Underneath the Mask

Underneath the Mask: Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Jessica gave Lyndon the most hate filled look Lyndon had ever seen in his life and pushed passed him, her bony shoulder slamming into his on her away out. Lyndon turned around to follow after her, but just stood in the foyer. He buried his fingers in his hair and sighed heavily. How was he going to deal with this girl? She was obviously in need of some hardcore therapy or something, maybe even a reservation for a room in the local mental institution.

He sighed again and followed where both Jessica and her mother had disappeared. He found a homey looking kitchen with a large, black stove and polished, granite table tops. Mrs. Falcone was standing over a big glass bowl of salad, pouring in dressing while mixing it with tongs. Jessica was sitting in a chair on the island looking out the window with an angry, almost constipated look on her face.

Mrs. Falcone looked up at Lyndon and smiled at him with the thin strands of her wispy blond hair falling out of her bun and hanging in her face. She looked over to her daughter and frowned. "Jess, honey, why don't you show Lyndon to his new room," she said in a gentle voice, as if she was speaking to a newborn baby.

Jessica glanced up at her mom and scowled. "He can find it on his own."

"Now, Jessica, Lyndon is our guest and he only wants to help you-"started Mrs. Falcone, but Lyndon cut her off.

"It's okay, Lisa. I'm just going to go take a look around the house and grounds if that's okay. I want to see if I need to get any security."

Jessica's head shot up to look at Lyndon and Lisa nodded her head. "Okay, feel free to go anywhere you want."

Lyndon nodded his head and walked out of the kitchen. He couldn't take the tense vibes that Jessica and her mom were giving off. It was giving him a headache. He might as well go look at the structure of the house and maybe set up a few video cameras to speed up the process of catching the loser who was stalking Jessica and keep her safer. The last thing he wanted was to have his first assignment a failure. He didn't want that on his track record. Lyndon wasn't prone to failure.

He walked into the other rooms on the first floor of the house which were a living room with a large, fifty inch plasma screen TV with a DVD player attached to it and a large box filled to the top with DVDs next to it, a dining room with a long, wood table and matching china cabinet filled with fragile plates emblazoned with different intricate designs, and another room that was painted pink and had a large, grand piano smack in the center and really nothing else except for paintings on the walls and a bouquet of fake flowers on a small table in the corner. He then walked up the staircase to the second floor of the house. There were four bedrooms and two bathrooms, one being in the master bedroom and the other in between the two guest bedrooms. Lyndon figured his room was the one right next to Jessica's because he knew that he needed to be close to her every second of the day and night, which he wasn't exactly very excited about considering Jessica wasn't a trip in the park, as Lyndon's mother used to say.

He walked into Jessica's room. It was pretty obvious it was her room because it was literally painted black. When Lyndon walked in, he felt like he was in a haunted house. There were amazing pictures on the walls of all these incredibly scary looking abstract scenes. Some were colorful and others matched the walls and all of them had no real objects in them. They looked like someone had just taken a paintbrush and slashed it across the canvas over and over again. Lyndon appreciated the arts, being a fluent piano player, and knew that these paintings weren't just scribbles, but amazing paintings that really expressed how Jessica felt. And once again, Lyndon thought of mental institutions and Jessica in a straightjacket.

Her queen-sized bed was deep purple and unmade and her dressers contrasted intensely with the black walls and were completely bare. All in all, the room was surprisingly clean, except for the unmade bed. There were no clothes on the floor, no pictures of Jessica with friends or family, no knickknacks on the shelves, no books: just drawings and a black Mac sitting on her white desk. Lyndon walked over to the laptop and was about to open it up when a voice said from behind him, "Touch that and I'll kill you."

Lyndon turned around and Jessica was standing by the doorway with her arms crossed tightly over her chest and her face in that constipated look again. "I apologize, Jessica. I didn't mean to invade your privacy. It won't happen again," Lyndon said, trying to sound sincere.

Jessica took a few steps forward. "You better hope not. Now get out of my room."

Lyndon walked to the doorway and looked at Jessica, "I'm going to protect you, Jessica. No one will touch you while I'm around."

"I can fend for myself, Agent Contreras," she said, almost spitting as she said Lyndon's name.

"No you can't, so please cooperate with me and I'll get you through this without a scratch."

"I'm already scratched, so there's no use in trying to prevent anymore," she said, her eyes burning into Lyndon's with such intensity he wanted to look away, but didn't.

"Don't say that. I'm going to catch the bastard who did this to you and lock him away for the rest of his life. Then, you'll be able to live a normal life."

Her eyes went aflame and she took a step towards Lyndon. "A normal life. A normal life," she spat, every word coming out of her mouth like a slap to Lyndon's face, "You think by just putting Marcus behind bars that I'll be able to live a normal life. You have no idea what I went through, you son-of-a-b*tch. I'll never be able to live a normal life with the burden I have to carry every single f*cking day."

Lyndon didn't know what to say. What would someone even say to something like that? I'm sorry? I understand? Lyndon didn't feel either, so he just nodded his head and walked out of her room and quickly bounded down the staircase and out the front door. He was thankful for the gust of fresh air that hit his face and sat down on the front step of the house and buried his face in his hands.

His boss was such an evil, a$$hole for assigning Lyndon this job. There was no way he was going to be able to stand living with this girl. No one possibly could.

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Song: Scars by Papa Roach