The Keeper: Alexa LeGardien (4 page)

“I know. Thanks.”

She approached the lock with the key and stopped midway again. “If this is something bad, or worse . . .”

Matt stopped her before she had a chance to back out again. “If this is from your mom or your dad, it can only be good. I know that’s why you’re hesitating. If it’s really from your parents, it’s probably some family heirloom or something like that.”

Alexa collected her thoughts before she spoke again. “Okay. You’re totally right. I don’t know why I’m fretting. I’ve broken a bunch of people’s noses and stabbed another with a fork and I’m scared of opening a box?”

“Attagirl, but you probably shouldn’t say that out loud again.” He jokingly warned her.

She flashed him a smile of confidence this time. “It’s just a box. It’s probably just filled with old pictures of my parents.”

You know that’s not true
, she heard her inner thought scream. “I can’t. I can’t do it.” Alexa handed Matt the key. “You’re my best friend, do the honours.”

“Uh . . .”

“
S’il vous plaît
?” She quickly added and batted her eyebrows before he could refuse.

He slowly collected the key from her right palm. “I love it when you speak French to me. Okay, but if this ends up being some sort of a Pandora’s Box and I die, I just want you to know” —she waited for him to complete his sentence— “don’t you dare scratch a hair on my Mustang.”

“Hey! I thought that was
ours
.” She playfully punched him before remembering the severity of the situation. “Don’t worry, I will keep it safe.”

Without a second thought, he lodged the key in place and was just about to rotate it when Alexa quickly grabbed his arm and stopped him.

“What’s it this time?”

She let him go almost immediately. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Let’s do this.”

After a while, Matt still stayed there, struggling with the key.

“What’s wrong? I said we should do it.”

“I’m trying, but the key isn’t working.”

“What? It’s meant to work. That was what Watson dude said, right?” Alexa watched him jiggle it once more around the hole to no avail. “But I was so sure . . .” she mumbled under her breath.

“Did you say something?”

“No, give it to me.”

“Okay, but I’m telling you, it doesn’t open. That short dude’s a fraud.”

She took the key from his hand. “They prefer to be called
little
people,” she said absent-mindedly. Her attention was on what came next after the box would finally be opened. She inserted it into the keyhole on the box. From her left, she could see Matt’s lips move. He was definitely saying something but she felt so far away, like she wasn’t really there anymore. She faced the box and turned the key.

“Alexa!” Matt snapped her out the trance.

She looked at him without glancing back at the box. “It’s open.” Right after making that statement, everything around her felt loopy. Alexa felt her body drop.

Matt rushed to grab her body before it hit the ground. “Alex!” He called out her name and shook her, vigorously hoping to get some kind of response, but none came.

“A
LEXA,”
Matt called out to her. “She’s waking up,” he said for everyone else to hear.

Alexa could barely see. She felt out of it, a little bit tipsy. She saw Matt turn to talk to someone else. Where was she? Who was he talking to?

Through her heavy eyelids, she saw a blurry Matt hold out three fingers in front of her face. “How many fingers am I holding up?” She barely heard him ask.

She was dazed and confused not blind. “I don’t know. Ten?” She lightly joked or at least tried to. Seriously, where the hell was she? She lightly laughed and felt a sharp pain in her head, resembling a migraine, so she quickly stopped herself from any further movement.

Everything around her slowly stopped spinning and she spotted the other people in the room before she spoke. The nameless doorman, Mr. Henderson, and Leeman, who Alexa now secretly called ‘the British dude with a pipe’. “Where am I?” she asked confused, and sprung up from the slab like surface where she lay.

Blood rushed up to her head so fast she almost got whiplash, and she quickly lay down again. She felt the dizziness she had when she first opened her eyes return. “What happened?” she asked before her former question could be answered.

Matt came closer within her view. “You’re in the... well, I’m not quite sure.” He, too, quickly realized that he had no idea exactly where they were in the so-called Grand Guardian’s Insurance Bank. From what he’d seen, this place was not a bank. Banks didn’t have big-ass living rooms. “You fainted. What’s the last thing you remember?”

Alexa tried to piece everything together, but her mind was still lost in a haze. “I had the key to the box and I opened it. I think. That’s all I remember.”

“The key unlocked it. We never actually took a look. You fainted before we got that far.” Matt lifted her head to an upright tilt and supported it with his hand.

Alexa was finally able to get a good grip of her surroundings. The two men in suits, the unnamed doorman, and Henderson, still crept the hell out of her and Mr. Leeman, she still wasn’t sure what she thought about him.

“No offence, guys, but I was sort of wishing today had been nothing but a crazy dream,” Alexa said. No one moved a muscle. They all just kept on staring at her, almost like they were too scared she’ll break if they did. “Well, let’s get the box,” she ordered. She really didn’t have any time for all the suspense. She wanted to be done with whatever this was. What had started out as a day she thought was merely a dumb prank by some loser, had gradually turned into something more. Something she was afraid she couldn’t wrap her head around.

—             —             —

M
ATT
placed the box sharply right in Alexa’s front view. It landed with a
bang
.

“Gee, Matt. You don't have to be so dramatic. It’s just a box.” Oh, how she wished she believed that. She sat up and picked it up from where Matt had dropped it. She positioned it on her thighs and took two deep breaths. Right before she opened it, her sub conscious stopped her.

“So, why did I faint?”

“Leeman suggested that it could have come from the fumes in the room. It’s hardly ever open.”

She looked at Leeman who’d remained oddly silent since she had awoken. He stood idly by in the corner, holding his pipe firmly within his grip.

“I bet he did.” Alexa had no idea what had caused her to faint, but she was a hundred percent sure that old fumes had absolutely nothing to do with her being unconscious, although she secretly wished it did.

Leeman gently puffed on his pipe a few times. “If I may so kindly ask.”

Alexa shook her head internally
. No, you may not.

“What exactly did you see when you unlocked the box?”

“Newsflash, I didn’t open it. I fainted ... apparently.”

“Miss LeGardien, this box is
very
special. It is of priceless value, very powerful. Yet, you were able to unlock it. You saw something, didn’t you? I’d like to know what.”

“I fainted.” She dodged the question. Everyone in this room, with the exception of herself and Matt seemed pretty crazy in her eyes. She didn’t want to be put under that category, especially not on her first day of supposed freedom.

“The box,” Matt reminded her.

“Right. Let’s see what the big deal is.”

Alexa looked around the vicinity one more time. She picked up the key to the box and twirled it slowly between her index finger and thumb. At a point, everything in her view seemed to move in slow motion, she could hear the breath escape Matt’s mouth, and she could even hear her own nervous heartbeat.

A very slow thump followed by another. She could feel her mind about to stop herself from opening the box again, but this time, she made sure her hands moved faster than her own mind. She quickly opened the metal lid of the box.

“What the hell?”

From where Matt stood, the lid which was propped up at a ninety-degree angle, blocked his view of what commanded Alexa’s exclamation.

“What is it?” He asked out of curiosity.

“That’s a very good question.” She sent a daring glare at Leeman’s direction. She knew for certain that he knew more than he let on.

—             —             —

“Y
O.
Watson look-alike,” Alexa called out to Leeman, who in response, lowered his smoking pipe from his mouth. “What am I supposed to do now?”

She turned the box so that everyone else could see exactly what she saw. Another security Lock but not the kind that could easily be opened by a key. This security section held a number pad and two screens of different sizes that held a green tilt to them.

“I don’t know. What are you supposed to do now?” Leeman retorted in a very unconcerned manner as if he were waiting for her to see something.

Alexa let out a very annoyed grunt and took a look at the button that caught her eye. You know, that one button that calls out to you that you know you should probably leave alone, but at the same time, you know you have to push it. And she did just that.

An automated voice from the box spoke.
“State your name, please.”

The voice alarmed Alexa. She definitely did not expect that. If anything at all, a timed bomb or something of that calibre. “Um . . .”

“Name,”
it repeated with the same shaky toneless voice.

“Alexa LeGardien.”

“Full name, please.”

Alexa hesitated for a slight second. “That is my full name. This is stupid.” It was almost like the box was hell bent on embarrassing her. She even thought of just slamming it shut and walking out.

“Full name, please,”
the robotic voice repeated.

After a second of thought, Alexa decided to play the game. “Alexandra Margaux LeGardien.” She heard a snicker emerge from Matt. “Don’t.”

He completely ignored her statement and went for it, “I didn’t know you were named
Margaux
.”

“And that’s exactly how we are going to continue, unless you want to end up with a dislocated elbow.”

Matt waved his hands by his sides jokingly surrendering. “Whatever you say...
Margaux
.”

“Seriously, stop it.” She jokingly punched him on his shoulder. She was about to say something else when the voice from the box laid another command.

“Place your right thumb on the blinking screen.”

Alexa saw one of the screens blink rapidly. So, she did as ordered. After a full scan of her right thumb, it spoke again. When she walked out of the correctional centre, she would not have thought that this was how her day would be going. Everything was sort of bunkers. What did she expect to get out of this by the end of the day? She did not know the answer to that, but you know what they say about curiosity.

“Left thumb.”

She did that without complaint. Curiosity had succeeded in piquing her interest.

“Welcome, Miss Alexandra Margaux LeGardien.”

“Once again, it’s Alex or Alexa.”

—             —             —

“W
HAT
the hell is this? I think it’s time for some answers. Don’t you, Matt?”

“Absolutely.” He jumped to Alexa’s side. “This is weird and sort of creepy. A lot creepy, actually.”

The box had finally opened to reveal what was so secretly placed within it. It was divided up into sections, with each section holding something antique. Everything in the box seemed to be of a lot of value and it was probably her parents’, she still couldn’t be sure due to everyone’s ‘non-talking’ pact. So the question remained, why wasn’t anyone willing to talk?

Her eyes immediately fell on one of its contents, a grail shaped cup. It appeared to be made out of pure gold, but that was seemingly impossible in Alexa’s mind.

She quickly reached for it and immediately dropped it.
Static electricity
she reasoned with her mind.
Nothing more, nothing less. Just static
. For all she knew, they had been there for a really long time.

The other items in the box seemed of great importance but were pretty much worthless to Alexa. All she could think about was the fact that she and Matt had gone through all this trouble for a bunch of junk antiques. She had come all this way, granted at first not caring for the outcome but now, well, she cared.

But nonetheless, she just as quickly paused touching anything else in the box.

She took a good look at the room she was in. it was much bigger than anywhere she’d been. It looked like a living space. The building she was in suddenly seemed to resemble a house, a mansion. Almost like people lived here, she couldn’t be too sure but she was absolutely sure that this place, whatever it was, was definitely not a bank. At least, not
just
a bank.

Her head and body felt a lot better than when she’d woken up. She put the box aside and rushed towards a huge desk in the corner where she had noticed a few pictures had been turned down.

“Seriously, Leeman, you’re going to have to say something sooner or later. She picked up the first picture.

Behind her, she could hear Leeman chatter away with Matt about how she was very important.

Yeah, right. The only thing going on here is that you guys are all—
. Something cut off her chain of thought.

The picture that she’d overturned was one of her mother. She appeared much younger, she was probably in her late teens if Alexa had to take a guess. There was no mistaking it, she might have only seen one picture of her mother in her entire lifetime, but she knew. She couldn’t explain it, she just knew. —
crazy
.

The shock had hit her like a kick hard kick to the abdomen. She dropped it without thought and quickly overturned the others. One was of both her parents at younger ages and the others were of them in the same age range as the picture she had.

“What the hell is going on? W–w—why do you guys have these? These are my parents. Pictures of my parents.”