Before The Beginning

Chapter 5: First Steps

Begin!

~Beatrice's POV

Once we were ushered out of the room to set to work, I introduced myself to Quinten since we hadn't met yet. I also noticed Karrie was rather fond of him smiling at her. (She's not so good at subtle when it comes to her new attractions.) Which made me hope that they would end up working well together. He seemed nice, but if he treated my friend wrong I'd crack his skull open.

"So where should we start," I asked.

"We could try asking the prisoners again first, or I could ask my cousin to check for Georgina's medical files at Hotel Denouement. They might have some clues."

Karen was a first cousin to the Denouement triplets Dewey, Frank, and Ernest; they ran the Hotel Denouement, which was a very ritzy, five-star hotel that served as a V.F.D. safe place.

"Karrie, why don't we split up and do both? Bertie and I can see if there's any other information we can get out of our prisoners, and you and Quinten can ask Dewey if he has anything useful for us."

Karen nodded, "We can do that. But Bea said that she was in a hurry to get here this morning and hasn't eaten yet. We'll have lunch and then set out if you boys are up for it?"

Bertrand and Quinten agreed to our plan, and we went to the dining hall. As we ate, we took the time to get to know each other.

As expected, both boys were shocked at the fact that I was a bat trainer for a living. That freaks people out for some reason. Upon glancing twice, I noticed that a few tables away Sammie was having lunch with her son and his mentor Captain Widdershins; I couldn't tell from this distance but it seemed she and the captain might have been flirting. Fernald was sitting with them and he looked like most teenage boys do when their recently single mother is talking to a male acquaintance: bored, and clearly doing everything in his power to avoid listening to the conversation happening beside him.

Though his annoyance was nothing next to his mother's when Sammie's friend Esmé appeared beside their table and insisted upon interrupting the conversation with some fashion news she had acquired. Sammie was often seen in the company of Esmé; when you'd run into one chances were the other was nearby. They were V.F.D. partners, meaning they worked together often. I never paid their friendship any mind, they were a little like Anita Radcliffe and Cruella De Vil: in that Esmé only cared for high fashion and Sammie was more focused on her family and the more important things in life, but they still kept a stable friendship. I inwardly snickered at the image before turning my attention back to my new friends.

Bertie and Quinten explained their friendship was apparently as close as mine was with Karen. All the while I found Bertie to be quite interesting. And even better for me, he seemed to find me quite interesting too. I couldn't help getting slight bit of satisfaction watching his brain go haywire when I'd smile. It was also nice that he didn't seem to mind me calling him "Bertie." I opted to ignore Karen and Quinten flirting.

"Bertie, have you ever been to Dr. Orwell," I asked; perhaps it was a strange question but he did have glasses and I wanted to know.

He shook his head, "I haven't, but I'm not planning to any time soon, that's for sure. If she really is doing something against our code then we need to stop her."

I nodded and finished my meal. Upon looking up at him, I caught him quickly looking away as an impressive shade of red spread across his face behind his glasses. Was he looking at me? Hm, he must have been.

~Karen's POV

Once we had finished our lunch we split up in the garage to head off for our separate tasks. I hopped into Quinten's car with him and we drove off to Hotel Denouement.