Chapter Twelve - Strangetown
Content warning: This story contains mature themes and is not suitable for minors. For this chapter, adult references, sexual references and discussion of violence.
101 Road to Nowhere, Strangetown
Soon after their arrival in Strangetown, Kent and Bianca were joined by a happy and active baby boy with Bianca’s brown hair and eyes and Kent’s fair skin. As to be expected, he was the centre of his parent’s world.
Bianca had timidly asked if Kent minded if their child took her last name, as she herself was currently the only one to carry on her family’s name. Kent didn’t mind at all, and wondered why he couldn’t carry both their names.
Capp Monty might not have been born into a traditional family, but there was no doubt it was a family in which he was truly loved and cared for.
Bianca must have read every parenting book available whereas Kent was much more relaxed. Despite their different approaches to parenting they found that they fell into a comfortable routine in which their child showered with attention and they even managed to find time for themselves.
As Bianca looked at the content infant in her best friend’s arms, she couldn’t help but swell with joy. She watched in amazement everyday as their child grew and how far their unexpected family had come from the tragedy they had left behind in Veronaville. A year ago she had questioned whether she would ever experience true happiness again; now it seemed there wasn’t a day that went by in which she didn’t count her blessings.
Kent, likewise, was amazed by their son. In coming to terms with his sexuality he had thought he had given up the chance to experience fatherhood, but their baby defied those expectations just as he defied the generational hatred between Kent and Bianca’s family.
He had picked up the phone numerous times to call Consort and tell him he was a grandfather but found he could never dial the last number. He wasn’t sure if it was the uncertainty of what his father’s reaction, or simply the fierce and overwhelming need to protect his son that held him back. Either way, he came to the conclusion it was far better for his son to not know his grandfather than be involved in the violent past of their families. He hoped that here in Strangetown their family had left that far, far behind.
17 Cover Up Road, Strangetown
Ajay sat up slowly, careful not to disturb his girlfriend who dreamed peacefully beside him. He both hated that such a simple pleasure was foreign to him while glad he wasn’t granted such a reprieve.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept without being woken by the violent images in his dreams. But each time he was torn from slumber, fighting for breath and deafened by the sound of his own pounding heart, he felt a strange satisfaction. After all, he reasoned he deserved to be in pain; just as the families of those he had killed were.
As he filled a glass with water and looked over the desert, he couldn’t help but imagine what his grandmother would say if she could see him now. She had been the one to raise him after all; he had only vague memories of his father from when he was very young and no recollection at all of his mother.
It was only when he was eighteen and discovered that his parents had been recently murdered that his grandmother reluctantly told him the truth. He had been a surprise to his ageing parents who were too trapped in their careers as contract killers to be able to safely quit for the sake of their unexpected baby. And while his mother may have never been able to bring herself to see her child again, Madhuri had given her baby to her own mother because wanted desperately for him to live a life not tainted by the cold blooded violence in hers.
The new information only raised more questions for Ajay but he never got the chance to ask; his grandmother died that night in her sleep
Feeling lost and alone after the loss of his grandmother, Ajay had become determined to learn more about his parents. Fuelled on by grief and anger he had stumbled head first into the city’s seedy underground and when he was offered the ‘opportunity’ to revenge the murders of his parents, he hoped it would offer him the peace he was so desperately seeking.
It hadn’t of course, and in fact had made him feel even emptier than before. It had however offered him money. Before long he had unconsciously filled the professional void his parents’ death had left and was paid ridiculously large sums of money to do what he jokingly referred to as freelance problem management.
His desire for money had successfully blocked out his conscience, or had, until he took the job in Veronaville. He had been blinded by the opportunity to make so much money at once, and despite knowing the targets weren’t all adults he had taken it. He hadn’t known they would be so young, but in the end it didn’t make a difference and he knew it, he had still ended their lives and had been paid exorbitantly to do so.
He had run as far as possible from everything he knew and ended up in this small town on the aptly named Road to Nowhere. But Ajay learned quickly he couldn’t run from his guilt which now tormented him on a daily, and nightly, basis. He had wondered if there was any point in living, but felt death was too easy an escape from his conscious.
So he settled in Strangetown and desperate to be rid of the money he had been paid to commit murder, brought a block of land and opened a bar. That had been when he had met Lola who had handled the paperwork for the property. With her kind heart but straightforward attitude, he mused that she actually kind of reminded him of his grandmother.
He had heard her approach but still couldn’t help but feel the relief that flooded through him as Lola slipped her arms around him. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly.
A part of him wanted to tell her everything. She deserved to know that he wasn’t the person she thought he was, but he couldn’t. The thought of losing her, of being alone again, was even more painful that the anguish that tore at him as he thought of those lives he had taken.
“Of course,” he assured her, “I’m never better than when you’re here.”
That was the truth at least he thought to himself.
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Ajay just wasn’t prepared for this.
After Lola had left, he’d finally managed a few fitful hour of sleep before he’d been woken by the banging at his door. He’d tried to ignore it, but whoever it was wasn’t giving up. Groggily he’d dragged himself out of bed and opened the door to her.
He had focused so much on running away from his past he hadn’t planned for his past running to him. The last thing he had expected to find was the rather dishevelled looking mistress of one of the city’s hardest criminals on his doorstep.
“What are you doing here?” he asked bewildered.
The young woman quickly entered without waiting for an invitation. “Oh Ajay, you have no idea how good it is to see you,” she whimpered.
“It was just awful, and I just, I couldn’t stay with him after what I saw happen,” she told him hysterically. “So I decided to leave. He asked me what I was doing, and I told him I was just going out dancing, he even dropped me off at the club. I was so scared, and I didn’t know where I could go, but I just had to get away from him. And I’d heard someone say they had heard you moved to the desert and I just headed this way hoping I’d find you.”
It took a few moments for what she was saying sink in and he couldn’t help but snap in response, “you’ve got to be kidding me!”
His angry response came as a shock, “what do you mean?” she stuttered.
“You’re telling me you decided you wanted out, damn well knowing he would come after you, and you decided to lead him here, to me!” he seethed. “Do you know how lucky I was to be able to walk away from all of it on my own terms?”
She was quiet for a moment. “But why would he think to look here? It’s not like he ever found out about us, so even if he knows where you are, it doesn’t mean he’d come looking for me here,” she reasoned.
Ajay scowled in frustration; if their affair was ever discovered he was a dead man. “I don’t know what you expected from me,” he told her, “but I don’t see what I can do.”
She paused for a moment, “Well I certainly expected more than this,” she said sadly.
He sighed, “I’ll find you something to wear and you can have a shower. Hopefully I’ll be in a better mood after coffee,” he muttered.
Ajay’s mood had improved after coffee but he still couldn’t see this ending anyway but badly. “Feeling better?” he asked as his visitor sat down near him dressed in an old pair of his pyjamas.
“Yeah, heaps better,” she replied, “you?”
“Yeah, and sorry, I guess I’m not good in the mornings,” he replied awkwardly.
She raised an eyebrow but refrained from making any further comment.
“How did you even find me, let alone get here?” he wondered.
“On the bus I thought to Google your name and found the bar, I figured it was my best shot at finding you. Then when the buses stopped I ended up getting a lift from a truck driver.”
“You hitchhiked?” Ajay asked with disbelief, “In that dress?”
“What was I suppose to do?” she questioned, “and besides, I decided I was better off taking my chances than staying overnight at a bus stop.”
“Surely you could have stayed in a hotel,” he argued.
“I had like ten dollars, and didn’t want to use my credit card in case it was traced,” she explained.
Ajay figured that was probably the best news he was going to hear all day.
“So this guy said he could take me there but kept winking at me suggesting I could think of a way of paying him back. So I gave him the ten dollars, my phone, my jewellery and my Louis Vuitton bag to shut him up,” she finished.
“What made you think I could help you,” he asked after a moment.
“You make people disappear, it’s what you do. Or did,” she amended.
“Yes, by killing them,” he said exasperatedly.
She frowned, “all of them?”
Ajay fought to not groan out loud in frustration, “I’ll just make us some coffee okay.”
He got up and headed to the kitchen, grabbing another cup from the cupboard. As he prepared the coffee he ran through possible strategies in his mind. He couldn’t make her ‘disappear’, but if he could effectively hide her, that was pretty much the same thing. It was a pity he didn’t know more about fake identities; he certainly didn’t want to get reinvolved with the people who did.
As he headed to the fridge for the milk, he couldn’t help but think that surely there were some people who did just disappear.
Yes, he mused, some people did just disappear.
He closed the fridge door and looked carefully at his visitor. She was pretty, certainly, but not remarkable, in fact her facial structure was perfectly unassuming.
“You’re not a natural blonde, I know that,” he recalled wryly, “but what is your natural hair colour?”
“Hey, I was in between waxes,” she huffed indignantly.
“Just answer the question,” he responded.
“Black. But I’ve been dying it since I was like fourteen,” she told him exaggeratedly.
Ajay couldn’t help but grin, “I’ve think I’ve got a plan.”
Room 2, The Rising Sun Hotel, the Road to Nowhere heading toward Strangetown
“Alright genius, what’s next,” she asked. In her opinion the whole concept was utterly ridiculous but she didn’t have any other ideas so what choice did she have?
Ajay on the other hand had not stopped grinning. By now he’d decided that the plan was actually so outrageous there was no way for it not to work. He nodded towards the box on top of the dresser, “You put that on and then I’ll come and try not to make too much of a mess of your hair,” he told her.
She was about to tell him where exactly he could put his scissors when she spied the elaborately tied box next to her. “Oh, where did this come from?” she asked excitedly.
“From one of Pleasantview’s finest boutiques. It wasn’t cheap either, that woman was certainly used to the finer things in life,” he told her. “By the way, did you read that stuff I gave you on memory loss?” he asked as she collected the package.
“I know the alphabet, but I don’t know my name. I got it,” she told him assuredly before returning to the bathroom to change.
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Ajay looked from the picture on the milk carton and back up again, “We’re certainly not going to get any closer,” he stated.
‘Bella’ looked at her reflection, not really sure what to say.
“I don’t think anyone will know any better,” he assured her. “And even if they question whether you’re actually Bella Goth, no one’s going to question if you’re, well, you.”
Suddenly she couldn’t help but smile, “you’ve done it Ajay. I’m not me, I’m-”
“Bella Goth,” he supplied.
“Or at least I will be when someone recognises me,” she added.
“Exactly,” he agreed with a grin.
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Yeah Maxis Ajay, no one will notice. Anyway, this is my version on why Strangetown Bella is different to Pleasantview Bella, and don’t worry, it’s not important who she was before unless I decide to use it later as a plot device.
I know I didn’t return to Loki and Circe, but I assure you their fate will be revealed when we come back to Strangetown. Incidentally, next chapter we return to Pleasantview.