Blood…there was blood everywhere, especially on my white leather jacket. My matching fedora was a few feet away from me to my left. To my right, a girl who wore what I wore, only hers was black. She wasn't dead, but she was bleeding. I only watched as she desperate tried to crawl away. However, her hopes came short when she saw me step in front of her, pistol in my hand.
"Courtney, don't do this!" the female begged. "Why shouldn't I, you traitor?" I asked as I knelt down, pressing the barrel of the gun to the girl's pale temple, where I saw sweat begin to form. Looking down, I see tears swelling in her eyes. "How many times do I have to tell you, I'm sorry! OKAY?" she told me. I didn't move. I didn't pull the trigger to end this bitch's life for good, nor take the gun away to give my enemy a little comfort.
"I don't care how many times you say it." I told her, keeping the barrel pressed to her face. I swear, it's going to leave a mark, similar to those marks on your waist when you wear too tight pants for too long. "Courtney, you've already killed Duncan! Isn't that enough?" she asked.
Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. How did Gwen and I get in this mess? How did she wind up at gunpoint? Why is Duncan dead? Why is there blood all over the scene? Well, let's rewind to around six months ago, to what should have been the best birthday of my life: my eighteenth.
My birthday, ironically enough, falls in between my own elimination in Season One, and Duncan's. During that time, I turned sixteen. Well, it was two years since then. Eighteen to me was supposed to mean a lot of things: one, I was able to vote in an election this year; two, I am officially a college freshman; three, I am officially an adult and no longer need my parents' support—not that my life depended on it anyway. But there was one more thing that would've made it…special.
On that day, Duncan said that he would come to my place and sneak me away to his home, where we would have made love for the first time. But before that, we would have dinner—that he promised he would arrange. He would congratulate me on my getting accepted into Stanford, I would congratulate him on getting accepted into the military. However, all of those plans went down the drain when he cheated on me.
So, I was left to celebrate my eighteenth birthday alone. Even my mother and stepfather were doing something other than being with me. [I swear, my stepdad has a plot against me…] How did I celebrate? A dinner, all alone. No fancy restaurant, no extravagant outing, no friends to celebrate with. But it was on that day when everything changed for me:
The very moment I chose to end the day officially with going to bed, my parents came home. Ugh, I still can't fathom what my mom sees in him—other than he was a former New York senator. His grey hairs were starting to fall out, his wrinkles were getting wrinkles, his liver spots were getting liver spots, and he was skinny as a rail [but better than having a giant beer belly].
"Courtney, honey, how was your birthday?" Mom asked. I just turned to both of them with a grimace. "Courtney, wipe that look off your face. Just because you're eighteen now, it doesn't mean you can start treating your parents with disrespect." he ordered. I just turned away. I never did like him anyway. While my back was turned, I hear them talking about me, again. I didn't catch the entire conversation, but pieces I caught were the following:
"…she's growing up…"
"…didn't raise her to act like this…"
"…tell her…"
That was when I turned my head back to face them. "Tell me what?" I asked. Their conversation was stopped dead in their tracks. I could tell by his look that, for once in his seventy-something years of existence, he was beaten. "Courtney," he began. "We need to talk…about your future." he finished. At first I thought, here we go again.
Despite my heavy influences by law and politics throughout my life, he thinks I should have a more silent career, a house wife—that's not even a career! Unfortunately, my mom, once one of Texas' best attorneys, has succumbed to that dream and became a stay-at-home mother. Even when I wanted a career in music when I was younger, he would still put me down, only getting me a violin as a compromise, still stuck to his belief that women should be seen, not heard.
However, on the occasions where I get to visit my birth father, he would allow me to be as outspoken as I pleased, one of the reasons my two fathers don't see eye to eye. A former musician himself, he taught me everything I knew about the guitar, the piano, and my singing. The last time I saw him, however, was when I was ten; that was when my stepfather forbade myself and my mother to see him.
So when this conversation was brought to me about my future, I simply thought that he was going to put me down again, like he's always done. But this time, it was different. "As you may already know, you are eighteen, legally an adult. Your mother and I had just finished the last preparations for…a special project." he began. Okay, so far, it's sounding a little different. But "special project"?
"We're going to need you to come with us. I'm…taking you to where I work." he finished before heading outside, my mother lingering behind to wait for me. I eventually got up and followed to the car. My stepdad took me to where he worked, once, on "Bring Your Daughter to Work" day, where he formerly held his Senate position, where my love for politics began. He refused to take me back, because he thought he "ruined my chances on being a proper woman", as he still refused to believe that women are now involved in the government, even having places in the Presidential Cabinet. So when he said that he was taking me to where he worked, I grew a little excited. However, since it was pretty much late at night, I fell asleep on the way over, not waking up until the following morning, when we arrived…