"What is that?"
Ewan’s gentle voice, barely over a whisper, flitted past Athena’s ear, dragging her from her thoughts.
Athena wordlessly gave him the phone. When he accepted it, when she looked up, she noticed that they had the attention of the whole table.
Of course, they had seen her go slightly pale and shocked at the ssage. She mused, picking her fork to pretend normalcy, dropping it back, giving it up. She couldn’t fool those at the table, not even her friends who had taken a back seat, in so way, in the crisis so far.
"It’s Fiona," she said when Aiden cocked a brow, unable to contain the curiosity.
If the table’s silence was at fifty percent, it shot up to a hundred. Even her children had stopped chewing, everybody’s breath holding.
"Fiona..." Chelsea drawled, looking at the people at the table. "The girl that wrecked your first marriage?"
Athena nodded, realizing that her friend was missing out on a couple of stories concerning her previous nesis. "There have been noticeable improvents in her behaviour since then..."
Chelsea’s scrunched face revealed that she didn’t believe Athena one bit. "You are going soft again..."
And yes, the latter didn’t know that Fiona had helped her find the recent cure for the Grey Variant.
"You know..." she said, collecting the phone that Ewan handed to her, her fingers brushing his lightly. "I will tell you all about it when all this madness is over. A lot of gist..."
That intrigued Chelsea enough—not more than knowing Fiona’s recent ssage though. With the others, she asked Athena what Fiona had sent.
Athena shrugged, exhaling softly. "She wants to et up... the location is not far from here."
Old Mr. Thorne frowned when Athena followed up with an affirmative response.
"I have to find out what she wants..."
"No, you don’t have to," Gianna stated, picking her fork again with a sharp clink against the plate. Fiona didn’t warrant much ntal stress as far as she was concerned.
"Really, I have to. She sent the formula for the cure to the Grey Variant. If anything, I’m thankful to her. I’m not sure I would have cooked up a cure that fast, or even at all, considering I had overlooked that formula."
Gianna’s mouth fell open. "You didn’t ntion it..."
Athena shrugged again, a small tired smile flickering. "A lot has been happening. I will tell you all about it, maybe when I am back from seeing her."
"You are not going alone." Old Mr. Thorne stated in a tone that left no room for argunt. His eyes, though aged, were stern.
"As much as she had been of help, it’s only once. She can’t be trusted. Who knows if that had been a good play on her side?"
Athena found her grandfather’s mind quite imaginative, but she could understand his worry. Fiona didn’t exactly have a stellar record.
"No problem, Pa. I will be going with Ewan then. The distance isn’t too far."
"Then, we will wait here. We will co to the location if we don’t hear from you in the next thirty minutes."
Athena opened her mouth to protest against Aiden’s deduction, but the latter was still talking.
"Precautions, Athena. Precautions. This is like a red season... they are getting desperate... we can’t afford to lose any of us, not now when the ga is almost over."
She bit her lip and let go of the protest. "Okay then," she muttered, and fired off the text to Aiden’s phone before getting to her feet.
Ewan followed her quickly, winking at Florence when the latter admonished him to keep Athena safe while staying safe too. The older woman snorted—happily though—before waving them away.
"You know she is so happy that we are together, that I am sure she is already making color combinations for a wedding..."
Ewan’s mood brightened the most when Athena made a point that suggested they would be getting married soon. He was over the moon.
"You don’t bla her now, do you? I’m, after all, her son in many ways..."
Athena scoffed but she didn’t argue. He was right after all. She knew that Ewan had been a godson to them, and would have been with them after his parents’ death but for the intervention of Alfonso.
Alfonso.
What was the latter up to? Was he siding with his daughter on this, or was he siding with whoever it was that was behind this madness?
She sighed, hastening her footsteps, glad that where Fiona had picked wasn’t far from the restaurant.
"What do you think she wants from you?" Ewan asked after a few monts, his voice low, wary.
"I don’t know really. Maybe paynt for the information she gave ?"
Ewan frowned, eyes narrowing. "And would you pay her, if it ca to that?"
Athena nodded without hesitation. "I would. Things would have gone way awry without her intervention. Surely, you understand that." She added the last part when she realized that Ewan’s silence was undertoned with non-approval.
"One ti, yeah?"
"Yeah, one ti," she assured, stopping at the end of a street they had entered into.
She looked here and there but saw no Fiona. She checked her ssage again. This was the location that had been in the text. Did she miss sothing? Maybe so code?
"Where is she?" Ewan murmured. This street, at this ti, was sowhat dark, making him quite uneasy. He wished he had co with a gun. What if the gang had found Fiona’s ssage and had used it to get Athena here?
He wouldn’t forgive himself if sothing happened to her, but she had been bent on coming here.
"Maybe you can call her?"
Athena shook her head. "That’s too risky."
Her brows furrowed when a door two houses down opened, and out strutted two persons whose stature suggested they were female, but who were dressed like males—walking like males too.
It was a show though, she noticed; it was too blatant, too new a habit.
Seeing as they were approaching her and Ewan, she reasoned that this would be Fiona, and who again? Her eyes narrowed when her mind supplied a distant na.
Heronica?
And what was that house they had just co out from?
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