Chapter 10

Friends and memories help ease the pain; Pierce gets curious about the origins of the Black Widow.

Chapter Ten

Painful Emotions

 

When he finally reached the library, his throat was dry and his legs ached from the long run. His cheeks were flushed pink from the cold, and his skin was slightly damp from the misty rain outside. Life sucked when you didn’t have a care in the world.

It was worth it, though.

Pierce checked his pocket, patting it once more to make sure his wallet was still there. His hands found a bulging lump in the cloth of the coat.

Good. I don’t know what I would have done without it, he thought, relieved.

Pierce caught his breath and waited a few seconds before his heart beat relaxed. He then sauntered up to one of the reception desks.

“Excuse me? Miss? Um, do you know how to get a computer?”

The young woman glanced up and smiled politely.

“Yeah, sure, follow me.”

She gestured for him to follow her. He tagged along, eager to start working right away on his new project. The librarian sat down at a computer and typed something in, her fingers sliding expertly across the keys.

“I’m sure you have your library card?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, right here.”

Pierce jabbed his hand into his pocket and quickly fumble around for it. The librarian all the while twisted one loose strand of her auburn hair around an index finger and tapped her naturally long nails on the wood of the desk, smiling politely at him.

“Ah,” he said, flicking it out in two fingers. “Here it is.”

He handed it to her and she took it with a grin and scanned it under some sort of laser. The computer beeped for a minute as it took in the card’s number and she then handed it back to him.

“There you go. Your number should be called in just a few minutes. Considering it’s not all that crowded here today. It should be pretty quick.”

“Thanks so much, Miss.”

“Glad to help.”

Pierce waited patiently for a few minutes at a wooden table, scanning through a magazine filled with models. None of the women could compare to the beauty of Willow. It was highly unethical. Bored, he tossed the magazine aside. He quickly took a glance up at the big board that was posting the names and library card numbers of people who had registered for computer time. Once he saw his name up there, he checked the computer number and rushed over to it.

Not having a computer handy really did have its disadvantages, but the big thing was that with fewer people around, nobody would be prying into his business. And that was good. Very good, indeed.

“Okay, let’s do a search, now shall we?” he muttered to himself while bringing a web server up on the screen. He frantically typed in black widow into the search engine. The computer hummed with life as it processed the information. Many possibilities came up, but none where what he was searching for. He tried again, and this time he tried Black Widow, Arachne, Crescent City.

The result that he saw first at the top of the list had to do with some girl from Greek mythology. Interested, he double-clicked on the lick. It loaded and the page that popped up before his eyes thoroughly interested him.

 

Arachne was a young woman who lived in Greece. She was a magnificent weaver; so wonderful that even the nymphs gathered round to watch her work. People talked about how Arachne might even be better than the goddess of weaving, Athena herself (who was also the goddess of wisdom and civilized war). Hearing this rumor, Athena came to Arachne in the form of an old woman to ask Arachne if she thought she really was better than Athena was. Arachne said that, to prove this, she would challenge the goddess herself. Athena transformed into her true form and accepted. Surprised at first, Arachne recovered and agreed. The two sat at their looms and wove.

When both were finished, they looked at each other’s masterpieces. Athena was horrified. Arachne’s scene consisted of the many love affairs of Zeus, but Athena had to admit that it appeared rather lifelike. Athena’s scene was of her competition with Poseidon over Athens, the capital of Greece. It told how she won and named the city for herself.

      Angered by this piece, Athena planted a seed of guilt in Arachne’s mind. The guilt was too much for poor Arachne’s heart to bear for she hung herself. Pitying her, Athena brought Arachne back to life; not as her previous form, but the one of a spider.

Originally, the scientific name for spiders came from Arachne’s name; hence the name ‘Arachnid.’ ‘Arachnophobia’ is the term that means ‘fear of spiders.’

 

Pierce stared at the screen for a moment longer, his chin in one hand. He leaned back and thought for a minute, talking to himself aloud.

“Well…that certainly explains why Arachne calls herself by that name. Seems logical, but I still haven’t discovered if Willow and Arachne are connected in any way.”

Pierce went over the event that had occurred that night at Moonridge Park. There has to be something. There just has to be. He clicked the “Back” button on the server and instead decided to check out the Black Widow spider link.

The page appeared with a hideous image of a spider that almost made him want to cringe in fear. He shuddered slightly at the image and scrolled down.  Smaller pictures of the Black Widow were displayed, showing one major detail he had noticed on Arachne’s belt. A red hourglass symbol.

“Fascinating. There must be something more, though. There always is.”

He scrolled down even farther. One paragraph caught his eye and he began to read.

 

The Black Widow spider is considered one of the most venomous spiders in the world. Its poison is highly toxic, but because it injects only a small amount, the venom is only fatal to young children and the elderly.

The reputation of the Black Widow spider is often misunderstood for the myth of the female devouring her mate after they have reproduced. This spider never attacks unless in self-defense and even then it is scared of the thing that threatens it. The Black Widow is widely known because of the red hourglass shape on the abdomen of the spider. Only the female spider carries this symbol.

The Black Widow spider has many relatives, but it only lives in the South-Eastern part of the United States. If this spider bites you, please don’t attempt to suck the venom out. Rush straight to the nearest emergency room for treatment.

To recognize the symptoms of a Black Widow bite, here they are listed:

·        Severe muscle cramping and spasms

·        Anxiety

·        Nausea

·        Sweating

·        Increased blood pressure

·        Pilorection (hair standing up on end)

·        Other unpleasant side effects

 

“Many treatments are known for a bite. Few have rarely died from a Black Widow bite, which stings only a little if bitten.

 

“Hmm…maybe. Sounds somewhat like Arachne.”

Pierce backspaced and scanned the rest of the results, but so far nothing had come up. Then, an underlined sentence in blue caught his attention. Curious, Pierce clicked on the link. The computer loaded it and a big, bold headline took him by surprise.

 

THE BLACK WIDOW CAPTURES CRIMINALS

 

He scrolled down and saw a dark photo of Arachne herself. The perspective was taken from below, so the viewer had been looking up at Arachne. She was standing from a rooftop up high, a shadow in front of the huge, white moon. Her long black coat appeared to have been waving in the wind along with her long hair.

At first, he was unable to take his eyes off the picture. Pierce could almost make her out in the bright light. He winced so hard that his head began to throb from the pressure. He relaxed his eyes and gave up and instead read the short article below.

 

The vigilante crime fighter has been seen once more terrorizing Crescent City with her very presence. Last night, the Black Widow was observed fleeing the crime scene in which authorities found so-called burglars tied up with some sort of string. Although authorities are somewhat sure of what the mysterious substance is (possibly spider silk), a sample has been sent in for testing.

One witness claims that he saw “Arachne” (her ‘name’) swoop in out of the shadows on a string that couldn’t have possibly have held her weight. She landed on the ground in front of the building. She didn’t even falter or stumble when she walked. She seemed so sure of herself and her actions. If you had just seen Arachne’s eyes, you would have been terrified to even take a glance at them. In the darkness, they literally seemed like they were glowing red. It was creepy. I’ve never seen a person’s eyes do that. Of course, she isn’t exactly your normal, everyday high school girl, now is she?

“Anyway, she walked towards them with confidence in each step she took. Her back was straight and I never once saw of fear in her. She crept behind them; the two hooligans never knew that she was there until she said, ‘Hello. Mind if I join you?’

“The two arched their backs with fear. They knew who it was. Arachne is well known around here and is basically a legend. They turned around carefully to face Arachne, who was standing in some sort of kung-fu fighting stance. You know, the kind you see in Jackie Chan movies all the time. She then knocked them out with blows and kicks, but I never saw the rest of it. She was too fast, I tell you. I’ve never seen a normal human being move like that.

“And then, she was gone as quickly as she had come. Just like that, except for the fact that she had left a ‘present’ for the cops.”

The one question that police are asking themselves is whether or not the Black Widow is dangerous. Some investigation has been begun on where this new “superhero” came from, but so far they have failed in finding any leads on the case.

“She doesn’t seem dangerous,” says Police Commissioner William Longhorn. “In fact, it’s like she wants to help us out with all the loose ends in Crescent City. I’m thankful for that because this city is a dangerous place. Too dangerous, if you ask me. But what she’s doing is supposed to be our job; our place in this system. A young girl like her should just simply stay out of the way if she doesn’t want to get hurt.”

The police joke that they may just have a “Batman/Spider-Man” on their hands, but, agreeing with the Commissioner, she should stay out of the way. Is she dangerous or not? That’s what we’re all wondering. Some in the city like the fact that she’s helping to clean up the crime rate, but others disagree, saying that they side with the police and the fact that she’s not helping at all.

 

Pierce leaned back in the cushioned wooden computer chair and thought for a minute.

Interesting…but I still haven’t found out anything new except for the fact that Arachne can appear and disappear like a flash of lightning. I wonder…let’s see if I can remember anything that’ll be of any use.

Pierce thought hard for a minute and opened his eyes, filled with a whole new energy inside of him.

I remember reading something on the Internet once about lab testing on dangerous creatures and about how Lunar Labs was connected to it. There was an article about it in the newspaper. It was very limited. I remember reading that the culprits were arrested for using human beings as lab experiments. I wonder if that’s connected in any way to this.

Pierce backspaced twice and was once again on the Google homepage. He typed in dangerous creatures, government experiments and awaited the results. Many pages were displayed about having to do dangerous creatures and where they lived, then others where about creature testing in laboratories around the United States. But the one thing he had been searching for didn’t appear until on the very last page, which, by then, Pierce was beginning to lose his patience.

The link said “The Government Testing of Dangerous Creatures around the Globe.”

He clicked it and the page went awry. An error message popped up.

Cannot connect to server. Would you like to try again?

Pierce tried once more and the same thing happened. He knew then that something was up. Somebody had something to hide and didn’t want anybody else to see it.

Guess I’ll just have to hack in, Pierce thought.

He fiddled around on the computer, bringing up certain programs. The mouse clicked furiously until he was done. He clicked the link again; it came up successfully, whatever barrier preventing him from getting in now gone.

He searched through the site eagerly. What he found thoroughly interested him. When his time on the computer was dwindling, Pierce printed out what seemed like a boatload of information. What surprised him is that they hadn’t trashed the website yet, which was highly unusual.

Pierce thought that he knew about everything so far, but one thing that he didn’t know was that he was being watched as he lumbered down the street with a heavy stack of papers on his hands.

A pair of vile eyes watched him from afar.

 

_____

 

She stood, hidden in the shadows of the house’s curtains, looking out of the window at the rain. The sky had grown dark at the funeral and it began to rain once more, just as the weatherman had predicted. To Willow, the darkness was a blanket; shrouding her in warmth and comfort. It was the only place where she actually felt she belonged.

Earlier that day after Viola’s funeral, Willow, Agatha, and Allister had gone over to Robin’s house for the reception. Robin greeted them at the door with watery eyes. Robin gave Willow a friendly hug. She was surprised at first, but she began to hug back, too, breathing in her perfume. Robin smelled of lilac. Pulling away, Robin held Willow by the shoulders, crying ever so slightly. She sighed and kissed Willow’s cheek.

Holding Willow’s hands, she said, “Willow, if you ever need anything, anything, just come to me. I know how hard it is…we can comfort each other, okay?”

“Okay,” she answered hesitantly. Willow wasn’t used to this much affection, especially from a stranger.

Agatha and Robin talked with each other, laughing like old friends. Willow backed out of the room and stepped outside where the rain was pouring down in buckets now. She took a step into the squishy grass. It squelched underneath her feet as she walked carefully, trying her best not to get stuck in the mud (considering she was wearing boots, it was hard).

Her black hair stuck to her skin, mussed and soaked, as was her entire outfit. This may have seemed like a stupid thing to do in the perspective of a bystander, but she wasn’t looking to catch a cold. She was drawn to an old gazebo whose white paint was peeling. Sauntering towards the lovely structure, Willow climbed up its creaky stairs and ducked under the old ceiling, which, thankfully, wasn’t leaking. She went to the railing and gazed over the yellowing lawn. On the grass were scattered leaves of brown, yellow, orange, red, and even a mix of them. She folded her arms on the railing and laid her head down in them.

Willow felt herself submerge into her thoughts, thinking of past and present events. Viola’s death made so many painful emotions and memories bubble up all at once that she was trying her best to suppress. She closed her eyes and pictured Viola’s smiling face, laughing, and looking serious. She remembered all those times they had spent together throughout the course of November. It was now late in the autumn season and the winds brought a chill to one’s bones, and it was only two weeks before Thanksgiving, too.

She opened her eyes again and shivered slightly from the breeze that came suddenly out of nowhere. No matter what she did, she always felt cold. Cold and numb and oblivious to pain. It was no wonder for she had had so much of it in the past few years of her adolescent life. Her heart was overcome with guilt as she breathed a shuddering sigh out of her system.

It still seems like my fault regardless of what Mom said in my dream. I am the reason for both Viola’s and her deaths. I wish I had stayed on the streets. I wish I had. Nobody would have to deal with me that way. All I do is bring pain and misery wherever I go in this world. Now that I know what happened to me, I know. Severin did some sort of experiment on my, using my own blood for some kind of serum.

Viola was important to me. Now she’ll never know that.

The pressure of her thoughts and emotions were squashing her like an insolent fly underneath a swatter, killing her in and out. Her mind drifted away to one of the many happy times in her life when Viola was alive and well…

 

“Don’t be such a chicken, Willow,” taunted Viola, punching Willow’s shoulder playfully and grinning mischievously as she always did when something like a prank was on her mind.

“I just don’t wanna get hurt, that’s all. Is that such a bad thought?”

“In my book, it is. You can’t have a body without getting at least some battle scars. Here, take a lookie.”

She rolled up her sleeve, revealing a nasty red scar that ran jagged over her lower arm, running almost up to her elbow.

Willow winced at it and glanced at Viola for a second.

“How’d it happen?”

“Well, I was skateboarding at the park. And, as entertainment for the other people there, I decided to do a really hard trick on the ramp. At first, I had been doing real well up until a boy…I really liked…waved at me. I, of course, being a polite person, waved back, but in doing so, I fell head first into the concrete and the metal of the ramp scratched my arm real bad. I was taken to the hospital. I was wearing helmet and knee and elbow pads, so the injuries I got were very minor.

“The doctors could only stitch my arm up the best they could. Try imagining the way my mom reacted when I came home with bandages all over me.”

“Grounded for a month with no desert?”

She laughed. “Something like that. More like grounded for two months and no skateboarding. She made an exception for the desert fact, though.”

“So, is this supposed to have convinced me? ‘Cause it didn’t.”

Vi shrugged. “Yeah, mostly.”

Willow shoved her playfully. “Aw, you’re no fun.”

“That’s what they tell me!”

They laughed at this. Once catching their breath, Viola got serious all over again.

“Seriously, you need to try something new for once. It has to get boring from time to time constantly moping about, right?”

“Actually, you should try it sometime. Feeling bad for yourself is fun,” she said, making the last line of her sentence sarcastic.

“Seriously, do you…actually like…being alone?”

Willow was fazed by the question.

“What…what do you mean?”

“What I mean, is it…something enjoyable?”

“I…I can’t…say…,” she trailed off, looking in the opposite direction.

“Um, I…am…uh, sorry about that. I didn’t know. I won’t bring it up again, okay?”

She bobbed her head. “Right…”

“Are you always this…distant?”

“It’s hard for me to…to trust people.”

“Why?”

“Um…uh…I’d rather not answer that right now.”

“Okay.”

“So…how exactly am I supposed to learn how to skateboard?”

“It’s simple. You just simply maneuver the board carefully in the direction that you wanna go.”

Just then, the skateboard section Moonridge Park appeared in front of their eyes. Once she saw the tricks the other skateboarders were doing, she groaned and glanced at Viola for a second, unsure.

“Come on. Trust me! It’ll be fun. You just wait and see.”

“Remember, Vi, I trust you.”

 

“I trust you, Viola, I trust you. Forever.”

Viola was more than a friend.  She was like the  sister I never had. We were both outcasts. She understood me better than anyone else in this world did.

“Willow? You okay?”

Her heart did a jump at the voice. Not out of surprise, but from some tiny crush. Calming herself, Willow turned around. Allister stood there a few feet away from her, soaked and shivering, with a concerned look on his face. Willow felt some sort of warmth throb in her heart.

He cares about me. After all that happened, he still cares for me.

“Yeah, but…what about you?” she asked while reaching out a hand to touch his skin. He was freezing. Instead of retracting, she clasped both of his hands in hers and held them tightly. It wasn’t a thing Willow would normally do, but she decided to make an exception for Al. After all, they were friends.

Allister seemed taken aback by this sudden burst of affection and closeness, but he soon had a smile on his lips. He squeezed back, savoring the softness of Willow’s hands. He pulled them to his chest as Willow came closer. They both could tell that their hearts were pounding. Pounding as one.

Gently, Allister took her hands apart and wrapped them around himself. He watched Willow’s face for any sign of reluctance, but all he could see was a calm countenance of serenity and acceptation. He hugged her tight, comforting her and warming her. He breathed her in; she smelled of roses. It was too much to bear, yet he knew that he had to control himself at the moment or else he would just simply give in to his desires.

Al placed his chin on the long mass of her raven hair and leisurely ran a hand through it. It felt soft and silky and lovely on his fingers. This just seemed right, yet wrong. It was confusing for the both of them.

Willow pressed her head against his chest and listened to the rhymic beating of his heart. Al seemed just as nervous as she did to be close together after what had happened before…

At the present moment her usually empty and lonely heart was filled to its maximum. Willow felt like she was going to burst from pure joy. It was just too much to bear.

Willow savored the love that she felt humming through the two of them. He kissed her luxurious hair and she heard her heart go wild.

“I’m fine, Willow. I’m just…worried about you,” he said into her hair after what seemed like many a long moment. “After what happened to Vi, well…I just don’t know what to think.”

“Neither do I,” she whispered, her answer muffled against his black long sleeved turtleneck. She shivered and Allister drew her even closely, embracing her tightly.

He pulled her away from him for a second and looked deep into her eyes. They were sallow. The loneliness he saw nearly choked him. He had never seen anyone in his life so sad and lonely. He wrapped an arm around her waist and hugged her to him. She did not falter.

Willow’s entire being was filled with happiness as Al embraced her, swelling with joy. Al pulled away for a moment. Willow gazed into his sky blue eyes as he did into hers. He leaned in once again like he had two days ago, breathing in Willow’s sweet, sweet scent. She turned away, feeling guilty for what she was about to do.

“I’m…I’m sorry, Willow. I-I…I didn’t mean to. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s alright. It’s not you, it’s me. I just feel this overwhelming guilt about me still being alive while Viola’s…dead.”

“I understand exactly. Do you feel like you just wanna curl up and die? Give anything for her to still be alive?”

She turned to him, whipping around so fast with a sullen expression plastered on her face and tears glistening in her perfect eyes.

“Yes. Yes,” she replied, closing her eyes, lowering her head and shaking it from side to side.

“I want her to be here, too. I wish she hadn’t gone. If I may ask, how…how did she die, anyway?”

Willow let out a deep, shuddering sigh.

“You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to. I was just wondering.”

She turned once more to the wooden railing and crossed her arms over her chest.

“No, it’s not that. It’s just…really painful to talk about.”

“Take your time telling me. I’ll listen.”

“We had come back from a club. It’s called Blanca. I’m guessing you’ve heard of it.”

“Yeah, I have.”

“Well, Viola and I went there for some fun. Harmless fun.” Willow remembered the look of surprise, yet gratefulness on Viola’s face that night…the night she was killed. “After we left, she and I walked home to my place, but we didn’t make it halfway there before a police cruiser came to pick me up and drop me off at home. Viola was going to walk home. She had seemed to run into some trouble for I could…uh…hear shouting from my bedroom window. I went to find the source.

“A woman had a gun to Viola’s heart, ready to shoot her. I distracted them by trying to kick them to the ground. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her to the side, but not before the bullet from the gun hit her in the left side of her heart.”

Willow bowed her head, knowing the reaction, in which she knew that Al would give.

“Well,” she managed to choke out, “…now you know.”

She could sense his surprise in his voice, but also some sort of comforting understanding, too. She was then taken by surprise when Allister slipped his warm arms around her waist carefully as if she were a delicate porcelain doll to be handled with caution. He hugged her back to his chest.

“You know…it wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could do.”

“I wish I could’ve done something. I felt so stupid.”

“I feel the same way you do.”

“Remember that day when Viola pulled that stupid prank on you? I cannot believe you fell for that!”

He smiled into her hair and chuckled softly.

“Yeah…I remember…”

 

“Oh, Willow, this is gonna be so good! Hah!”

“Vi, are you sure?”

Viola put on a confident face and smoothed back her gelled pink and purple hair with both hands.

“I am an expert. I play pranks all the time. This has to work. I know it will.”

“Alright…if you’re sure.”

Viola strapped on some sort of contraption on her right hand, fiddling around with it so it felt comfortable on it.

“Ah! That’s good! Feels nice and comfy.”

“Okay, here he comes!” exclaimed Willow, looking out the front window of Viola’s house. “Ready?”

“As always! Can’t wait to meet Allister.”

“He prefers to be called ‘Al,’ just so you know.”

“Well, he’s certainly going to have a shockingly good time with us.”

The doorbell then rang. Viola glanced out at the peephole and gasped.

“Will, where in the world is you meet this guy? He’s a hunk!”

“He was bugging me first day I came to Wayview. He showed me around a bit. We became pretty close friends. You’ll like him.”

She smiled. “I already do.”

Viola backed away from the door as the bell rang once more.

“What are you doing?”

“You answer it!”

“Me? Why?”

“Because he’s your friend.”

“Alright, alright!”

As Vi adjusted the buzzer on her hand, she heard Willow greet Allister and him step into the house.

“Let me introduce you to Viola Whitmore. My other good friend.”

Allister came into the room with a friendly smile plastered on his face, whereas Willow had a hesitant one on.

“Hey, I’m Allister. Call me Al,” he greeted, sticking out his hand.

“I’m Viola. Call me Vi,” she said, taking his hand.

Suddenly, Al’s whole body went stiff as the buzzer did its job and shocked him. He groaned as the electric current flowed through him.

“Aaaah! Oh!”

He shook himself like a dog as Viola burst with laughter. She and Willow were laughing so hard that tears escaped their eyes.

“Oh…my…God,” gasped Vi, wiping the last of her tears from her eyes and clutching her stomach. “That was so good! Wanna do that again?”

“No! No, no, no…no thank you. That was enough fun for one day!”

“Ah, too bad. You’re a good victim!”

Al made a mock-sad face.

“Thanks.”

“My pleasure,” answered Vi with a goofy grin on her lips.

 

Both Willow and Allister burst out laughing, clutching their sides. Willow smiled for the first time in what seemed like days.

This is what truly made Viola a good friend. Her humor, her intelligence, her smarts…but most of all her loyalty. She died being a great friend to me. Even though I feel it’s partly my fault she died, I can’t keep blaming myself forever…I have to come out of the darkness someday. Let it be today.

Author's Note

Please enjoy, dear readers. :)