I stayed silent for a minute, trying to process what had just happened. Sapphire looked awfully mad at the thought of me having a girlfriend. I'm gonna be completely honest with you though, I wouldn't even know how to let Sapph down gently even if I did have one. Sapph's had a crush on me for as long as I can remember, it started when we were kids, She thinks she does a good job at hiding it, but she's more oblivious than she knows. It's cute how protective she gets over me though, but I'll only ever see her as a sister. One day I'll have to let her know, it just won't be today.
"No, she's not my girlfriend. Why would I ask out some girl I've barely met? I don't even know her name, you idiot."
I reach over and ruffle Sapph's hair and her bad mood disappears as she quickly tries to fix her hair back to how it looked before. She pokes out her bottom lip and pouts her famous pout which caused me to laugh.
"Damn it Alexander do you know how long it took me to do my hair this morning?!"
I was too busy laughing to care and failed to realize how much I really missed spending time with my friends. I've been distant lately, for reasons that really can't be explained right now. When I turned back to Sapphire, she was talking about the situation again.
"Alright so the only thing I can really think of that could possibly help figure out who your new mystery friend is, is Carter. I mean the dude works in computer science and hacking considering that he used to be on my team here, it might be worth a shot. Maybe he can pull up her records or something."
I bit my bottom lip, thinking over her answer carefully. Would I really risk nosing into her personal life just to get to know her? That seems a bit stalker-like...but maybe I don't have to read everything about her. If I just looked into her name and possibly what she's like, or any living family members that could give me some information on her, that'd be nice too.
Do you ever come across a person in life, where your gut just tells you that they're worth getting to know? That they could change your life? That they're going to possibly change the way you look at things and show you their way of life? Yeah, that's the feelings my gut is giving me. This girl is just someone I've got to go for, not just because she's different, but because a side of me also wants to help her.
"Yeah you're right, Carter could be a big help, I'll swing by his place after I stop and get something to eat, 'cause I'm hungry as fuck."
At that moment, my stomach growled and roared at me to put something in it, causing Sapphire to laugh as she got up.
"Yeah, I'd better get back to work soon, my break is almost up. Thanks for stopping by though Alex, I hope that I'll cya around more."
She turns to leave, but before she gets out the door I call her.
"Hey Sapph, no problem but since I'm out here taking risks, there's a certain risk I want you to take."
Sapph tilts her head towards me in curiosity.
"What's up, buttercup?"
"When you get a chance, stop beating around the bush and go actually talk to Carter. I don't know what happened between you two, but I'm tired of trying to divide my time to hang with both of you. We don't hang like we used to, you should try mending things with him Sapph. It's been like twenty something years, both of you need to get over it."
My first sentence caused her to freeze, and she had an unreadable look on her face, but deep down she knew I was right. I then got up and walked past her, leaving the building as I took a walk to the store, buying a couple things to prepare myself for a stay at my best friend's house.
...
I couldn't figure out what to get, so I just got a bunch of junk food. Carter would get on my ass for it when I got there but oh well. The dude lives up in the richer parts of the town and never comes out of his house. He probably gets his food dangerously ordered from the back street Black Markets. Did I forget to mention that Carter lives in an abandoned mansion that his family left behind? He stayed behind and cleaned the place up while they fled to another state.
Yup, that's exactly what I'm walking up to. I ascend my way up the stairs and don't bother to knock on the door. I take the spare key off the top of the border of the door, and let myself in.
"Carter baby! I'm home!"
I call out to him with a smirk on my face. I could almost hear him cringing as a door on the far right side of the long hallway decided to open up, allowing my computer nerd of a best friend to slide through and come my way with the biggest grin on his face.
"I always knew you had a secret crush on me Alexander Drake, but this proves it."
I couldn't help the laugh that I'd let out, I could feel the vibrations ringing through my chest.
"What can I say? You've managed to charm me with your vast knowledge of computer science Carter Mason."
Carter rolls his eyes and scoffs, but the grin that he was wearing wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. He takes the bags from my hands, looks through them, and shoots me a playful glare.
"You're gonna end up being some fatass sumo wrestler for the demon pests to gnaw on if you keep bringing junk food my way."
I shrug off his comment and make my way into his living room, where I sit on the couch and put my feet up on his ottoman.
"If I do get fat it's okay. You can just build a machine that sucks the fat out of me and I'll build the strength back up. That's besides the point though, I've got a little project that I want you to look into for me."
Carter raises an eyebrow as he goes to the kitchen and puts an apron on. He knew me too well to know that every time I come over, I'm always hungry. He's most likely gonna make one of his favorite simple dishes like salmon with mac n' cheese, or enchiladas with mexican rice and beans, whatever works for me.
"A project? Sounds like something unusual, what kinda project is this?"
I tilt my head as the girl's face pops into my head again.
"I want some information on this girl I met. She's got some features that no one has ever seen before. It's unusual, and her personality from what I've seen so far challenges me, I like that."
Soon after, Carter was handing me a plate with what I'd predicted, salmon and mac n' cheese, while gesturing for me to follow him.
"Damn Alex, whipped over a girl you've just met? That's unlike you dude, she must have you by the balls if she's good enough to have you wanting me to check up on her."
I elbow Carter and he laughs as he leads me down a long hallway, sliding into an open door on the left. It was his research room, cluttered with different papers and books. He really needed to clean this place up, but I wasn't complaining because I'm not about to be the one to do it. Anyways, I started to stuff my mouth with the food Carter had cooked, thanking the gods above if they were even there, that my best friend was one of the greatest cooks I knew. Carter sits at his futuristic desk with multiple monitors and looks at me from the corner of his eyes.
"So then, who's this girl you're looking for? Do you know her name?"
Replying, I shake my head.
"Nope."
"Do you have a fingerprint or some sample of DNA from her?"
"Nope."
"...Do you know if she has any family members? What about their names?"
"Nope."
"Christ Alex, what about where she lives?"
"Nope."
Carter swirls around in his seat to glare at me.
"Well fuck me Alex, how am I supposed to look up anything about her when you can't even tell me what the chick's favorite color is?!"
Carter starts to munch on the food he made for himself, while I finish off the last few bites of my mac n' cheese. I was a quick eater when I was hungry.
"Five foot five, orange hair, and two different colored eyes."
Carter almost chokes on the food he was eating and looks at me crazy.
"Orange hair? No one around here has orange hair, are you sure you weren't just dreaming of some random fairy tale character?"
I shook my head and Carter sighs a sign of irritation, swirls back around to his computers, and starts getting to work, looking for my mystery girl. There's a long, but comfortable silence as Carter goes through files upon files, hacking into different databases, and collecting information. This goes on for about twenty minutes before I get up and rest my arms on Carter's chair.
Eventually Carter falls back against his chair and sighs, defeated. When I took a look at the screen, he was able to pull up the girl's personal file and I could tell because it had her picture on it. The only bad part about it is that there was a large stamp on the file that read "ACCESS DENIED", which caused me to frown. Carter rubs the back of his head and looks up at me.
"Sorry Alex, whatever information is gathered on her, someone really didn't want the world to find out about. This is a top notch government official type of file. It would take me days, maybe even weeks to even get half of the stuff gathered in that thing. I couldn't even pull up her name, it was erased, as if she didn't have one to begin with."
My eyebrows creased in confusion. If the info on her was locked away, then does this mean she was a super dangerous leveled threat? Carter must've noticed how hard I was thinking because he spoke up and asked about it.
"So what're your thoughts on it?"
"I think...that there must be a reason that the world was trying to keep her a secret. There's a chance that she could be dangerous...but I don't want to jump to any conclusions. If she is dangerous, confronting her about it might not be the best thing to do, considering that we don't know what she's capable of."
Carter nodded in agreement.
"I'll help you out and keep this on the low for you, but you need to watch your step around her. Try to get her to let her guard down around you and see what's really up with her. Who knows, maybe she could be a great asset to this war we're battling against the demons, if we can get her on our side that is."
"No Carter...we're not going to use her like some type of tool. If she decides that she might want to help out, then great, but don't forget that she's a person just like the rest of us. She's got feelings, a brain, and a heart just like anyone else. She's not a thing, she's a living breathing, beautiful human being. You've got to learn to appreciate people more and treat them less like test subjects."
Carter blinks at me with a blank expression on his face, before a huge grin that reaches his eyes spreads across his face. He puts me into a headlock and ruffles my hair.
"Aww look at Alexander! He hasn't even fully met the girl and she's whipped his ass into line. I can't believe I'm losing my lover to some fiery haired mystery chick!"
I smirk at Carter's teasing and playfully push him off me. I end the night by giving him a hug, and thanking him for his help. Today has been a pretty eventful day, it's time to head home and fall into a well deserved sleep.