Variable X Ch 4: Alerted

Vincent woke up five minutes before the alarm went off on the first school day of that week. He made sure to turn it off before it could go off and make unnecessary noise, possibly waking anyone up. He showered, got dressed, packed his books and went to his car to go to school.
When getting to his locker that day, he opened his messenger bag and noticed a small blue piece of paper had fallen through towards the bottom of the bag. His heart began to beat faster and his stomach began to cringe nervously. He quickly got his bag, strapped it around his shoulder and walked to his first class of the day.
Class was surprisingly easy that day and he had free time to check his bag. The only thing that was left missing was a black book that had the word “Journal” written on the cover. Vincent was feeling mixed feelings when he realized it was missing, and he leaked out a light smirk as he zipped up his bag and continued to listen to his teacher’s lecture.
After the first two classes of the day, he had lunch. He bought a small salad and some flavored water from the cafeteria and went to go sit with his friends, Wayne and Dominic.
Wayne was a little overweight, but this was heavily overshadowed by the weight of his charismatic aura and the friendly air that surrounded him. He also had a beautifully crafted face, with blue eyes and blond hair. Everyone loved Wayne, and part of the reason Vincent has been treated better by everyone is due to his friendship with Wayne. That’s how popular and respected Wayne was by the school populace.
Dominic was a year younger than both Vincent and Wayne. Out of the three of them, Dominic was by far the skinniest of the three, with brown eyes, and brown hair at medium length that covered part of his face. He was friends with Wayne, and therefore was now friends with Vincent, but he does have a respect for him and understands what it’s like to be alone.
Dominic turned over to Vincent, who was eating his salad properly and politely. “So dude, what’d you do last weekend?”
“Well…” Vincent said, thinking back. “I had a run in with this guy Eric at the Cornerstone on Saturday. He stood up my check when I wasn’t looking and I had to pay for his meal. Plus he spoke really loud the whole time and I could barely enjoy my breakfast.”
Wayne laughed. “That sounds like an ‘Eric’ that I know. What did he look like?”
Vincent thought about it for a second. “Well, he had orange hair and he had a really high pitched voice. Oh, I think he said his parents were wealthy, too.”
“Yeah, I know who that is now.” Wayne replied. “That’s gotta be Eric Benedict.”
Vincent’s eyes widened.  “Benedict? As in-“
“Yeah, man.” Dominic interrupted. “As in Matilda’s older brother. “
Vincent’s grip on his fork tightened. “That whole time, I was sitting next to ‘her’ brother. I had absolutely no idea. I thought he was just some passerby.”
Wayne pointed to a table a few tables away from where he, Dom, and Vincent were. “See, there they are now.”
Vincent looked over to the table to see that Eric was indeed sitting at that table across from his sister, Matilda. Next to Matilda was Alexis, and next to Eric was another boy with long black hair and a small goatee.  Vincent saw the boy hand Matilda over a familiar looking black book. Matilda opened the book and began to read it. Vincent watched as Matilda read the book intently. Vincent’s friends weren’t sure what was going on, but didn’t ask.
After a few minutes, Matilda slowly closed the book handed it back to the long haired boy, seemingly said something, then went back to eating her fancy lunch. After this transgression, the boy got up from the table, folded the book over and over so that it would crumble to pieces, and threw it’s remains into the garbage.
Vincent smirked, and went back to eating his lunch and talking with his friends.

Later that day, Vincent drove his car back home after school ended, said hello to his parents, and took out a small black journal from his jacket pocket. The journal had a single silver embroidered letter on the front cover. “X.”

~

Journal Entry 14: January 9th, 2008

It seems that Matilda has finally made her move. She has obtained the services of a man with long black hair and a goatee. I didn’t a very good look at him, so that’s as much as I know of this man. I’m guessing that he’s the one who snuck into my locker, opened my bag, and took out a small journal from it.
The reason I know it was broken into is because I left a small blue piece of paper in-between the zipper and the edge of the bag that would fall through to the bottom if someone opened it without some care.  And this morning, that piece of paper was indeed at the bottom and the journal was missing. Also, I saw that man give Matilda a black book and watched her read it.
Unfortunately for the both of them, I keep my real journal securely in the pocket of my trench coat at all times so that no one can get it from me while I’m not looking. The journal they took was a fake that I made just for this occasion. I wrote out the first three acts of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” in the journal, followed by blank pages.
Not surprisingly, Matilda ordered the book to be ripped up and thrown away.
In other news, it seems that that jerk I met the other day happens to be Matilda’s brother. I’m beginning to think that he told Matilda to look for a journal because I pulled this one out to write in it when he was aggravating me. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I remember a car tailing me for a while on my way to the Cornerstone. I’m beginning to think that my meeting with Eric was no simple coincidence. Matilda has definitely made her move, and it’s about time that I made mine. The first thing I need to do is nab that sloppy thief and see if I can get any information about Matilda, Alexis, and Variable X, out of him.