The New Coach Chapter 30 (Scott's PoV)

Scott’s PoV:

“How are you feeling?”

The question gave me a deja vu.

“I’m feeling better, thank you for helping me, Mrs. Corlene.” I said to the woman in front of me.

Mrs. Josephina Corlene was a middle aged lady. Well, she was older than my mom. The laugh line on her face was apparent and there were several streaks of gray on her brunette hair. She was probably late 40s or early 50s.

“Alright tell me what happened, Scott. I think I have the right to know because I am the one who saved you, maybe I can help you more,” the mature lady demanded.

Should I tell Mrs. Corlene about all that has happened so far? But on the other hand, I didn’t want her to get involved, she didn’t need to suffer under Darel or Caleb’s control like any other women I knew. Mrs. Corlene wasn’t the person my aunt told me to seek.She was just a kind stranger who saved me. I was escaping from the hospital through the forest behind the hospital. The forest wasn’t a wild unventured one, but a city forest with a few exit ways. My aunt said that I could get to the other exit if I followed the track, the thing was the track was branched and I didn’t know which way to the other forest’s exit. I took a gamble, and just chose a path. After several minutes of walking, I stopped by a riverside. The river had quite a fast current. Meeting a river was usually a mark that I was on the right path to some settlement. I needed to cross the river to move forward, but I didn’t see any proper bridge, but just a makeshift log bridge. Unfortunately, even if it was the right path, it might not be the best path for my current condition. After falling from the second floor of the hospital, my leg wasn’t in the best condition. I sprained my ankle, and it’s hard to keep my balance when I pass the log bridge. I fell into the water, I tried to grasp the log again but the fast current made me miss it. I was swept away by the current. I thought I was going to die, but God probably still wanted me to send Darel and Caleb back to the prison. I was still alive. I was found by Josephina and saved. I was in Josephina's care for several days.

After thinking it through. I decided to tell her. From how I got Caleb to prison, Darel’s arrival to the school, how my family and loved ones are mind controlled by Darel, my meeting with agent Hannah and how she helped me break the influence of Darel from my mind, to the recent accident in the hospital.

“That’s a lot of things happening to you, and it’s kind of unbelievable honestly. Mind control? That’s stuff of fiction! But I believe you, reality can be more unbelievable than fiction.” Daphne replied. There was a glint of excitement in Josephina’s eyes.

“You believe me?”

She nodded her head to confirm, “I am. As an aspiring writer, I prefer to believe that unordinary things like mind control exist. It gives me inspiration for my story.” Josephina paused and then quickly corrected, “I didn’t mean to belittle your life experience just for my excitement and inspiration.”

“It’s okay,” I answered.

Josephina let out a deep breath, “I decided that I will help you as much as I can.”

“You don’t need to involve yourself in this matter, Mrs. Corlene. They are dangerous and able to warp people’s minds. You might no longer be yourself if they get you.” I warned her.

“I insist. I will give you back this if you agree to let me help you. Don’t worry, they won’t get me easily. I am a resourceful woman.”

Josephina was holding my phone and wallet.

I didn’t have any choice but to accept her offer to help. “Okay, you can help me Mrs. Corlene.”

She handed me my phone and wallet back.

The first thing I did was to check my phone, surprisingly it still worked even after it got drowned in the water.

“How is it? I know you need your phone, so I called some repair guys to fix it up. Sadly, I can’t do much with the content of your wallet.” Josephina told me.

So, that’s why my phone was still working even if it drowned in water. There were many new messages and missed call notifications on my phone. I didn’t check on them, instead, I checked my wallet next. There was barely anything left in my wallet, except for my Id card. The note given by Aunt Gail wasn’t there!

“Mrs. Corlene, did you find a paper note when you went through my wallet?” I asked Josephina.

“Paper note? Ah, the one with smeared words. Wait here.”

Josephina left the room for a few moments before coming back with a piece of note in her hand.

“I’m sorry, the original note was torn when I went to check your wallet, the water soaked the paper so a simple touch easily tore it away. I tried to write down what I could copy, sadly many of the letters had been smeared off. This is what I can write down based on my guess.”

I took the note from her. The note read: Lavender Boulevard. There was no number on it, but I think what was written was right. I remember reading it in a glance at the address Aunt Gail gave me before she **** me to go down from the hospital’s second floor, Lavender Boulevard number… Fuck, I couldn’t remember what the exact address too.

I then told Josephina about the problem. That my aunt needed me to go to the address on the note to seek help but I couldn’t remember the exact address.

“Someone who knows Gail Dixon in Lavender Boulevard...hmm…I think we can brute **** this.” Josephina replied.

“Brute ****?”

“Yeah, we just need to ask anyone in Lavender Boulevard whether they knew your aunt or not.”

“Would that take so much time?”

“Just leave it to me, didn’t I tell you that I’m a resourceful woman, I know a bunch of good private investigators we could hire. Just don’t worry about it, we should get the right address in three days at most.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Corlene.”

“Just call me Josephina please, we are now partners, there is no seniority between us.”

“Thank you, Josephina.”

“You had told me your story, I think it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t tell you mine.” Josephina said.

While I was under Josephina’s care, I never tried to ask Josephina about her identity except for her name. But now, we are going to be a team, it might be good to know more about her.

“I’m Josephina Katniss Corlene, Josephina Corlene for short, 51 years old, an aspiring writer in my retirement, but before I retired, I was a chief accountant of a tech company, CyberTel, my former company specialized in developing a new mean of communication device, it was not for public, but for the military. Our company made some fancy devices for them like a communication tool that wouldn’t be easily jammed and decrypted by other countries, less fancy than a mind control device, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the government had contracted some secret lab which could make something that can mind control others, and if there a lab that could make it, there a chance someone aside from the government could have their hand in it. The money from the job was good, I had amassed enough money to live sufficiently well till I died, so I retired a year ago from my position. Nowadays, I start writing to spend my time. Anyway, I got a lot of connections from said job. When you said that your mother is Anna Robinson from Griffin and Associates, I think I had met your mother once, she’s a pretty and smart lady. See how resourceful I am now?”

I nodded. Just based on what she told me; I admitted that she was an amazing lady.

The mature woman continued, “You can take the time to rest, Meanwhile I will go to a private investigator that I know to find out the right address.”

Josephina left me alone in the room so I could get more rest. The peaceful rest somehow felt wrong to me. When I was resting here, out there, Darel or Caleb were making their move. I don’t know how Aunt Gail’s condition was right now. She probably got caught by them already and was mind controlled to do what she didn’t want. My blood boil imagining that Darel or Caleb humiliating my aunt or my mother again, but what could I do right now? Moving blindly would just be me jumping into their trap.

My phone rang again. Right, there were a lot of messages that I hadn't checked yet. There were around ten messages and a dozen missed calls. It came from mom, Agent Hannah, David, and even Aunt Gail.

I clicked open Aunt Gail’s message. She was asking about my whereabouts. Whoever controlled Aunt Gail probably didn’t know that Aunt Gail asked to go to some place.

Next, I opened one of my mom’s messages. Similar to Aunt Gail, she was looking for me. The difference was if Aunt Gail's question was straightforward, mom’s was more sentimental.

“Scott, where are you? I’m worried about you.” – Mom.

I also didn’t reply to my mom’s message. I didn’t know whether Caleb or Darel managed to control my mom again, but they had got my aunt, so there was a chance that they pulled a dirty trick to trap my mom, and brainwash her again. Hopefully, Agent Hannah was able to protect mom. But right now, calling her or telling her my whereabouts was a risk I didn’t want to take.

There was one from Agent Hannah. Not seeking my whereabouts but she asked me to meet her.

“Let’s meet up, I have news about Darel, and I need your help if we want to catch him.” – Hannah.

Looking at the message, it had been a few days since she sent me the message, I’m afraid I had missed the moment. To reply or not to reply. That's the question.

My fingers tapped on the screen to write a reply, but I erased them before sending them to her.

I didn’t know why, but it gave me a bad feeling. I had a feeling that I shouldn’t reply to her and tell her this location. I decided to consult Josephina later for advice before replying to Hannah.

The last was some spams from David.

“You wouldn’t believe me man, Tiffany was asking me on a date again.” – David.

“But, there’s a problem. Ms. Jade, you remember her right? The asian personal trainer at Coach Darel gym I told you about. Ever since Coach Darel’s Gym got closed by the police. I thought I would lose all contact with her, but she texted me today and wanted to meet me. I don’t want to be a two-timing jerk. So which one should I go with?” – David.

The message was sent by him 4 days ago. If I could tell him at that time, I would say that he shouldn’t go with either woman. The two were in close contact with Darel, though I didn’t have proof, they were probably under Darel’s control. But so far, Darel didn’t seem to target David with something bad.

“Hey, Scott, where are you dude? You aren’t randomly dead somewhere, right? Your mom has been searching for you. She even came to my house to see whether you are here. Don’t make us worried.” – David.

In his recent message, David didn’t tell me which girl he ended up going out with. But like the others, he was searching for me.

“I’m fine. I can’t tell you my whereabouts, but if my mother visited your house again, tell her that I am okay. I will be home when I’m done with what I need to do. Don’t tell anyone else. Also, be wary of the two women who want to get close to you.”

I sent my reply to David. If there was someone I could trust right now, probably it was him. Telling David that I was fine was enough. I trust him that he would tell my mom that I was okay.

After the message was sent, I turned off my phone. Getting my reply, I expected David would ask me a lot more questions, but I was not ready to answer more questions from him.

Hours later, Josephina came back. With her was a slim, short haired Indian woman wearing a leather jacket. The Indian girl was younger than Josephina, probably just in her late 20s or early 30s.

“Scott, let me introduce you to Astrid. Astrid here is a private investigator that will help us. She wants to meet you after I told some of your story to her.”

“Hello, Scott, I heard your story from Josephina. I know you hired me to find out about the missing address. But you may be interested in some other thing; because I have information about Darel Lebron that you may find interesting,” Astrid said.

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