The Girl In The Louvre - Chapter 35 Night Dreams
“Plip – plip – ploop – plip – plip – plip – plip – ploop-BADA…. BOOM.”
The thunderous sound of lighting gods warring in the sky shook the window pane with such a great ferocity that is almost shattered.
Shaking as it blocked the wind and rain; the thin sheet of glass was barely able to show a chilly reflection on its foggy surface before it was completely covered by the constant assault from the rain.
What the window, in its fragile state, did not manage to reflect was the worry and unease hidden in the eyes of that chilly reflection.
Seated at a mahogany table, a man was staring out at the lightning streaking across the sky.
Like a cat with its hair standing on end, his entire body was tensed as if he felt that something was wrong.
‘What is wrong. Did something go wrong with my plan?’
Since returning from his cooking class in the afternoon he had been a wreck. It had started with a cold shiver and worsened until his palms were sweaty and shacking.
Worst of all, he did not know why he was feeling so anxious.
Try as he might, he could not figure out what was wrong all afternoon. Even his speculation that something went wrong with his plan did not make sense.
All the little manipulations of the media and social media platforms that he did behind the scenes were perfectly executed. Even forcing the military police to act in some countries worked perfectly.
‘I completed everything flawlessly, so why am I so uneasy? Did something happen that I do not know about?’
Standing up, he started pacing the room while trying to go over everything in his head. His hands started clenching and relaxing subconsciously as he walked around the room.
By his fifth lap of the room he once again arrived at the conclusion that nothing was wrong with his plan. Something that would have assured him on another day, instead now made him feel even worse.
Reaching towards the table, Julian picked up a cold glass of water with his sweaty hand to calm his nerves.
As the cold liquid slipped down his throat he could feel his heart beat faster and faster, driving him breathless.
The mix between the cold water and his hot blood made his mind cloudy and unable to think clearly.
It was in that moment of confusion, when all other thoughts slipped from his mind, that he had a flash of clarity.
It was not a thought that brought him the clarity, but rather, it was just a simple, beautiful face.
Like an angle invading his mind with a divine message, that sweet smile seemed to carry a hint of unbearable sorrow. It seemed like she wanted to cover it up, but it was escaping despite her efforts.
As the anguish Julian saw from the corner of her lips and eyes hit him like a sledgehammer, he bolted over to the laptop on the desk.
As he turned on the screen he could not help but hope with all his heart that he was wrong. That the face he saw in his daydream was just his imagination.
As the computer booted he could not help but think of the terrible possibility.
‘I made a lot of new enemies recently. What if, in my hasty decision to accept mothers deal, I left behind some clues and they found out about that one day in Paris?’
‘ I tried to wipe clean any relation between us, but what if they still found out? Wouldn’t that make everything that I am doing redundant? what would be the point if she wasn’t here too?’
As the loading screen on his computer finally finished, he pinched himself hard to calm himself.
‘It might be just nerves, but I can’t take the chance.’
With a few fast and familiar keystrokes, Julian quickly opened a tracking program that he wrote himself to find Zhi Rou if he ever needed to.
Unlike most sleek looking laptops that were around nowadays, his was larger and a bit clunky.
Despite its funky appearance, it was an intricate machine that Julian had made himself using a bunch of different parts that he bought from his barely legal connections.
The chances that someone had hacked into it were almost zero. If compared to a supercomputer it would fall short; but compared to your average laptop, it was miles ahead.
Within a couple suspenseful minutes of opening his laptop, Zhi Rous location had been revealed to Julian.
‘It looks like she is drinking tea, I guess I just overreacted.’
With a long sigh, Julian leaned back. Lifting his hand, he put it over his chest to feel his beating heart.
“Ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum.”
Contrary to his expectations, his beating heart did not slow after finding out where Zhi Rou was. Instead, it started to beat faster and faster.
It was almost as if his heart was telling him to find the problem and fix it or suffer a heart attack.
‘There is not anything wrong, unless…’
A terrifying thought suddenly struck Julian.
‘Unless something is happening at the tea shop.’
As fast as lightning he once again started tapping on his keyboard. He knew where she was, but he needed visuals.
The only camera system that he knew he could get into and still see the tea shop from would be the traffic cameras.
If he wasn’t so anxious he might have liked the feeling of being in his old element. But as it stands, he was too worried to think about anything else.
It took him a bit longer to get into the camera’s system than Zhi Rou’s phone, but he still got in to see Zhi Rou leave the shop.
Just as the breath that he did not know he was holding was about to ease from his lips, he spotted a flash of scarlet on her hand.
The following few seconds were like a nightmare for Julian.
He promised himself that he would always be there for her. But at that moment, Julian could only watch without doing anything as he saw Zhi Rou collapse without anyone to catch her.
The street camera perfectly captured her painful smile and dazed eyes as her head hit the pavement.
His nails dug into his palm as he clenched his fist tightly.
‘What… What happened? What did I do wrong? Should I have never left her? At least then I could have caught her.’
Without any audio, the silent video kept playing as people ran forward to help.
The scene was chaotic but Julian could still see her face through the camera. The longer he stared at her, the more it hurt.
It was like his heart was punishing him for not saving her by breaking into little pieces.
It hurt so much that he could not even breath. All the air that was in his lungs escaped, leaving him breathless.
He needed to see her. He needed to know that she was okay. If she wasn’t he did not know what to do.
If she was not okay he did not know how he would live. She had somehow become the only thing that mattered to him and he could not bear to lose her.
As she was carried off to an ambulance in a stretcher, Julian could not help but long to be by her side.
Firing thoughts through his mind as fast as he could, he finally made a risky plan.
‘Just once. If I see her just once it should be alright. Nobody will have to know, I can just pretend I felt a headache on a business trip and needed to go to the hospital.’
Assuring himself that it would be okay, he immediately set about making the preparations.
With a few phone calls, he had a flight towards Beijing in an hour and a business meeting to attend in thirteen hours.
Getting out of his chair, all he bothered to bring with him as jogged towards the elevator was the laptop on the desk. Things such as clothes could be bought in Beijing, but he needed to get to Zhi Rou as fast as possible.
As he waited for the elevator to reach the lobby his body was a mess of emotion.
A mix of fear, pain, guilt, excitement, and anticipation filled his stomach.
Even though he knew it was wrong to be excited about seeing her, he could not help it. Since she left him he could not help but think of her whenever he closed his eyes.
Her sweet perfume that lingered on in his dreams was driving him mad. It was as if he was chasing a fading silhouette.
Even though it was just going to be for a brief moment, just to see if she was okay, it would reassure him that she was real and not a figment of his imagination.
The elevator doors opened with a “ding” and Julian walked briskly to the car waiting outside.
As he walked out into the night he could not help but shiver as the rain hit his body.
The lightning had fortunately stopped a couple minutes ago but it would still be dangerous flying in such weather. If not for the enormous sum that Julian paid and influence of the Reeves family, he not have been able to get a flight with such weather conditions.
Pushing himself against the wind, Julian ran forward to back seat of the car waiting for him.
In one short hour, a plane was lifting off into the night sky. The summer storm that had ragged all day had quieted down stars were beginning to peek out from the clouds.
As if the warring gods had reached an agreement, the sky grew peaceful once again. All that was left was the brilliant stars, a bright moon, and a plane flying smoothly through the air.
