Chapter 3

Going to work the next day was rough, I don't like a mass amount of attention. If there's a chance of being in the spotlight I go hide in the shadows. Speaking of work, I made the decision to not quit after all. It made my parents so happy that I took this job, I can't leave... not now... it was basically their dying wish for me... how could I just up and quit after their deaths? The answer is obvious; I can't.

When I got there of course Axel was the first one I ran into and he nicely commented, "wow, you look like hell."

I shot the best glare I could muster, doubt it was very intimidating though, and scoffed, "gee thanks." I quickly turned away, feeling the sting in my eyes that started the formation of tears.

"Wait, are you... are you crying? Geez I was just bullshitting, I didn't think it'd hurt your feelings that bad."

"I'm not fucking crying! Even if I fucking was it sure as hell wouldn't be from whatever jackass comments come out of your stupid ass mouth!" I whirled on him, unable to hold back my pained anger. For what must be the first time in his life he looked shocked and dumbfounded, too speechless to have a comeback to that. I stormed inside, not waiting for him to finally come up with something. If he says anything more I may punch his stupid, smug ass face. I quickly dumped my things on/in my desk and went to the bathroom to try and calm down, tears starting to slowly roll down my cheek.

I let a few more tears escape then dried my face, took a couple shakey breaths, fixed my hair a little then went back to my desk. On my way I overheard a bit of conversation coming from Angela's office, "she must be going through something pretty bad, just thought I'd let you know to maybe go easy on her or offer her the day off. She clearly needs it." I ignored what I heard though and continued to my desk, sitting down with a sigh.

Not long after sitting down, Angela came up to me and gently asked, "hey, how's it going today?"

The pieces to the small puzzle clicked in my head, making me sigh and return, "Asshat told you I freaked out on him, didn't he?" She gave a sympathetic nod and waited for me to explain.

With another sigh I told her, "it wasn't directed at him, he just happened to be the one to accidentally open the flood gates of my emotions."

She furrowed her brows and pressed, "why is that? What happened?"

"Last night... my.. my parents uh... died... I could've lost it on anyone, just from being asked how I am. I'll probably apologize later." I stayed looking at my hands in my lap, hearing a small gasp escape her lips.

"You should've called in! You don't have to work after going through that! I'm so sorry Riona... that's awful..."

"I wanted to come to work, it wouldn't benefit me staying at home unpacking. Especially because forgetting one box was the whole reason I witnessed what happened."

"Oh my god... can I hug you? That is beyond terrible..." she asked empathetically. I nodded so she gave me a hug, rubbing my back a little as she stated, "I'm taking you out for lunch, I know it won't help like at all, but I'm doing it anyway." 

Letting out a soft chuckle as she pulled away, I replied, "okay, I'm sure it'll be a good distraction." 

She gave an affirmative nod then happily said, "alright, see you at noon." 

I gave a small smile and responded, "see you then." 

For lunch she took me to her favorite chinese restaurant, saying they have the absolute BEST ginger beef you'll ever have in your life. Once we ordered and got our food I instantly agreed.

"Holy fuck this is delicious." I stated in shock through my mouthful of that ginger beef.

Chuckling she answered, "I told you! I'm glad you like it." 

"Thank you for this, it's fuckin amazing."

"No problem! I'm doing this as a friend by the way, not as your boss. I wasn't sure what you were thinking about it so I wanted to clear it up." 

I paused in surprise, swallowing before admitting, "I actually don't even know what I was thinking about it, just you being a nice boss I guess. But, thank you. I uh.. I haven't made any new friends since like middle school."

"Oh, well in that case I'll blatently add that I want to be friends with you. I can tell we'd make great friends." She smiled.

If she had probably any other type of behaviour I'd be weirded out, but she's been like this from the start and I have to say I agree. "You're not wrong. I can tell too." I chuckled, taking another bite. We beamed at each other, then finished our lunch so we won't be late getting back to work. I'm happy she wants to be friends, I haven't had anyone want to be friends since I made friends with Sabrina and Celine. 

After getting back to our building I put my purse in my desk drawer, sighed and made my way to the back to see if Axel's here.

He was, so I rolled my eyes in annoyance at me being a decent mannered person and awkwardly got his attention, "hey..."

He looked up at me with furrowed brows, almost seeming suspicious about me coming to talk to him, replying, "hi?"

"I uh... just came to apologize for earlier, that rage wasn't directed at you and I'm sorry it came out as if it was."

He shrugged it off and stated, "don't worry about it, losing your parents is a pretty rough deal."

I'm too exhausted to get mad again so I just half rolled my eyes and scoffed, "I didn't lose my parents."

"So they're alive and well and the whispers going around here are lies?" He asked with a raised brow as he leaned back with crossed arms.

"Its none of anyones business. And besides, saying I lost them makes it sound like they're kids at an amusement park or the mall or some shit." I retorted, crossing my arms in annoyance.

"Well, you've been here a couple weeks now you should know everything is everyones business around here. Usually it means a place is toxic when they say they're like a big family, but here we really are like a real genuine family. The only reason someone quits is because they've retired. Hence why you now work here. So you better get used to everyone knowing everything." He snorted, going back to work. My mouth hung open before clamping shut while I strode back to my desk, wishing I never wasted my breath apologizing. "There's also this thing called the news station just FYI!" He shouted after me, making my hands clench into fists while my shoulders tensed. Fuck. I completely forgot they would put it on the news... god I hope there's no video or photos of me at all. I'd have to kill myself from the embarrassment of everyone seeing me cry. 

Dropping into my chair I lay my head on my desk in defeat. At least Angela didn't go around spreading my business everywhere. Axel however, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. I lifted my head with a sigh, running my hands down my face. I stared into space for awhile, contemplating a lot of things. The anger kept building and the need for justice flooded my mind. It seems no one is going to lift a finger to get this mystery guy, so I'll just have to do it myself. I have the intelligence, I just need to gather materials and find a place to stash it all. I already know Ian wouldn't approve, he laughs anytime I say I could kick someones ass. Not a loving "I know you wouldn't actually kick someones ass unless they truly deserved it" kind of way, it's always a "yeah sure. That's a cute thought. No way you're physically capable of winning any kind of fight" type of way. Feels great. Totally doesn't throw me down the depression hole at ALL. Note the fuckin sarcasm.

After work I went hunting for the perfect place, looking on the outskirt areas of the city so as to have privacy and lower the risk of it being found. It took a while, but I finally found a spot kind of amongst some trees. It's an already abandoned shed, surrounded by vines, bushes and trees, so much so it took me a bit to find it and even longer to find the door. There wasn't anything inside, it was just a simple, plain shed, but it did happen to have a small set of stairs. Now, every horror movie ever would make anyone with common sense scream "don't go down there" but curiosity killed the cat and satisfaction brought it back. So down I went, using my phones flashlight to see where I was going and a branch from outside to push away the spider webs. At the bottom of the stairs was just dirt floor and walls with some support beams that could probably use replacing. Astonishingly there wasn't much of anything down here either, a couple shelves with a few little hand shovels, a bunch of dust and a metal bucket in the corner. This place is absolutely perfect. I'll dig more space out after putting in new support beams, have a new light set up to see what I'm doing and then I can get onto the real work. 

A smile broke onto my face as I looked around the small area, this is so gonna work. Heading back outside I took another look around the outside of it to see if there's any electrical by chance already hooked up. To my surprise and great joy there actually was, I'm going to need to put new wiring in though obviously. No way in hell I'd trust these old ones. I hid the door again and backed up to make sure it was as hidden as before, bouncing on the balls of my feet in excitement while I stared at my new hide out. 

Nothing anywhere near as exciting happened when I got home. I made dinner after unpacking some of the dishes, then washed the dirty ones after dinner and put the rest of that box away in the cupboard. It was definitely hard to get to sleep, adrenaline fueled by eagerness and revenge coursed through me.

Eventually however, I did manage to fall asleep and dreamt of confronting the piece of shit responsible for my parents deaths.

Today is thankfully my day off—and not Ian's—which meant I unpacked enough boxes for him to not get suspicious of what I did all day, then went to the hardware store. I'd love to dive right into building a functional costume, but I need a decent work space first, so grabbing 2×4's for structural purposes it is.

"Doin some home reno's?" The guy helping me asked, clearly just making small talk. 

"Yup, building a new wine cellar in the basement." I smiled.

"Ah, always a good addition to any house. You'll want these guys here then, they're better for being under ground. Though you'll want to surround 'em in cement of course, don't want the moisture from the ground seeping in rotting the wood." He went on, showing me the ones he was talking about. Shit, I forgot about cement. After getting the wood set up to take to my car after paying I grabbed a couple bags of cement, screws, lightbulbs, power outlets and other tools I'd need for this project. Then paid for everything and had help getting it all in my car. The wood was too long so I had to leave the trunk door open and strap it all down. 

I found the abandoned shed again and hauled everything I just bought into the small space around the stairwell. I got to work on hooking up the electrical to a solar panel I made, connecting the outlets and light fixtures to it. Gotta be able to see when doing construction, I think that's the number one unspoken rule.

Anyway I had also bought a bigger shovel and took that down with me once there was light in the basement part. Thankfully I took measurements before getting the wood and the place I went to nicely cut the pieces for me, so I framed everything out and built new supports. Once I was confident I wouldn't get buried alive I knocked the old, rotting wood out of its place then got to digging.

This is going to be a long ass project but at least I got a good start to it. Now to go home and do this again tomorrow.