Chapter 241: A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
I was stunned that a passing comment resulted in Jun Li building a pool on the ship. It was incredibly sweet of him and something I never saw coming.
Now, there was nothing more that I wanted to do than go for a dip in it, but that would have to wait. Figuring out Pippa’s plans was top of the list. Well, until I managed to get a meeting with the Hive.
"I say we go swimming," said Midnight as he stalked toward me, his intentions written all over his face. I backed away, as much as the couch would let me, with a laugh and held up my hand to stop him.
"We will," I assure him. "But first, I need to know if I am right about Pippa," I said, the laughter in my chest threatening to spill over.
"I fail to see how an image like this would tell us one way or another," grunted Da’kea as he held up his tablet. Getting up, I walked over to where he sat at one of the large, round tables and stood, looking over his shoulder at the image.
"It actually tells a lot," I said softly with a smile on my face. Resting my chin on his shoulder, I ignored the stiffening of his body. Studying the picture in front of me, I pointed out every little thing that I saw.
"Humans say that a picture is worth a thousand words," I said, pointing out where Pippa was standing in the background. She must have been tagged in it for some reason because there was no way she would willingly put something like that out there. "And this one shows you her at a very unguarded moment."
The picture was taken at a frat party of some kind. There were red solo cups and beer cans all over the place, and everyone’s face was flushed with happiness. The main focus was the three girls dancing in the middle of the room, their arms up in the air as they let the beat of the music dictate their moves.
All three girls had a guy grinding up on them, an arm wrapped around their waists, while others at the party continued to have a good time. And yet, there was Pippa leaning against a far wall, almost completely out of sight. If not for the fact that she was clearly glaring at the camera taking the picture.
Her arms were folded across her chest, and one hand gripped the red plastic cup in her hand so tightly that it was threatening to collapse in on itself. There was nothing but pure hatred in her eyes as she stared at the lens.
"Ye’tab," I said, narrowing my eyes. "Do you still have that beach picture?" I asked, never taking my eyes off the tablet in front of me.
"I do," he answered. He stood up and walked over to where I stood, placing the tablet on the table beside Da’kea’s.
"Notice anything?" I asked with a smile on my face. Pippa, oh Pippa. You really can’t stand anyone being better than you, can you?
"The females," grunted Tha’juen as he, too, joined us. "They are the same."
"Yup," I said as I looked back and forth between the two pictures. "Here, Pippa is acting like they are her best friends in the world," I continued, pointing to the beach scene where Pippa and another girl had their arms around each other. "And here is how Pippa truly feels." I pointed to the look of unadulterated rage in the second picture.
"Huh," grunted GA as he looked back and forth. "And this proves that she is planning something?"
"Not really," I admitted with a shrug as I flipped to the next picture on Pippa’s social media page. As if realizing that someone was taking a picture with her in it, Pippa’s expression completely morphed into a look of happiness and delight. But the poor cup in her hand was still suffering. "But it does show that she is a lot more complicated than I had first assumed her to be."
"Could you please explain this one to me?" asked Tha’juen, holding up a picture of some guy going crazy at a football game. I scanned the audience, looking for some reason why that one would be up on the guy’s tablet.
And there it was, standing beside the guy having a good time was a much smaller girl, probably his sister by the looks of things. She had her two hands clasped around her mouth, probably cheering on her team. The smile on her face and the sparkle in her eyes were completely different from the last time I saw her.
"It’s a football game," I said, my voice sounding hoarse as I forced it out around the lump in my throat. "It’s a sport that people play and that others go to cheer on their favorite team." I stretched out and enlarged the picture on the screen, focusing on the girl instead of the guy.
There was a sharp gasp as Midnight stared at the picture. "Is that—?" he asked, his eyes drawn to the look of pure, innocent happiness on her face.
"A lot different, huh?" I asked. Dawn-Marie. Her name was Dawn-Marie.
It took Da’kea and the rest a few more minutes to recognize the girl with her hands clasped around her mouth. But to be fair, the last time they saw her was the last time she was alive.
"They need to die," growled Ye’tab, turning away from the picture of the girl we found on the second research vessel.
"They will," I assure them, flipping to the next picture. However, there was something almost comforting about seeing her happy. It didn’t erase the vision in my head of her strapped to the table, but it did replace it.
We went back to silently studying the information in front of us, me on the couch while the other guys stayed sitting at the table. Even GA and Midnight picked up a tablet and started scrolling through them.
However, my eyes refused to leave the picture of a pissed-off Pippa at the frat party. There was something sinister about the way she held herself when no one was looking. Like the idea that she wasn’t the center of everyone’s world was the worst thing to ever happen to her.
