing away something into a black laptop. He glanced up at me for a moment through his paperwork, saying, “You can’t be fired from being a Guider,” then returned to the steady typing.

“That’s not what’s worrying me.”

“What is it then?”

“When they find her, you don’t think they’ll wipe her memory, do you?”

John paused, organizing files on his desk before answering my question.

“What they decide is not up to you or me, and it certainly is not something for you to worry about it.”

My head fell back into my hands again. They were considering it, and there was a strong probability it would happen then.

“Why does this bother you so much? You’ve had other New Wings who you no longer can have contact with. This one just ended earlier than you expect.”

With that sentence he confirmed what I had already been quite sure was going to happen: they were taking her away from me, I was no longer her Guider.

“Jake?”

I couldn’t pull my head from my hands.

“Jake? This doesn’t have anything to do with...?”

I didn’t have the energy to protest in defence the way I knew I should.

“You didn’t... did you?”

I shook my head back and forth in my hands, but it was a pathetic attempt to deny it.

“You fell for her?”

His voice was calm, but it turned angry. “You fell for her!”

There was ruffling of paper and the slamming of a laptop shut, then silence.

John sighed quietly before speaking again. “You brought this upon yourself. This is bad, but it doesn’t change much. The plan was for her to fall for you anyways, so this doesn’t complicate much besides the degree to which she probably fell. I’m assuming you left a few things out of the reports, then?”

I looked up, although avoiding his eyes. “I skipped a few nights.”

“You didn’t mention anything to her then, though? You never, ever brought up the reports? Or that you could guess what would happen the next day? There was nothing to make her suspect, right?”

John looked at me sternly as I answered honestly, “No.”

He continued to stare until I responded, “No, of course not. I never know anything much about the plan anyways, I was only told what I needed to know for the next day, never even any further ahead. Besides, she only figured it out because I left my cell in her room. She wasn’t suspicious before that.”

John shuffled his papers around again, picking up a thick black folder.

“This,” he said to me slowly, “Was her plan... until she broke it, and we lost her.”

He handed me the folder. It took me a moment before I could open it. Inside were charts with dates. They started at the time Annika had arrived in Heaven, and they described in less detail the things that I already knew. There were days on the beach, the problems she faced with friends, the ups and downs she’d felt in this world. What surprised me, tough, was that it had been planned that she’d be able to remember her past from the first day.

“You knew she was going to remember? Why didn’t you warn me? That day in the hospital, sitting outside the window with her, I panicked. I’d thought something was wrong.”

“We needed you to panic,” he responded. “It was one of the things that kept her ok, kept her moving despite her knowledge of the past.”

I sighed and glanced back down, then another question came to my mind.

“I always wondered: why did you have us keep a relationship a secret, if you had it in the plan too?”

“It was unique to this plan, to break the rules of Guider and New Wings, so it was decided that in order to cause the less disruption it would be easiest if you kept it secret. Then again, you were not supposed to fall for her remember? I have a feeling that you skipped more than just a few nights in your descriptions.”

I looked down, avoiding the statement, and kept reading. When it came to the date of that day, there were descriptions of things that were supposed to happen, but didn’t. The plan went on for three more months and two more weeks, although I quickly noticed that the descriptions for each day got progressively smaller and less detailed.

“Why does it end where it does?” I asked.

“The day after that would be her re-naming ceremony, the end of her time with you, her Guider, and her complete integration into the society.”

“Is that why it gets less detailed as it gets closer to the end, then? Because she’s more integrated?”

John reached across the desk and gently took the folder from my hands. “Yes and no. But I can’t tell you the full details, since I don’t even know the full details.”

This was something I was used to by this point, not being told the whole story. I nodded at John, who tucked the black folder into a drawer of his desk.

The phone on his desk began to ring and he picked it up with a swift movement. There were no introductions or informal conversation, and after a second of listening, John said simply, “Thank you.”

Then he looked up at me. “They’ve made their decision. We’re to go up to the boardroom now.”