Meanwhile, the events that followed, I believe, you can recall well. She was at home… ”
Jack pulled out a fresh pack of cigarettes and lit up again.
Only now did it begin to dawn on him that there was something strange about her behavior back in the kitchen. She didn’t lash out at him as usual, didn’t hurl insults, and almost silently took the keys when he was helping Eric “make it” to his room. He recalled how she just stood there, staring wearily out the window with empty eyes. So fragile and petite, so pale and pensive, and… so vulnerable.
Her long, dark hair fell in tangled locks over her slender, slouched shoulders. And when she turned to look at Jack, there was so much unsaid pain in her huge blue eyes… It wasn’t just fatigue. All the sadness she had experienced after her grandfather’s death was reflected in that gaze. What he read in her eyes triggered Jack. He, too, was mourning heavily for the old Venters. He was his biological grandfather; something Sabrina, of course, didn’t know. And Jack didn’t dream of her ever finding out the whole truth.
And now, his mother, his own mother, not just asking, but commanding him to
“keep an eye” on this girl. Of course, the order came from her superiors, and he simply couldn’t disobey it. Not only did his own financial well-being depend on it, but also his entire future life. However, Jack had always been uncomfortable with the way the Order manipulated the fate of another person, even if it was for their
benefit. Being a member of the Order meant that he would be involved in this lie from the very day he was born.
But beneath the command to watch over Sabrina, he felt there was something else… He had also to monitor the development of her supernatural abilities, and that in itself presented significant problems.
Perhaps, thanks to her upbringing more than anything else, at the age of twenty-three, Sabrina showed no signs of any supernatural talent or even hints of its presence. So unlike all her predecessors, or rather relatives, who had “showed character” from an early age. Jack, on the other hand, had his own theory on this matter, summed up in just one word – mediocrity.
It seemed to him that although she certainly possessed certain abilities, even superhuman abilities, she was only ever going to exert them to annoy or provoke him.Was he some sort of catalyst for her darker side? Jack shook his head, trying to dismiss these controversial thoughts, and made his way towards Building ‘B’.