Posted on 2013-02-17
The wind was blowing through Elizabeth's hair, teasing it out of the sloppy bun at the base of her neck. The damp auburn strands played around her face, reminding her of last night's flight. A small smile played at the corner of her lips before she stamped it out into a straight line. After all, crashing into a tree and tearing a jagged hole in her wing was not exactly amusing. Her third flight and she couldn't even avoid injuring herself. As if to emphasize her thoughts, Elizabeth's left wing began to throb faintly. Carefully, she rolled her shoulders, sliding her hoodie farther down her back, hiding the slight deformed lumps on her shoulder blades and her sides. Slightly hunched against the icy rain and wind, she continued down the path, grateful for the class room buildings blocking the worst of the weather.
A passing guy smiled at her. Brown eyes, grass stained jeans, Elizabeth catalogued mentally. She wondered why he smiled at her. Quickly, she shook her head, shaking the strands of hair framing her face in front of her eyes. Just thin enough to see through, but thick and wavy enough to make it difficult for someone to see her eyes.
Great, she thought. Working in the lab all day, and I forget my contacts. The tinted contacts that make her gold irises look green. Ironic, really, given that the experiment she was working on was to figure out how and why she had that impossible color.
With a sigh, Elizabeth swung open the door of the Meryton Laboratory and Sciences Building. Despite Meryton College's comparatively small size, the research equipment was state of the art, which was why she had chosen it over some of the more prestigious schools she had been accepted into. After all, if you have wings and an inhuman eye color, you may as well try to figure out why. And how.
As she walked down the hallway, her shoes tapping quietly on the linoleum, Elizabeth turned her mind to the day's work. Professor Mentam had given her free reign to do her experiments, although he thought she was researching ways to genetically design humans with anomalies. In a way, she was. If she could learn how SHE was possible, maybe she would also learn how to create others like her. Not that she'd want to. Being a freak was NOT all it was cracked up to be. Having read fantasy books since she first learned to read (at the age of three), Elizabeth could understand the allure of being different, of people wanting to be with you because you're special. But being special doesn't mean "has wings".
The door to her lab was open, so Elizabeth walked right in. William Dantem, a senior, was already working on his own project. And, Elizabeth noticed with a frown, he was using a machine she needed. Too bad she had to share lab space. At least she knew William was intelligent enough not to break things. She should know, she personally picked the student she had to share a lab with, and researched all the students in labs with available space. Dantem would leave her and her work alone if for no other reason than that he didn't seem to care about anything outside of his little bubble of research. He was also the only student on the entire campus who actually had a decent IQ score. In fact, it was higher than most of the professors'. Normally, Elizabeth would worry about someone of his intelligence questioning what she was up to, but by all reports, he barely ever spoke to anyone without a PHD or at least a yacht. He came from money.
Elizabeth got her laptop out of its case and started it up. She hung her messenger bag up on a hook by the door, after getting out her meticulous lab notes.
"Don't forget a lab coat," William said. Elizabeth startled and looked up, but Dantem seemed completely engrossed in his work. Despite spending half a semester in the same lab as her, this was the longest sentence Elizabeth had ever heard him utter.
"Don't worry. I know lab protocol." Elizabeth tried not to roll her eyes, but it was a lost cause. Just because she wasn't a genius didn't mean she didn't know how to be in a lab. In all fairness, at the beginning of the semester, she had been pretty lost. But the internet and Professor Mentam had shown her the ropes. Mr. Off-the-Charts-IQ didn't need to act like she didn't know what she was doing. Tamping down her frustration, she unzipped her hoodie and switched it for her lab coat as quickly as possible. Her thin T-shirt didn't hide her wings as well as her bulky hoodie. Self-absorbed or not, a scientist will always ask questions when shown something different and unexplainable. As she tugged her auburn ponytail out from under the collar of her lab coat, her sleeves rode up on her wrists just a bit.
"So what is that supposed to be? Wings?"
Elizabeth froze. "What?" It came out too high pitched.
"On your wrist." William looked up at her, exaggerating the words slightly to lend them emphasis, as if she had be unable to hear him the first time, which was probably what he thought. If he didn't think she was crazy, anyways.
"Oh yeah. Wings." Elizabeth let out the breath she had been holding. She glanced at the mark on her left wrist, a set of wings almost exactly like hers. She had almost forgotten it for a moment.
"Tattoos are generally more for the artsy type people, aren't they?"
"It's not a tattoo." Elizabeth was about to tell him that artists are important to science too, but decided she didn't need to initiate anymore conversation. As it was, this much discussion with her previously silent lab mate was disturbing.
"If you say so. It wasn't there at the beginning of the semester, but it's been on your wrist every day for the last three weeks."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes again, not even trying to fight the impulse this time. "I have work to do, Mr. Talkative."
"I'm William, by the way."
Suddenly it struck Elizabeth as funny that they'd been in the same room almost every day for the last twelve weeks and he was just now getting around to introducing himself.
"I know. I pre-screened you."
He stopped trying to talk after that.
Three hours and no answers later, Elizabeth was ready to break something, preferably something really expensive that made a satisfying thunk when it broke. Nothing was making sense!
"Ugh! Why won't this work?!"
William looked up briefly. "You're too focused on getting a gold color. Try altering the cells to create any abnormal color. It might give you a better idea of what works."
Elizabeth's mouth fell open. "How do you know what I'm working on?" They were supposed to be working on separate projects, not working together.
William shrugged, focused on his work once again. Lizzie noticed a single black curl falling over his right eye, but his attention seemed to be completely on his computer screen. It surprised her when he answered her question. "You talk to yourself when you're working. You've been too single-minded in your approach."
"And why did you decide to wait weeks before sharing this bit of advice?" Lizzie was annoyed. So he'd been eavesdropping on her work!
"You didn't ask. I'm not in the habit of advising new lab students, especially one with such a frivolous project."
"Gee, thank you so much for your condescension. I'm going to lunch."
"Did you know Seraphina is an order of angels?" He was referring to her last name, Seraphina, which was what she had it legally changed to last summer.
"Yes, I'm intelligent enough to have looked up my name's meaning. Thank you so much." Elizabeth switched her lab coat for her hoodie and hurriedly grabbed her messenger bag. "I liked you better when you were quiet," she muttered under her breath.
Elizabeth groaned when she stepped outside. It was raining, hard. Then she smiled, realizing the campus was deserted. Everyone would be inside, staying dry. She was the only one out walking on campus.
By the time Elizabeth had walked across campus to the cafeteria and gotten her lunch, it was still raining, although it was more of a downpour and less of a monsoon than before. She wanted to get back to the lab and start working on the change William had suggested. But she could feel her wing throbbing, worse than it had earlier in the morning, and she knew the bandages needed to be changed and the cut tended to. She wished she could just fly to her dorm, instead of walking back across campus and up the path.
Briefly, she considered the consequences of trying to fly. First, there was the danger that someone might see her. Second, her wing probably wasn't up to it. Third, she had to yet to figure out how to fly without crashing. Elizabeth made a face. She was walking.
It took her almost 20 minutes to get to her dorm, nearly twice as long as usual, simply because she had to go around all the mud puddles and new ponds. Normally, she could walk from the cafeteria to her room in less than ten minutes because she walked so fast. When she got to her room, she was relieve not have run into anyone - not that she was in the habit of making small talk, but she didn't want people asking her why she was in such a hurry, as they always did.
She just moved faster than most people.
Elizabeth unlocked her door and slipped in, making sure she shut and locked it behind her. She crossed the room and shut the blinds, careful to check that no one could see in. Then, once she was certain there was no chance of someone watching somehow, she unzipped her hoodie and slid it off her back and down her arms. She pulled down the zippers on both sides of her T-shirt and unfurled her wings, sighing in relief. It was a pain in the neck having them pulled in so tight all the time. Well, a pain in the wings, really. It had taken her a day and a half to figure out how to sew zippers on all her shirts and her few dresses, but it was the only way she could figure out how to let her wings out without going topless all together.
Elizabeth turned and looked at the full length mirror on the back of her door. The wings poking out of her T-shirt didn't look like bird wings. They didn't have the same bone structure either. They had six distinct bones with gold leathery skin stretched between spines. They resembled bat wings to a degree, except for the pattern on the skin, which looked like shimmery scales. If anything, they were reminiscent of mythological dragon wings.
Elizabeth barely noticed all that. In the last year, she had nearly grown accustomed to seeing her wings. What she was looking at now was the drenched bandages on her left side. The rain had soaked completely through her hoodie and the awkwardly wrapped bandages were all but falling off. Elizabeth gingerly unraveled them, trying not to touch the jagged tear. There was some healing, but blood was seeping out of the top part. Elizabeth wanted to swear, but wouldn't let herself. She'd survived eighteen years of foster care without swearing, and she wasn't going to start now. Her wing hurt enough to wish she would let herself, though.
The joint at her shoulder blade was also sore, but Elizabeth was fairly certain that was just because she'd had her wings pulled in so long. She was used to her shoulders aching. And her stomach muscles. The top of the wings were attached to her shoulder blades, but they tapered all the way down to her hips. Elizabeth was just thankful that she only had to run the zippers halfway down to let her wings out fully. Right now, she needed some new bandages, some more first aid cream, and a dry T-shirt. And probably some ibuprofen. Thankfully, she had all the necessary supplies and was fixed up in a matter of moments.
She was almost out the door when she caught sight of her wings in the mirror. Grinning, Elizabeth stretched them out to their full length. They almost reached both walls of her little room, ten feet across. With a sigh, Elizabeth pulled them in tight and zipped up her shirt. Grabbing a dry coat, she headed back to the lab.
Chapter 2
William was almost startled when he heard the lab door slam open. Almost. He'd been expecting Carry for about a half hour, so her loud entry wasn't unexpected. Thank goodness her brother called ahead to warn him. As usual, she was dressed like she was going to a night club, and her blonde hair was bleached within an inch of its life. She also had too much purple glitter on her eyelids- it was literally reflecting the light from the windows.
"Willy, darling! I'm sure you must be bored to death in here! I'm sure I would be in an absolute coma by now! You must be so lonely in here, working by yourself every day. You know, I could stay and keep you company if you-"
"Did you need something, Carry?" William normally would have let her carry on until she came to the point, but he didn't want her here when Elizabeth came back. He could just imagine Carry's reaction. She would always be in the lab, trying to oust the "competition". Too bad she hadn't figured out yet that his parents' eighty year old neighbor would be competition for her.
"Well, you know it's almost time for my mid-semester, spring-is-almost-here-party, and I know how much you just loved it last year, so I decided to give you the first invitation! And here it is!" Carry waved a huge, embossed gold card around his face. "It's on Friday. Well, not this Friday, but a couple months from this Friday. I wanted to get the invites out early, to make sure everyone important could come. Now, if you want to invite any of your little friends, you're more than welcome to, of course. It's going to be the biggest one yet!"
"You've only had one. This will be the second."
"Oh, Willy, that's what I love about you, you're so FUNNY!"
Will said nothing.
"Okay, well, darling, here's your invite, I'll just set it on the table, call me later, I've got to- well hello, who have we here?" Carry's eyes narrowed, showing more of her ridiculous eye shadow. Really, she needs to try a little less makeup, Will thought with a slightly mocking smile. As she moved to the door, he saw who Carry was talking about, and his smile dropped a bit.
"I'm Elizabeth Seraphina. I work in this lab." Liz held her head high and stared back at Carry.
"She works here? As in everyday? Willy, how could you let this happen?" Carry's voice was venomous and pouting at the same time, a very odd combination.
"Professor Mentam is the one in charge of which science majors go where. He put Elizabeth in here." Will's voice was calm and perfectly even. His eyes were focused on the beaker he was using.
"Seraphina? What kind of a name is that?"
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "One your boyfriend understood, anyways."
"Hmph. Well, little Miss Redhead, be careful. You never know what could happen with an experiment, and we wouldn't want any accidents." With a flip of her too blond hair, Carry waltzed out of the room and slammed the door shut. She was tempted to stay and watch the trollop to ensure she didn't try anything with her Will, but this Elizabeth seemed to know that Will was taken. Good.
Elizabeth tried to stifle her laughter, but it didn't work.
Will smiled awkwardly. "I'm sorry about her. And she's not my girlfriend, though she'd love to be." He made a face.
Elizabeth hung up her jacket and started putting on her lab coat. "So in one day I find out that you eavesdrop on me talking to myself, you know what my name means, which is a first, and you have a ridiculous little admirer with an attitude. Oh, and you're stuck up." She frowned, trying to find the second sleeve, which was hanging just out of her reach.
"Here, let me help you with that," Will offered. He pulled the sleeve up and held it out for her to slide her arm into, without waiting for an answer. "And I'm not stuck up."
"Right. You never say a word for twelve weeks and you're not stuck up." Elizabeth shrugged, adjusting her coat. "Thanks," she added, as an afterthought. She was not in the mood to observe the social niceties, after walking back through the rain and then meeting Carry.
Will raised an eyebrow. "There's nothing wrong with staying silent when there isn't anything that needs to be said."
Elizabeth smiled sweetly, and for a moment, Will thought she was going to say something nice. "You're absolutely right. There isn't anything that needs to be said."
That was the last conversation they shared for two months.
Elizabeth stared out at the rain from her dorm room window. She wanted to go outside! More exactly, she wanted to try flying again. Her wing was all but healed, and her experiment results wouldn't be ready until tomorrow. Elizabeth smiled. She had to admit, Dantem had been right about her single-minded pursuit of a gold color working against her. It had taken a couple weeks to rethink her project, but she broadened her research and now she was pretty close to making the cells turn violet, which was a start.
Staying on campus over winter break had helped her get started on the changes in her experiment. With no one on
campus to distract her, no one working in her lab, and no classes to interfere, Elizabeth had been able to accomplish a great deal.
The other thing that had helped her research was the addition of lizard DNA. Up until recently, she had only tried bat and bird DNA, but caring for the cut on her wing had made her think of lizards. Finally, she was getting somewhere. Maybe she was part lizard.
Elizabeth sighed. So many questions to answer. A year ago, on her eighteenth birthday, she had found twin lumps on her back. She had been worried that she had cancer, and decided to go to the doctor that week. But by the next morning, the lumps had grown lines running down her sides. By the day of the scheduled appointment, she had two small but fully-formed wings. And they had grown.
The gold eyes had come along about a week after her wings stopped growing. The tattoo-like wings on her wrist were more recent- those had shown up three months ago. Elizabeth worried about what would show up next. The only good thing about the tattoo was that it convinced her to finally try out her wings. They held her up, and she could even get pretty high in the air. The problem was getting down. Every time Elizabeth tried to get back to earth, she started rocketing down, far too fast. Elizabeth had only flown three times, and she'd hurt herself in some way or another all three times. Now her latest scrape was healed up and she wanted to try again. As terrifying as falling was, flying was amazing.
Elizabeth looped her hair up into a loose bun and picked up her iPod. If she couldn't fly, maybe she could at least check on her latest experiment, ready or not. There wasn't much else to do. She grabbed her coat and headed out the door.
For as long as she could remember, Elizabeth had been shuffled from foster home to foster home. She didn't really have any hobbies growing up, except for school, sketching, and reading. They were all free, provided one had a library card, paper, and a pencil. All that work had given her the test scores and grades to go to any school she wanted, but by the time she graduated, a month after her eighteenth birthday, she wanted to go somewhere small and remote, where she could study and experiment to her heart's content. Unfortunately, she still had a lot to learn before she could get even close to figuring out what made her so different. The fact that William was able to point out what she was doing wrong without even having to think about it was an indication of just how much she had to learn.
Elizabeth turned on her iPod and clicked 'shuffle'. Listening to the music streaming over her ears, Elizabeth admired the scenery as she walked to the lab. Meryton College was set in a valley, with the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains all around. The dorms, all eleven of them, were on the outskirts, and the class and laboratory buildings were right in the center. The cafeteria was opposite the dorms, on the other side of campus. That had amused Elizabeth when she first started, because she assumed it had been planned to make students work for their food. By now, it wasn't so amusing. Luckily, her dorm was less than five minutes from the laboratory building. Elizabeth only got through a song and a half of Owl City before she was walking in the building and opening the door of the lab.
"I'm so glad to see that red headed freak isn't hanging around for once. She seems like the serial killer type. Seriously, I asked around campus, and almost no one even knows her name. They all thought her name was Lacey. I mean, who lies about their name? It's ridiculous, and-"
"Elizabeth is easily shortened to Lizzie, which sounds very close to Lacey," Will's voice cut in. "Carry, if you're just going to insult the person I work with every day, why are you here?"
Elizabeth herself had paused outside the door, with the handle half turned. She hated to eavesdrop, but she didn't want to walk in while she was still the subject of the conversation. She already had enough problems dealing with people; she didn't need the added awkwardness.
"As I was saying, they all said she never talks. Ever. Isn't that creepy? And I'm here to remind you about the party on Friday. You are coming, right? Right, of course you are. You have to. After all, what kind of party would it be without campus's most eligible senior?" Carry's voice practically purred.
Elizabeth chose that moment to walk in, and she almost shoved Carry into the floor, she was standing so close to the door. "Oh, excuse me."
"Yes, excuse you," the blonde sneered. "What'd you do to your eyes, freak? Carrot colored hair wasn't enough? You needed gold contacts too? Weirdo." She looked pointedly at Will, but he wouldn't look at her. "Well, I really wish I could stay, but I have a salon appointment. I could always reschedule, of course, if you want some company while you work, Willy." Elizabeth fought the urge to snicker at Carry's nickname for Will.
"I have a lot of work to get finished, so I won't be entertaining."
"That's okay, I'll be fine. I can stay and help, actually. You could finish even faster with my help. Then we could go to dinner or something. Ooh, I heard there's this great movie playing down in town!"
"Thank you, but I need to work."
"Oh. Well, then I'll just go to my salon appointment. I'm thinking about dyeing my hair. My natural blonde tends to get a bit wearying every once in a while. I'll see soon, Willy." With that, Carry was out the door.
During this near-monologue, Elizabeth had donned her lab coat and started checking her samples.
"You know the results won't be complete until tomorrow." William's voice made Elizabeth jump.
"Oh, so now there is something that needs to be said?" she asked archly.
William shrugged uncomfortably. "I was just remarking that you needn't waste your time."
"I wanted to check, and there is little else to do on a day like today."
"You could study for your classes. Do homework. Go on a date." He wasn't looking at her, but Elizabeth had grown
accustomed to watching him speak as if the person he was talking to was not present. Of course, that was when Carry stopped into the lab, which she'd done nearly every day since finding out that Elizabeth shared it with him, so she had assumed that he only did it when he wanted the conversation to end quickly. But that made no sense, because he had started it.
"I don't have a boyfriend, I know everything in my classes right now, and most of my credit for the semester comes from my research. I thought I might as well begin the illustrations for my semester reports." To demonstrate, she pulled out her sketch pad and drawing pencils.
"You don't photograph your experiments?" William looked up, surprised.
"Well, yes, I do, but I prefer to do illustrations for the report, so I can add notations and cut-aways as needed." She flipped open her notebook to show what she had previously done.
William leaned across the counter that separated their lab space. "That looks like a perfect rendition of some kind of lizard."
Elizabeth laughed. "Some kind of lizard? For all you know, I could have messed up horrendously."
William went back to his computer screen. "Perhaps, but something with that amount of detail has to be anatomically
correct. And I'm studying botany, not biology, so how would I know what kind of lizard that is? It looks perfect to me. I know it's not native to this area, at least."
"Well, this sketch you will know. It's commonly called poison ivy, I believe."
William turned and walked around the counter, surprising Elizabeth. The counter had been their personal Berlin wall up till now. He moved to her side to study the sketch. "That, I can assure you, is a perfect sketch of Toxicodedron radicans. Why would you sketch poison ivy, though?"
Elizabeth shrugged. "I was curious about it. Generally, when I begin to study something, I copy it."
"Like you copied gold eyes with contacts?" William pointed at her eyes.
"What? Oh, yeah. Contacts." Elizabeth made a face, hoping William hadn't caught her hesitation. This was the second time she'd forgotten her green contacts. Not a good idea. She didn't need more questions.
Will was looking through her sketch book. "You seem to draw some very odd things. Bat wings, bird wings, eyes, cat eyes, some other kind of eyes, and… what is this? Oh, this must be the sketch for the non-tattoo on your arm." He held up the sketchpad, showing her the drawing she'd made last month of her mark.
"Oh, no, that's the copy of it, actually." Elizabeth blushed. Great, go ahead and make him ask more questions about the mark. Good idea, Elizabeth! "I, uh, really like the design." This was why she didn't interact with a lot of people. She
could never keep her mouth shut, and she always said the wrong thing.
"So why were you studying poison ivy? I missed that part."
"Oh, I was just curious about why it never bothers my- uh, my skin." Again, she blushed, an annoying reaction to having made a mistake. She had almost told him that poison ivy didn't affect her wings. It didn't seem to affect her skin, either, but that had never seemed unusual to her. She was only studying the plant because she was trying to studying everything that had anything to do with her wings.
"That is odd, but not unheard of, I believe." Elizabeth looked at his face. His brown eyes were still staring at the picture. "No wonder you have a tattoo. You are an artist." He smiled briefly, so quickly Liz wondered if she had imagined it, and then moved back to his side of the lab. Elizabeth got out her photos and began working on her sketches. The day
passed quickly, and soon it was dark enough outside to warrant dinner.
William was having an internal conversation with himself. Really, it could be labeled more of an argument. Finally, as Liz was shrugging out of her lab coat, he came to a decision. "Elizabeth, would you want to-" He didn't get a chance to finish what he was saying, because just then, a knock sounded at the lab door. Elizabeth was almost skipping as she moved across the room to open it.
"Hey, Jane! I was wondering when you would get here. How did Mary like St. Arthur's?" Elizabeth grinned as she quickly shoved her arms into the sleeves of the hoodie she was holding, suddenly realizing that her T-shirt was too thin to disguise her wings. Even the flicker of worry that Dantem would notice couldn't stop the smile on her face, though. Jane Austen, her best friend in the entire world, had been gone for almost a whole week, helping her younger sister get settled at an all-girls boarding high school.
Jane smiled, her blue eyes twinkling. "She loves it. She had a discussion with Father John about Fordyce's Sermons last night and debated whether or not they are still relevant to modern life." Liz laughed.
"You can tell me all about Mother Beatrice on our way to dinner. Do you want to go to the cafeteria, or try to go off campus and hunt up some decent food?"
Jane shook her head, moving some blond strands that had fallen out of her ponytail and into her face. "No, the cafeteria's fine by me. Would you like to come, William?"
Elizabeth was startled, and turned to look back at her silent lab partner. "You know Janey?" she asked, surprised.
Will nodded. "We had a common class last fall."
Elizabeth glanced back at Jane, who nodded. "Yeah, it was one of the general education classes I had to take. So do you want to come?"
Will shook his head. "Thank you, but I must decline. I have things I need to do."
Jane smiled sweetly and nodded. "Okay then, Liz, let's go eat. Mom insisted that we have lunch before we left Mary,
so that we could take her to the mall. That was hours ago and I'm starving." Elizabeth nodded. Of course Beatrice would want to make sure she had every chance to drag Mary out into public, where they might run into some boys her age, something that she wouldn't find at her new school.
"I still can't believe Mary actually convinced Mother Beatrice to let her go to St. Arthur's," Elizabeth commented, as she grabbed her messenger bag and walked through the door into the hallway, with Jane close behind her.
"I know. I was a bit surprised myself, but you know Mary has always been very good at being persuasive when she believes something is right." Elizabeth tried to hide her smirk and failed.
"If by persuasive you mean she is good at preaching moral sermons, yes, she always was, but that never seemed to have much effect on your mother, Jane."
"Elizabeth!" Jane tried to look disapproving, but failed. "I suppose you have a point, but I'm sure she'll learn at St. Arthur's how to be more moderate in giving her, um, advice."
"Janey, really, are you capable of criticizing anyone?" Jane knew it was a rhetorical question. The tall, statuesque blond had always been referred to as an angel growing up, and it wasn't just a reflection of how she looked. Elizabeth had teased her about it for as long as they had known each other.
Liz had grown up in and out of foster homes, but when she turned fourteen, she was sent to live with the Austen family. Jane and Elizabeth had become best friends almost instantly, and Mr. Austen had never had the heart to send Elizabeth anywhere else. Although Liz was never formally adopted, she considered herself a member of the family, as did the rest of the town where they lived. Jane, a year older than Elizabeth, had come to Meryton College during Lizzie's senior year of high school. Elizabeth would be forever grateful that Meryton was the one college within a five state radius that was famous both for its research facilities and its classics and literature department, which was Jane's major.
"So how's the research project going?" Jane asked, knowing that the topic of Mary and their mother was at an end.
Elizabeth grinned, excited. "I think I've almost reached a breakthrough! I'm close to discovering why I can't stop using sarcasm!"
At that comment, Jane couldn't help but to laugh along with her.
To Be Continued . . .