"Okay mom, we're alive!"
Janet walked into the house, being followed by Evelyn and Leon. Evelyn just looked at everything the place held before following wherever she was going. Six brilliant portraits of various people, presumably the previous leaders of Privis lined the hallway, and the walls behind them were crimson, with some kind of pattern of curved golden vines lining them. It said 'rich and fancy' but in the most generic way possible. But in terms of shape, she was expecting something bigger. She half expected the large house to be a straight up mansion, or the Fellonis to somehow have access to technology that makes houses bigger on the inside, but no, it just seemed like the inside of a house. Fancier and bigger than hers, obviously. But still recognizable as a house.
"Good to know." Her mother said. "Jay's been hanging out in your room."
"What's he been up to?"
"Hell if I know." Janet's mom said with a roll of her eyes. "Anyway, there's popcorn in the kitchen if you want it. But no funny business in your room, got it?"
"Mom, what the hell?" Janet muttered. "We're just watching movies."
"You never said what kind."
Her mother strode away, surely to do some important Felloni stuff, leaving the trio to get to Janet's room.
Okay, Evelyn thought, now it's more clear that Janet came from wealth, because these are too many god damn stairs. What seemed like two solid minutes of a winding staircase to the second floor. Like, surely rich people see having these stairs is a detriment, right? If she fell down the stairs leading to her apartment, she'd be fine. But winding staircases seem like a good way to have a home invader break your neck with a single push. But whatever, they were on the second floor.
"Okay, where's your room?" Evelyn asked, looking around at the eight closed doors in her direct vision that could house it.
"The attic." Janet said calmly as she pointed to the ladder leading to it. Evelyn, for some odd reason, felt compelled to strangle her.
"Why the attic?" Leon asked on her behalf. Honestly, she was thankful Leon's newfound income stream didn't leave him a complete lobotomite.
"More space, duh." Janet replied with a quick shrug as she climbed the ladder. Evelyn still felt like that was a bullshit answer, but stayed quiet.
But after they finally got to her room, it was so…underwhelming. Compared to the walls everywhere else, hers were just wood, albeit with a fancy ceiling lampshade with the same pattern and a bunch of jewels dangling off it that didn't match anything else in the room. But the ceiling light wasn't on, instead some pure white LED strips lined the top of the walls, bathing the entire room in a neutral light. And instead of actual flooring, she just had a bunch of carpets of different sizes strewn across the floor in what almost looked like some glamourous attempt to look poorer than she was, which just pissed off Evelyn even more. And on top of that, the place was messy. Evelyn kind of expected Janet to be the type of person to drink a ton of energy drinks and collect the cans afterwards, but instead of being, like, on a shelf or something, they were just strewn across the floor. Alongside various bags of other snack foods, which crossed the line from gross to kind of disturbing. Like, the fact she was still so small was a genuine mystery. But then again, she does wear a lot of baggy clothes, which were also all over the place, including in front of her wardrobe, all her folded clothes on an old chair by her massive bed that somehow got in here. And across from the bed was a huge monitor, which she'd presumably be playing the films from.
"Pretty messy in here." Leon said flatly as his foot unintentionally hit off a can and sent the sound echoing across the room.
"Look man, it was worse before you got here. Just know I made sure to leave the underwear in the laundry." Janet said casually. "Now, I've got some classics lined up from my mom's DVD stash, like…The View from Looking Good in Dancing Shoes. Also, Leon, couldn't find the action movie you liked, but I did find a knockoff online that looked really funny. And Infinity on High for Evelyn to fantasize about."
"There's more to it than the makeout scenes." Evelyn reminded.
"Look, we can all enjoy Sharla Bancroft and Josceline Fenwick getting it on, okay?" Look, I'll start with the parody of Leon's pick."
Janet loaded up the movie from the totally legit website, and they watched the movie on Janet's bed. Minus Evelyn, she just thought it obviously sucked. The characters acting was stilted and at least one of them clearly had little grasp of English, and all the backgrounds were cheap green screens. And at least half of the explosions were cheap PNGs slapped on top of the frame as if nobody would notice. Jay and Janet were laughing their asses off, and Leon was just staring in disbelief.
"Mind if I go to the bathroom?" Evelyn asked after about twenty minutes. "You don't need to pause the movie."
"When you leave the attic it's the second floor on your left." Janet replied, not looking at her.
Evelyn left the attic, and was alone on the top floor. No type of servants seemed to be around, and she couldn't hear any traces of Evelyn's mother. Or see her dad, if he was even around. Whatever, all she needed to go was find something of value and hold it for ransom. Then she'd have the money for a new violin. Now, what looked valuable or sentimental, she was asking? Nothing on this floor, anyway. Maybe behind the door was the mother's room, but that was it.
She went downstairs, and in front of her was a man. Short black hair. White button up shirt. Glasses. Grey Eyes. General nervous vibe around him.
"Hey, you a friend of Janet?" He asked.
"Yeah, just…looking for a bathroom." Evelyn lied.
"Right next to the kitchen." The man replied cheerily.
He walked past Evelyn, and she was once again able to try and find something. She glanced out a window as she paced through the halls, and outside was a gravestone. Just one, so it didn't seem to be a family graveyard. But she wasn't about to rob a dead body, ignoring obvious moral reasons, she didn't know how to store one without the smell taking over her apartment, so she tried finding something else. The family portraits were way bigger than she expected, so that also wasn't an option. She began opening doors until she found a bedroom, presumably her mother's. There was another room inside, and it was a walk in closet. Surely that had to have something.
She crept inside, and inside was several articles of clothing. Stuff like suits and old shoes, certainly expensive looking and designer, possibly custom tailored. She looked through the clothes to see what looked most valuable, and at the very back, she saw it. A wedding dress. Looked as expensive as anything else there, but would obviously have the biggest return on investment should this plan go off. Bonus points if it was passed down from generation to generation, with the expectation Janet would wear it. You know, should Janet find someone desperate or braindead enough to marry her.
Evelyn opened the door again, seeing nobody in the hallway. There were distant footsteps, but that was probably her mom, and the sound was opposite the door out. So she grabbed the dress and began the trip out. Nobody bothering her as she dashed out, the portraits of Janet's ancestors silently sitting in judgement. Whatever, have fun judging her in hell, you criminal fucks.
"Evelyn?"
At the bottom few stairs was Janet.
"Why are you holding a wedding dress?" Was the next line from her mouth.
"One grand and you get it back." Evelyn immediately snapped.
"What?" Janet said as she walked down the last few steps.
"One grand, and you get your mother's precious wedding dress back." Evelyn repeated.
"Is that my mom's?" Janet asked.
"Yeah!" Evelyn shouted, internally kicking herself for shouting at a frequency Janet's parents could probably hear.
"Huh." Janet shrugged. "It looks ass. Anyway, what you need the money for?"
"Excuse me?"
"I mean, someone like you going to the trouble of stealing a wedding dress. Probably need the cash for something important, right? Your parents lose their jobs or something?"
Evelyn stared in disbelief. She was expecting the rich girl to be distressed. She wanted the rich girl to be distressed. She wanted some kind of leverage, and she couldn't even get that. What she assumed to be a staring match continued for another few seconds, until Janet decided to make her guess.
"It's for the violin, isn't it?"
"Maybe." Evelyn replied as she narrowed her eyes.
"I mean, if it is I can just buy it."
Janet opened her phone and scrolled through it for about half a minute, eventually landing on what looked to be a nice violin. Three hundred.
"Yeah, I'll buy it for you if you ally with me for the games." Janet said casually.
"Why?" Evelyn asked.
"Because I like your vibe, I guess." Janet shrugged. "This little music rivalry we have, it's encouraged me to do better, ya know? This thing we have is pretty fun."
"Fun?" Evelyn asked. The violin scholarship she spent years working towards, possibly one of, if not the only thing that could give her a life she could take pride in, a life defined by something other than slaving away at a passionless factory job for the rest of her life. And Janet just saw all of it as 'fun'?
"Yeah, it's just fun to the rich girl, isn't it?" Evelyn yelled. "Just throw money at all your problems while living in your attic pretending to not have money, for fun! It's all so fucking fun, isn't it?!"
"Evelyn?" Janet said as she put her hands to her face. "That's not how I meant it, come on."
"You know what?" Evelyn yelled, throwing the dress to the ground. "Keep the dress, I know what to hold onto!"
She reached for the sunglasses, and Janet immediately tried jumping back, tripping on the back of the stairs. Evelyn leapt for her and snatched the sunglasses off her face.
"Two grand, and you get these back!" She yelled.
"Give those back!" Janet said through panicked breaths. She slapped the back of her right hand with her left, and her revolver came out. She picked it up and pointed it straight at her.
"Give them back!" She repeated.
Her eyes were shut tightly, so she could probably only track her sounds. Evelyn, sunglasses in hand, crept towards the door and began to open it. The big door creaked, and a gunshot was heard.
It was to the left of Evelyn's hand. An inch closer, and she'd be down at least a finger. The sound of 'what's going on?!' was heard, and two quick pairs of feet were racing through the hallway.
"What is going on here?" Janet's mother repeated, with her dad just looking terrified behind her.
"She took my sunglasses!" Janet replied, her trembling hands still holding the gun.
"Miss, I'll need you to give back the glasses."
"Two grand." Evelyn repeated.
"Miss, if you don't hand them over right now I will call the police." The mother said sternly, getting her phone out while staring at her with her blizzard blue eyes.
When Janet heard that, she dropped the gun, and another bullet discharged right next to Evelyn. She opened her eyes, tackling Evelyn to the ground and forcing the glasses off her. Evelyn ended up staring right into Janet's pure grey eyes, the same her dad seemed to have. She quickly put the glasses back on, and her casual demeanour seemed to return with it.
"It's fine, mom." She reassured. "No need to get the cops out."
The mother put her phone away, but continued to stare into Evelyn's eyes with her own.
"Leave." Was the only word she said, and Evelyn obliged, rushing out as soon as she got the chance.
As she walked back home, she just wondered what the big deal was regarding Janet's glasses. Was it the colour of her eyes? They weren't as vibrant as her mother's, but they looked fine to her.
Probably some rich person thing she didn't get. Have fun with that, Janet.