The Raven's Reflection

Chapter 38 - Bad Memories

"I still can't believe you offered Marissa a position as a Negotiations Expert," Kurt scoffed. Today was his day off, but as Samuel was a little under the weather, he took over for the day. Work never seemed like a chore when his job was, for the most part, just hanging around with his best friend or his best friend's fiancé.

It had been a week since the interview. Cerno had just finished vetting Mr. Hunter and was sitting with his head on his desk as he tried to recover a little bit of his energy. Everyone else had been vetted, except for Rosalie Thurston.

"Are you sure you can finish Rosalie today? You're not looking too great," Kurt advised, concerned for his friend. "I can reschedule her."

"I have enough to finish hers, then I can rest for the full weekend," Cerno replied, exhaustion already heavy in his voice.

"Speaking of her," Kurt started, looking up at the clock on the wall behind Cerno, "she's late. Didn't Kinzie say Rosalie was the one most excited out of the four?"

"We'll give her a few minutes in case she took a wrong turn," he answered, giving the newcomer the benefit of a doubt. As another half hour ticked by, Cerno pursed his lips. "Maybe we should go check on her. Do you know where she is staying?"

"I do," he said as he nodded and got to his feet. He continued to watch Cerno closely, noticing his skin was slightly paler than normal. "Are you sure you're okay to do one more set of pacts today?"

Cerno chuckled as he stood. "Yes, I'm sure. Can we go now?" he jokingly pushed. "The sooner I finish with her, the sooner I can go home."

Kurt led the way to Rosalie's home, it being close to Alice's grocery shop. "It's Miss Thurston, her sister, and Mr. Kline sharing residence here," he advised to Cerno just before he knocked softly on the front door. After a moment, a young girl looking only about seven years old answered the door, but Kurt knew this must be Madeleine, Rosalie's 12-year-old sister.

"May I help you?" she asked firmly. She didn't open the door very far.

"You must be Madeleine? My name is Cerno," Cerno said with a smile, kneeling to bring himself to a shorter and less threatening stance before her. "We're looking for Rosalie. Is she home?"

Madeleine opened the door a little further, recognizing who Cerno was. "She's upstairs in her room."

"May we come in and speak with her? She was supposed to meet with me and we wanted to make sure she was okay since she didn't show up."

"Rosie won't even talk to me today. She's locked herself in her room and won't come down," Madeleine explained. "I don't think she's willing to talk to anyone right now. It's her bad day of the year." Just as Madeleine expressed Rosalie's potential to decline company right now, there was a loud enough clambering through the floor upstairs that it made the young girl jump and gasp.

Cerno was quick to stand up straight. "Stay with her," he advised to Kurt as he pushed past Madeleine and began up the stairs. He rounded the corner and came face to face with the door that led to the space above the loud thud they had heard. First, Cerno knocked to give her the opportunity to answer the door, "Miss Thurston?" With no answer, he tried the handle to find that it was locked. "Rosalie, are you okay?" Still receiving no answer, he held out his hand to the handle and the wood around it shattered away, allowing the door to swing open.

"Shit! What are you doing!?" Rosalie cried out as Cerno burst into her room.

At first, he surveyed her room to make sure she was the only person in it. There was a wooden box on the floor and there were items scattered all over around it. Rosalie sat across the room on the floor with a hand pressed tightly over her right eye, a thick crimson stream trailing between her fingers. "What happened?" he asked, quick to her side. As Cerno pulled her hand away from her face to replace it with his own, he realized her eyebrow was split and made quick to heal it.