Chapter Text
A broken breath and a scream slash the stormy night.
Nina’s eyes open to the flash of a lightning and turn to the digital clock, which marks four in the morning; the defeated sigh accompanies the slow movements that lead her to the small kitchen of the house. Through the window, she sees roaring water falling over the whole city, while she herself pours some to accompany a pill. The alarm of the reminder rings and she turns it off with a grimace. Awakened by another nightmare... the past haunts me. She walks down the hall and goes back to lie down in bed, browsing through the phone’s emails in an attempt to find some interesting messages that were not filled with empty sorrows and wishes. Nothing catches her attention and that does not leave her amazed given the time; she then decides to lay the phone on the bedside table but in doing so, some sheets fall scattering at her feet. She stares at the signed resignation for a few seconds and then abandons it in the cabinet drawer, looking at the plane tickets waiting for her the next night. Before sleep can take over again, a thought flies to her old schoolmates - who now haunt her dreams - and she wonders how their lives are progressing.
The silence in the room had become so heavy that neither of them could stand it any longer; Patricia grabbed the door handle, ready to leave the flat, as she glanced at her partner. She cannot understand how it was possible that her happiness suddenly slipped away, without giving her time to realise how quickly it was all happening.
“I’m sorry. I don't know what came over me.” The man's clear eyes, full of regret, try to meet hers, but find them so cold as to be glacial.
“Don't try so hard to be who you're not, Parker, we both knew it wouldn't work.” She wants to believe her words a lot more, but knows it's best to get out of the situation before her heart can suffer more than it should. There is nothing to keep me here any longer.
Once on the train, she twirls the invitation in her hands and sighs, not knowing how she could possibly show a happy face at her sister's wedding, after her life has just fallen apart. What can she possibly say to her demanding parents, who hail her twin sister's happy event and continue to inquire about her failed relationships? Nothing could compare with what she had with Eddie, but the distance created between them when they both chose their university had become insurmountable, especially after spending so many months apart. Nothing could ever replace her feelings for the boy, but Patricia keeps telling herself that a teenage fling could never be the love of her life.
“Embezzlement and fraud...- Jerome turns the paper over in his hands - what an insult to my intelligence.” He sips his coffee and drops the bundle of pages on the table, abandoning himself in his chair. An entire server of accounting records destroyed and suddenly, he had pocketed the company's funds. How could they have come to such conclusions? The growing anger stops as soon as a female silhouette appears in the living room doorway.
“The internal investigation is none of their business; don't give too much weight to such nonsense.” The dishevelled brown-haired girl smiles at him, before coming up to hug his shoulders.
“You look beautiful this morning.” Jerome replies, totally deflecting the conversation, after inviting her to sit on his lap. A tired smile appears on the young woman's face, wishing she could avoid that look of pain hiding behind her husband's blue eyes.
“You shouldn't tell lies, Mr Clarke.” She then jokes, leaving a light kiss on his lips before standing up. The mirrored door of the microwave oven reflects the sad truth: circles darker than her skin under her eyes and dry, chapped lips, outlined by her now pale complexion and expression of perpetual tiredness.
“Have you taken your medication, Mrs Clarke?” The girl's evasive look immediately alerted Jerome, who got up and joined her, clasping her hands in his. “Joy...please. The doctor said you have to be punctual and consistent.” I am tired of struggling. She would like to shout it out, cry for a few days and then load a backpack on her shoulder and leave for unknown destinations, but she promised: they will keep fighting together, until that call comes, the only one that can decide everyone's fate.
Amber had stopped frightening herself for months, but now things are decidedly different: aside for a few near-fatal accidents - she has never been the most cautious person in the cosmos, nor the most popular in the fashion world -, but that her rivals had gone so far as to want her dead seemed excessive. She nervously watched the departure board, wary and frightened, anxiously waiting for the boarding announcement for her flight. It seemed like a coward move to run away, but what else could she do? A rookie designer has no right to escorts or protection, relying on what could very well be labelled as baseless paranoia. Unfortunately, the lack of evidence of the attacks on her had put her in an uncomfortable position and there was no other solution than to go back to her roots, hide away for a while and draw in peace in the old family home.
A sigh of relief escapes her lips as the boarding gate opens and the stream of people pours into the queue. Amber wishes she did not have to admit her extreme need for sedatives, due to the highly stressful period that has robbed her of sleep, but now she can rest, lulled by medication and the feeling that she will be safe and free to fall asleep overseas - without a weapon under her pillow. America has certainly changed her and she never wanted to be the first of her old group of friends able to hold a gun. Fear makes people do crazy things and, sometimes, necessity overrides principle.
The plane pulls onto the clear runway, the sun shines on the white fuselage and the turbines quickly push the aircraft into the air, soothing the girl to sleep, leaving all worries on the ground.
Mara reads the sports paper, stricken with dismay: Mick Campbell, athletics’ young star, out of the Olympics because of a torn ACL. Poor Mick, he must be devastated.
After the bankrupt of the big agency she worked for, she never expected to receive a job offer from her old school. Still, I was the valedictorian, I shouldn't be so surprised. Yet that uneasy feeling lingers under the skin, as if it were the foreboding of a great evil coming. The sorrow over the loss of the sports agent's job had lasted just long enough to receive an e-mail from Amun College. The impression that something was toying with her emotions did not leave her for the whole trip and, therefore, she decided to make a medical appointment to establish the presence of any chemical or hormonal imbalance; this, not after settling into her new abode, surprisingly close to the place of old mysteries and secrets: Anubis house. Mara smiles as she sees a dozen or so teenagers hurrying into the building, probably terrified of being yelled at by the gruff caretaker for being late for dinner. At the exact moment when the girl wonders if the centenarian Victor is still holding the reins of the house, an all too familiar face appears at the door, signalling for the youngsters to enter with haste.
“Alfie?” She approaches, incredulous, amazed at yet another surprise of the week. She veers from her path and reaches for the boy, who returns her amazed expression.
“Mara! It's been a century, how are you?” The young man reaches out and pulls her into a hug that lasts as many seconds as the years they have been out of sight. “Where is Fabian? Why are you hanging around here? I have too many questions, come let me fix you a drink.” After inviting her upstairs, the two meet the historic housekeeper, who greets the girl warmly and happily, and then head to the caretaker's old study. Mara is surprised to find it completely different from how she remembered it.
“That stubborn Victor has decided to retire; you have no idea how long it took Trudy and me to convince him.” Nothing, of what the boy narrates, seems true to her. She shakes off her astonishment, takes a seat at the big wooden desk - mostly cluttered with large, state-of-the-art monitors - and begins to answer a few questions, before asking her own.
“Fabian is facing a serious work crisis, but he promised to join me for the weekend, he'll be glad to find you here. How did you end up as a caretaker?” Alfie pours boiling water inside porcelain cups and offers a basket of infusions for his guest to choose from.
“I live a few hours from here and used to lead the hermit's life until bad luck started haunting me. I had problems with the villa every year for the past three years until the entire water system blew up. The water reached the electric cables and the short circuit almost killed me. I also risked losing months of work, but when I managed to settle back down here I found everything intact.” The boy sips his brew and waits for his old friend to formulate the questions that are sure to have arisen.
“This story seems so surreal...” A shiver runs down her spine, but she lets it pass, voluntarily avoiding dwelling on the bad feeling.
“I'll tell you what. The only thing surreal here is the fact that nobody wants the damn caretaker's job. When old Rodenmaar left, I offered to fill in temporarily while they repair the damage to the house, but no one applied to take over.”
“So what would your real job be?”
“What, you've never heard of Jackal Corporation? I built a video game empire! In my spare time I develop interns' ideas, you know, to see which of them have hidden talents.” Alfie smiles at her and Mara seems to go back ten years, to the sly laughter that accompanied the young man and his partner's pranks. “Trudy made me discover the beauty of tea; I drink it often to calm my mind and code in a more relaxed way. Tell me, what are you doing around here instead?” The girl goes on to recount the last decade and the unfortunate events that led her to reappear as vice headmaster and PE teacher at her old boarding school. The two talk late into the night, until he offers to accompany her to the new residence and help her sort out her luggage. As they are intent on opening the gate before the door, a blond hair peeps out of the black taxi that has just arrived, pulls the small trolley from the trunk and greets the driver cordially, before turning towards Anubis' house.
“Isn’t that...”