Chapter 30: Chapter 30

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"Shit. I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"It's kind of, my fault." Jessi sighed in frustration as she sat in front of his desk. At this point there was no one else to blame for their current situation.

Reclining in his swivel chair, Jenson squinted at her and placed his phone on the desk. "What?"

"I should've sat far away from Jonah...after he told me he was at a party. He sat close to me again during lunch."

"But you wore a mask the entire day."

"Yeah, but no eye covering," she muttered while absently toying with a pen. "Sorry."

"I'm fine." Jenson frowned as if bothered by her apology. He sat behind his desk, no longer wearing a face mask.

What's the point? They already caught the bug just because someone on their creative team couldn't stay hunkered down at home for another night. Besides, the room felt stuffier than usual now. Perhaps they'd just been too cooped up in this office after another busy work week.

Thus her unpleasant thoughts and feelings. She felt fine, though. No flu-like symptoms. No fatigue or brain fog. No breathing problems, chest pain, or anything. She felt pretty normal, save for the hyperanxious thoughts from time to time.

"You okay? Still feel fine?" Jenson eyed her with a straight face, his voice low and hushed by some doubt.

"Yeah. You?"

"I'm okay," he murmured with a little smirk that tilted his pale lips. He didn't get enough sleep again the previous night, clearly. "Stop worrying. Tell me if something bothers you."

"The results they sent could be wrong, though..." she sighed, gauging the odds of the results being incorrect. "Kel and other doctors online said rapid tests aren't accurate all the time."

"Yeah." Jenson tsk-ed and scratched his trimmed beard while she stared at him.

"I guess we got two days left to find out, if they did it right."

"Anyways, what d'you want for lunch and dinner?"

"The usual." She put on a smile and got up from her chair. It was almost eleven. No use dwelling on negative, anxiety-inducing thoughts that would only worsen her mood. She should start prepping food for their lunch and keep busy.

He liked to eat heavy lunches whenever he was stressed out. And judging from his frowns, terse replies, and muffled swearing the past hour and a half, he sure seemed agitated and more stressed than usual. Well...who wouldn't be?

"Can I hug you?" She watched him when he slouched in his swivel chair with his head hanging low, with both of his palms pressed onto his forehead.

Once her question sank in, he budged in his seat to regard her. His green eyes squinted at her for a moment. "Why?"

"Just a quick hug." She held back a smile, opting to keep the mood light despite the heap of bad news they had to deal with this morning. "You just look like you need one."

"Yeah." Jenson let out a noisy sigh after seconds of strained silence. He sat still when she walked around his work desk and just leaned over to hug him.

She put her arm around his back and let her face touch the side of his head. Her mask kept her nose and mouth covered but she still smelled his apples-scented shampoo and minty cologne. It wasn't more than a quick, friendly hug.

It was just to distract him from his probably frustrating thoughts and comfort him in some way. He must be as anxious and bothered as she was, but trying his best not to show it.

"There." She pulled away to stand beside him and observe his reaction.

His deep scowl eased bit by bit, although the look on his face didn't really change for the better.

"What?" She grinned. She watched him closely, waiting for him to crack a smile.  "I'll give you another one if you won't stop making that face."

He squinted at her again, and then rolled his eyes when she giggled.

"I don't have any good jokes, just free hugs. Take it or leave it." She shrugged casually when he finally let a grin show. "I don't enjoy watching you frown all day. It'll just give you wrinkles. Botox isn't totally painless, y'know."

"No thanks. I don't like needles."

"Then stop making faces and just laugh it off." She scoffed when he didn't respond and kept busy with his phone again. "It kinda feels like we're rehearsing an episode right now. Maybe a post-apocalyptic episode in the next season."

Instead of replying, he scowled at her comment and blew a raspberry.

The room fell quiet after she laughed out loud, all the while he kept himself busy with his phone. Jessi sat on the edge of the desk to watch him. Maybe he was contacting his fiancée to let Charmaine know about his sticky situation here in LA. Or he must be following up and talking about his cancelled New York trip with his boss, that rich executive, Magnus.

She had yet to meet the man, though. Quite a mysterious figure in Jenson's tight circle of business associates. She didn't even know the man's full name. "Did Charm text back yet?"

"Yeah." Jenson sighed and pulled a face. "Said she's going on a vacation with her sister in London."

"Vacation? When? I thought she's working in Beijing?"

"Don't know." He scoffed and got up to sit on the couch in the corner, a.k.a. his bed for the entire weekend, until Monday. Come Tuesday morning, they might be allowed to go home again after surviving quarantine without any issues.

Hopefully that would be the case. Jessi made up a short prayer and muttered it under her breath. She didn't want to end up in the hospital like her co-worker. She wasn't used to getting sick. Not at all. Besides putting up with her sporadic allergies, she just wasn't used to being unhealthy. "You called her?" she asked her poker-faced boss. "Or she called you?"

"No," he mumbled with wrinkled brows, avoiding her eyes again. Sometimes he seemed like he missed his fiancée a lot, and it upset him that their careers always kept them apart pretty much all year round.

"But she already knows you're in quarantine?"

"Yeah." Jenson smirked for a brief second. He glanced at the locked door afterwards. "Couldn't care less."

Jessi made a face, not expecting his sardonic reply at all. Big trouble in paradise?

"And she thinks I'm having an affair." He shook his head faintly and blankly stared at his phone screen.

"What?" She stood closer to him, crossing her arms below her chest, eager to hear an explanation.

Why would Charmaine think he was cheating? He didn't even like going out. If he wasn't at home resting up, he was stuck in here doing office work till late. It had been his routine after he and the cast finished taping the show's latest season.

"An affair?" Jessi held her breath when she caught the unmistakable look of disappointment and frustration in his eyes. "With who?"

"With you."

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Day 1 of Quarantine

× 11:52PM ×

"The kid wasn't responding to the heavy meds or the therapy. Just out of control. Can't re-learn the rules one by one."

"What'd the parents say?"

"Dead," Magnus muttered on the other line. "He killed 'em the other night. Broke his mother's neck. Slashed his father's throat when he tried to grab his gun. Left him bleeding to death in bed. Too far gone."

"Right."  Jenson sat back in his swivel chair, alone with his thoughts in the dark, imagining the bloody rampage the young werewolf  allegedly caused.  "At least they weren't resting in pieces this time."

"But you know it's not gonna be his last kill."

"Yeah, if he's completely out of it."  Jenson pulled a face.  His uncle's new clean-up guys couldn't seem to handle the other part of the job.  So now Magnus wanted him to finish it up.

He would, out of willingness to fulfill his duties as their clan's second-in-command.  But he was stuck in this wretched building—in quarantine with Jessiah—and under constant monitoring.

An unexpected hassle would be an accurate description of his situation right now.  They didn't give him or Jessi much choice.  But, like her, he would rather stay here in familiar territory than in a military-run quarantine facility almost two hours away with a bunch of sick strangers in the next rooms.

Rules, rules, rules...  Just one of the cons of having to assimilate into modern civilization.  "I can't. My hands are tied."

"Use the least monitored fire exit," Magnus mumbled after a long pause.

"There's cams all over this building.  Plus security staff on shifts.  24/7 monitoring."  Jenson pinched the bridge of his nose.  He would gladly break loose out of this temporary prison he and his assistant got stuck in, but then he could go to jail for breaking mandates during a public health emergency.

Once word got out, it could end his career in a matter of months.  All these years of hard work, late nights, the relentless schmoozing and...

"When's the soonest you can get out of there?" Magnus sounded impatient now.

"I was hoping Monday morning, but we both tested positive. If we get real sick, they'll take us straight to the ER." Jenson leaned on his desk while his brain weighed the worst case scenarios.  "There were cops outside, doing contact tracing."

It wouldn't surprise him if some jarheads were out there now locking down this part of the city.  Good enough reason to waive his privileges and obligations as the Beta.  But he sincerely hoped this would all be over in a few days, and that nothing worse would happen to him or Jessi.

"You won't get sick," his uncle replied over the phone.

"How d'you know?"

"If you've been taking your meds every day, 90 percent certain you won't have more than mild symptoms," Magnus droned on, his tone matter-of-factly now.  "It's a good enough prophylaxis. They did tests—the research team."

Did he mean the research team working for the pharmaceutical lab that made their wolfsbane medications?  "What tests?" Jenson scowled.

"121 subjects.  Varied age groups.  They didn't even up the regular dose for the control group in the second test.  Double-blinded."

"When?" Did that mean he certainly wasn't going to end up in a hospital?  What about Jessiah?

"They completed the second batch of trials last month. Promising results."

"The subjects were all purebloods?"

"During the first trials—no.  Those snobs couldn't care less.  Then the number of cases in the cities shot up.  Got them all nervous.  At least 50 of them volunteered for the second trial."

"Huh. So it's mostly half-bloods?"  Jenson tugged at his hair.  Comforting to know that half-bloods like him and Darren wouldn't die from an epidemic caused by complete idiots who didn't give a shit about animals and their environment.

"Yeah." Magnus let out a sigh on the other end.  "Only three experienced moderate symptoms. They weren't in the best shape to begin with. One died mid-trial;  he had an opioid addiction and didn't tell the researchers."

Well, talk about an outlier.  But Magnus sounded confident enough about the validity of the results.  The tests must be legit.

"Sounds good." Jenson glanced behind and pressed his phone to his ear, making sure their conversation remained private and he was the only one awake.

Jessiah had probably fallen asleep an hour ago after they had a late dinner.

"Where exactly is the kid hiding?"

"Not that far from his parents' house, I assume. They live near a trail."

"His tracker's not workin' anymore? So it's a three now?"

Magnus didn't explicitly say that the rogue kid's fate was sealed.  Just that the upgraded meds and stringent therapy didn't work.  It seemed the 17-year-old was just born a psychopath who grew up to be a killer.

Who in their right mind would just murder their sleeping parents in cold blood?

"Yeah. He took the thing out. Threw it in their backyard. The second I heard the parents were dead, I knew it was him." Magnus clicked his tongue.  "Kid's probably hidin' out in the woods. He knows he's being hunted."

"And he hasn't contacted anyone else since?"

"None so far."

"Right." Jenson massaged his temple.  Their current topic instantly reminded him of their clear-cut system when it came to getting everyone in line.  As in everyone with werewolf blood in them.  Especially the ones who couldn't control their urges before and/or during a full moon.

Their simple three-point scale:

1: slight intimidation / upgraded medication;

2: moderate disciplining plus heavier meds / coercion into temporary confinement and therapy; and

3: beyond help / permanent confinement / death sentence.

Every case should be handled in a cloak-and-dagger manner.  But not everyone knew how to finish up the difficult ones the way he did...which was why Magnus called him whenever another slew of werewolf violence-related corpses turned up.

Sometimes the newbie halflings and a few rogue purebloods just couldn't help themselves.  The more people they killed, the sooner they turned into mindless cannibals, ruthless murderers, or both.  Apparently, their newest number three wasn't into human flesh yet.  Or so they thought.

"Some people are born just to serve a single purpose. Then someone's gotta bury them and eventually forget their existence," Magnus used to say.

"Call DJ." Jenson frowned.  "He's been sitting on his ass all day playing video games. Won't even step out of his house to get tested."

Maybe Darren was in the mood to do something worthwhile.  Make himself useful for once.  Well, he seemed bored.  Maybe he'd like to make it up to his brother-in-law somehow.  Darren should have time for catching that rogue that might end up being a full-fledged serial killer on the loose.

It could expose their clan's well-kept secrets to the rest of the world...all of their worst skeletons in the closet, basically.  "He could use a distraction," Jenson muttered when Magnus didn't say anything.

Darren still felt guilty and depressed about Ramona and their baby's death.  Maybe a little side job would get his noggin off things.

"He's not taking my calls," Magnus replied. "Evie's  worried about him again."

"I'll talk to him."

"Call me then."

"Yeah." Jenson glanced behind before Magnus hung up on him.

A thud made him stare at the door to the adjacent room—the makeshift bedroom Jessi was using for the meantime.  Total silence filled the dim space around him until the weird noise repeated.  It was a louder thud this time.

Was she awake?  Eavesdropping?  Listening in to his conversation on the phone?

After they had a chat about Mykaela over dinner,  the fact that she was friends with Jessiah left him in utter shock for an hour or so.  But Jessi didn't seem to know who Magnus was to Mykaela.

Jenson didn't ask about a lot of personal information, but Jessi did say that Mykaela was currently living in New York with her fiancé—an Italian businessman named "Lorenzio Tomassini".

No need to do lots of research.  The Tomassinis were a mafia clan, as far as he knew.  Maybe it was the reason the hacker had a hard time finding her exact address.

When another muffled thud interrupted his thoughts, Jenson got up from the chair, curiously waiting for more noises while he held his breath.  He stood next to the door where the thumps came from and imagined his assistant standing right behind it.

With caution, he twisted the doorknob and was surprised to find it unlocked.  Then he pulled the door open.  Only to be greeted by a messy-haired woman in a white shirt and small gym shorts.

Speechless and alone, Jessi stood still in front of him, her eyes half-closed.  Her long hair hid half of her cheeks and her breathing sounded quiet—static like her entire body.

What the heck was she doing?

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