Capturing Ella

Chapter 20 - Joe

July 5th

I sat at one of the tables by the coffee stand in Maui Headquarters, sipping it slowly. My brothers who worked here sat opposite me, both of them on their laptops as I continued to sip my coffee. It was a pretty early start, and I was at base as the sun came up at about six this morning. This was my third coffee – the first coffee was provided by my Mum as she woke up me up at half four as she knew I was crabby until my first coffee. The other two I had at base, but it wasn't the dose of caffeine that got me buzzing out of my skin. I looked up at the clock. 8:09am. Ella's flight was due to land in Glasgow any minute now, and my body and brain was hyper alert for the arrival. For what felt like no apparent reason, I just wanted Ella back.

The morning after the party, I woke up with only my boxers on in what didn't feel like my hotel room. I mean, all hotel rooms seem the same and have the same generic lay out, but it was the little details that didn't add up. Like, I had clocked into the hotel but left nothing in my room apart from a few bits of clothing and a book in case I woke up early the next morning, but that was it. And even those were tucked into the chest of drawers, in the top draw to the left. I remembered exactly where I put it. But when I woke up, there were bits and bobs everywhere. There was a jacket folded up on the right side of the bed, on the bed side cabinet, and tucked into it was the lead of a phone charger but no phone attached. On the floor was the suit I wore the night previous at the event. I also remember the crashing headache and hangover I had got from drinking too much the night before, and how it was almost painful to keep my eyes open. But I noticed some other things in the few seconds my eyes were open; a toiletry bag on the top of the dresser, and on the floor a pair of white fairy wings, with the edges fading to burnt black, and kicked too one side a white and black hemmed dress. Only one person was in white last night; Ella. Squinting heavily against the light, even though the curtains were black out curtains and the faintest amount of light managed to trail into the room it was too much. On the floor, I found her laptop and opened up the lid and turned it on. Sure enough, when it loaded up it asked me for the password, but was enough to show me the different account it had on there; Admin, Guest, and Ella Benedict. Not only that it was asking me straight away to connect to their home WiFi, or Maui or just a digit of about seventeen numbers and letters. I had woken up in just my boxers in Ella's room. Uh oh.

I rolled over and grabbed my phone from the bedside cabinet, and called Jake up straight away to ask what had happened to me last night and how I ended up in such a predicament. However, when he didn't reply I called Quinn – who seemed too confused and was busy at work to talk. He got hold of Jake for me, who was at home with the twins with someone around him to help him. I simply explained what I knew, which wasn't much, and Jake had told me I basically spent the night with Ella. Unfortunately, Michael, Ella's brother, was in the room when I called and he overheard everything and immediately called his sister to see her side of the story. I escaped her room and went straight up a floor to my room, unlocking the door telekinetically, before falling asleep for another seven hours up there. By the time I woke up again, the girl had all left the hotel and was on their way to Cornwall, Ella leaving without a faintest memory of what happened that night.

But ever since then, I've been caught up on her. Everytime I heard her name, my heart increased tenfold and I got excited but panicky to see her at the same time. I had what could be the world's biggest crush on my boss' little sister and I couldn't whisper a word of it to anyone. I mean, for the last three months, since the party, Michael has just given me the dirtiest look ever. I had also received a text from him telling me graphic details of what would happen if I touch Ella ever again.

A silver lining came my way in the form on anonymous threats. A weeks or so ago, a middle school teacher in down town New York found some carvings in the wall near her class room, and told the head teacher who then told the police. The police over there had over 30 more complaints about these mysterious markings on walls of public buildings or schools. Each of them had the same markings, carved into the walls or whatever. It was scattered over a 30 mile radius, some six of the marks making out the outlines, and another fourteen were scattered around inside. More reports had been coming in since then, having only just been found. Some were cleared near enough instantly because they lacked one key detail; they lacked the similarities. All of these marks were identical. They were all the same size, same width, chiselled into the wall in the exact way and even had the same proportional rotation of the curves of the writing. However, we don't know what it says. It's clear it's in a foreign dialect, but the American authorities had cleared all languages spoken in over 750 years, and also cleared out any mildly obvious bet. One of the officers over there said it was a threat, a warning of some sort, but one that we couldn't decode. What kind of shitty secret service couldn't decode a threat? Thankfully, it was left in the hands of the Americans.