Twisted Every Way(Phantom Of The Opera Fic)

Chapter 72: Clara

Luke grabbed his bag and checked his watch again. Four minutes till the meeting with the council, dinner with Turner at five thirty, Music preservation at ten with Peter...

There just wasn't enough time. He picked up the many notebooks and shoved them in his side bag. It was made of cloth and crudely sewn.

Society was being thrown into a heap of pandemonium and Luke was tossed straight into the middle of it.

Learning French had been hard enough, now he had to live it.

He missed Gustave, his father, he hated him for sending him so far away. So far from everything he had grown to love. No longer could his trumpet echo off the cavern walls. No longer did he feel a Destler.

He brushed the millions of newspaper clippings about some mysterious name into the recycling bin.

Then after a moment, dug them out again.

"God, why can't I just put this behind me?" He murmured, "Why do I need to know? It probably isn't even true..."

"Destler? Luke?" The voice cut through his thoughts and startled his questions away. "Message from Thatcher, he's marked it urgent."

Luke let out a sigh, everything in life was urgent, just somethings were over sooner than the next.

"Thatcher," He smiled, turning the letter over in his hands slowly. "How can I help you?"

For a moment a memory cut through like the stern of a ship breaking up ice in the Arctic.

"Luke," A soft voice whispered in his memory.

Pictures on walls, whispers in his ear.

Where? Where did the whispers always come from?

He took the envelope from the mail carrier and sighed.

"I'm sending her over." The mail carrier said sternly, "This has gone on long enough."

Luke moaned and gave a facepalm. "I'm not going out with that idiot. Darn Thatcher. Blast and confound them all. They've been trying to set me up for months now. Tell the idiots I'm not interested. I have work to do."

"So the poor girl's an idiot then? That's a rather brisk assumption." A mellow voice came from behind him.

He swiveled in his office chair and scowled. "What do you want?"

"My names Chloe Clariece, you may call me Chloe as my associates do. When we're friends, which I highly doubt we will ever be, Clara. Thanks for asking."

"I didn't ask." Luke snarled in frustration and proceeded to briskly turn back around and went back to filling out his documents.

He didn't have time for school girls.

He had been elected to head the school newspaper that June and he was going to make something of himself.

Something that would make his Father move forward for once.

"This is where you say your name." The girl scoffed with bewilderment.

"Nobody needs to know my name. Names make people get attached and right now we need focused people, willing to sacrifice their personal lives for the preservation of the greater good."

"Isn't the goal of authors to preserve humanity? Getting attached, love, it's all human." The girl laughed. "We're at a boarding school for heaven's sake. We don't get sent here because we're wanted at home."

Luke slammed his pencil on the desk, "Listen here-,"

"Chloe," She said, her eyes gleaming daringly.

"Clara, Chloe, Clarice," He said mockingly, "I don't know what makes you think you can come here and instigate and imply all sorts of things. But I know my rights on this campus, heck I wrote them. So why don't you get lost."

"Relax!" She laughed throwing her hands in the air. "I'm not here for money, or to set you up with some fictional sister I conjured to get myself and introduction. That's just what confounded Thatcher thinks. I expected better of you Luke Destler. With all, I've heard about you."

Her eyes narrowed and scanned him up and down. A tattered suit, unruly hair. And aside bag made of leather, a rare commodity.

She jumped up and sat on his desk with a grin.

If she was handsome he didn't notice. She was rude, young and unrefined, and a distraction.

"I don't want to talk...I don't need any friends okay. I'm perfectly content focusing on the News work."

"Then you don't want to know who Winnie's parents are?" She started slowly, her hand placing a piece of paper in front of him and turning it at an angle for him to read. "Her real parents?"

He squared his shoulders protectively, his eyes narrowing, "How do you know about Winnie?!"

"I'm not supposed to." She stated firmly. "I'm not supposed to be telling you either. But I figured you weren't going to stop hunting my family down until you had the truth.

"Your family?"

"I've given you all I can."

He looked up at her, clenching the paper in his fingers as if its contents were the most sacred in the world. , "You have to be joking. The trail has been cold so long, you couldn't possibly know where..."

Chloe's face faltered with a shadow. "He isn't dead Monsieur Destler, the man you suspect. Wherever he is, he's in trouble enough, but he isn't dead."

Luke shook his head, a chill traveling down his spine.

She turned to leave but was stopped.

"Clara," He said taking her wrist, "How do you know this?!"

"There are only two men alive who can call me by that name," Chloe stated angrily, "And you sir," She pulled her arm away briskly, "You are not one of them. I bid you good day."

"Please!" He called out desperately.

"Yes?"

"Who are you?" He asked again as she made her way to the door.

"That is for me to find out someday, and you never." She winked.

And with that, she was gone, out the door before he had a chance to say another word.

He clutched the old photograph in his hands.

"Dechangys," He muttered. "What have you done now?"

In a mad rush, he ran to his stationary, madly ransacking through the drawers for his secret journal.

He opened to the next clean open page.

Chloe Clariece Clara.

He wrote in long cursive letters, without even thinking, he circled it.

There was something wrong afoot in the world, and he intended to find it out.

Find out who this girl was, friend or foe.

Nemesis or hero who could say?

Who could know?