Claire flipped through the documents Rosie had given her while Cameron drove to their next destination. It was silent between them while she read everything on the papers.
"Shit." Claire huffed out as she closed the folder. "Another damn set back." She leaned her head back and closed her eyes with a long frustrated sigh followed by another period of silence.
"Ma'am?" Cameron said making Claire hum in response. "I'm sorry to interrupt your thoughts, but there's something I've been meaning to say."
"Go ahead."
"Although I am indeed self taught, I assure you that my ability to protect you is not lacking in any way. Being assigned by the Boss himself is in it's own way evidence that what I say is true, but I prefer to make it clear myself." He explained while looking for a spot to park the car since they had arrived at the location Claire indicated.
"Go around that building. There's an open garage door at the back" She pointed at a small hair salon.
Since they were still in the city's center, the distance between Poppy Land and their current location was only a ten minute drive. Cameron did as instructed and went around the building. He slowly went through the open garage door and parked the car. Following Claire's example, he got out of the car and walked besides her until they reached what looked like the back door of the hair salon.
Claire knocked a specific pattern on the door and a second later it opened. The man on the other side let them through and closed the door behind them. Without saying a word to each other, Claire passed by him as Cameron followed.
They walked to the front of the store where all of the sinks, hair products and people were. There were about eight women in total between clients and employees.
Claire stood in front of a long mirror placed on the wall between two hairdresser stations and pressed her palm against the middle of it. Almost immediately, the mirror turned pitch black and red dots traced her hand. A few seconds later the whole mirror slid to the side revealing what looked like a dark narrow hallway. It was a hidden door.
Cameron looked around and not a single person glanced their way. They acted as if they were invisible. He turned towards Claire again and walked behind her as she went inside.
The mirror automatically closed behind them making it impossible to see. Cameron was about to take out his phone to use as a flashlight when strips of lights lit up on the floor on each of his sides. He focused his eyes and noticed that it wasn't a hall but a staircase that led underground.
"Watch your step." Claire told him as they started to descend.
They were descending for what felt like a few minutes before they reached the bottom. The staircase led to a hallway at the end of it. Walking through it, Claire spoke.
"I know you aren't lacking Cameron. If anything, you have something not most people have."
"The so called X factor Ma'am?" Cameron had heard her mention it more than once. Making him curious about it.
"Exactly." She replied. "You see, people often break. It happens due to a number of things. Great loss, sadness, desperation, failure and so on. And what usually happens when a person hits the kind of rock bottom that shatters them, is that their left with two choices. They can either get back up and try to mend themselves, or they stay down and lose their will to go on. But sometimes....." She paused for a brief moment. " Sometimes something entirely different happens."
"There are special cases where neither of those things apply. Sometimes life plays it's joker card on a couple of it's lost broken souls and decides to steal both options from them. It decides to leave them in suspense."
"Suspense Ma'am?" He asked as he heard the echo sound of a few droplets of water hitting the ground.
"Yes. Suspense." They turned right revealing even more hallway as she continued to explain. She walked as if she built the underground hallway herself. Confident she wouldn't get lost in what seemed to be an endless labyrinth.
"These special cases find themselves in a state where they're kind of levitating through life. They go on about their day's doing whatever it is that they do, but since they're in this suspense like state where they're not necessarily getting back up after being broken or truly living again, they turn into the perfect empty vessels for life to fill them up with knowledge, abilities, experience and so on. And since they're empty vessels, they live without purpose. Giving them what you've heard me refer to as the X factor."
"You mean to say that living without purpose gives a person the X factor?" Cameron asked as they finally reached a metal security door at the end of the dark hallway.
Claire turned towards him before answering him. "That's exactly what I mean Cam. But this only applies to broken souls, not the ones that are just too lazy to choose what to do with their lives. Saying you have the X factor is just another way of me saying you're special. Special, because you have no real motive or drive in your life yet. The purpose for what you live for is still unclear to you. Giving someone like me the chance to explore your potential and show you some of the options life was too cruel to give you."
"I'm sorry Ma'am, but what makes you so certain I don't have a purpose in life?" He asked somewhat dumbfounded by how she was describing him.
Claire took a step closer to him. She was so close that they almost touched, making her crane her neck back to be able to look at him properly.
He noticed how her eyes were overwhelmingly intrusive. As if she were looking inside him, not at him. Darkness surrounded them, yet for some reason, it made her eyes seem even fiercer.
"Because of your eyes Cam. I've seen the same kind of tired, lost and broken look enough to be able to recognize it and know what it's born from. It doesn't matter if you look impenetrable on the outside when I can see as clear as day that whatever shattered inside you, is still floating around in suspense. In waiting."
She turned around and unlocked the door. As soon as it opened, they were bathed in the light that spilled from the other side.
"I'm not offering you a reason to put yourself back together again Cam. That's something everybody needs to find on their own." She slightly turned around to face him again. "But I can at least show you what you're capable of doing for once you manage to find whatever purpose you decide is good enough to live for."
Cameron gazed at Claire and felt his breath hitch. The light behind her made her look like she was glowing. Her red hair looked like the sun had blessed her head with its warm rays of sunshine and the sincere look in her eyes made his heart tremble.
The memories he had pushed to the back of his mind came crashing down on him. It made his shoulders feel heavy and the dark hallway he was standing in look like his past. Torturous, dark, cold and seemingly inescapable.
Looking at Claire in the middle of the doorway was like staring directly at an angel. An angel that was offering him an escape from his sad reality. The reality she had so expertly deciphered and described by just looking at him. He didn't understand where the unexpected overwhelming sensation she had caused to burst in him came from, but just looking at her made the weight he was carrying lighter.
"Come on Cam. It's time to see what you're really capable of." Claire said while she grinned at him. She turned around and stepped inside the bright room.
After a few seconds of standing still, his body moved on it's own. He slowly took one step after another as he followed her. The same way he silently swore to keep doing so from now on.