Mafia's collateral

Clean up

>>Seraphina

"Sera," Eris raised her head to look at me, "Your heart is beating like crazy~" She stared at me with those big round eyes of hers.

"Oh?" I was a little out of it, "Oh," I forced her off of me, "Yea, I'll get the discharge slip."

"Sera, Brother Azef already went to do that though!" She tried to follow me

"Huh?" I glanced back at her while I walked away, "Oh, but they still must have the official guardian there too." I looked away

"Oh... Okay," She stopped and I noticed Runy a little distance from her, so I knew she'd be fine.

My mind was buzzing. I stared at the phone.

Below the texts I sent, was a text from her side.

There was nothing written in the text. It was merely a full stop

'.'

I kept staring at it. The whole problem was that it came from her number. I pursed my lips.

God..

Someone could have sent it accidentally. But that's the problem.

Someone else has her number. God!! Since when?!? My chest tightened with a suffocating pressure as I struggled to catch my breath, the walls closing in around me as my mind spiraled into a vortex of fear and uncertainty.

Someone else has her number... My texts haven't been going to her, but to someone else?!?

I reached the counter, my thinking so foggy, I didn't even pay attention to what Azef was doing.

Doesn't this mean I didn't imagine that typing icon when I was living at the apartment. Someone was trying to type then, but then stopped. I wasn't hallucinating!!

God, they've had that number since then? Or even before that? For how long?

In that moment of despair, it was as though the world had come crashing down around me,

Texting Mom had been a way for me to get things off of my chest. But I can't do that anymore? My chest felt constricted. Of course, I can't. If the number was reissued to someone, I can't tell a stranger about every detail of my life.

I felt like my world had started spinning. The news was too shocking for me.

What am I supposed to do now?

"Hey," Azef tapped my shoulder, "Are you okay?" I couldn't focus on him, it felt as though the ground had been pulled out from beneath me, leaving me adrift in a sea of confusion and despair.

Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes as I clutched the phone to my chest, the weight of disappointment and grief bearing down on me like a crushing weight. How could this be happening?

Azef turned me around, "Hey!" He grabbed my shoulders, "What's wrong?"

!!!

While I struggled to make sense of the chaos raging inside me, seeing Azef's face actually helped me bring back to reality.

"Um," I shook my head trying to keep myself under control, "I just found out about something..." I tore my gaze away from him as I snapped back to reality.

"What?" He asked.

I shook my head, "You don't need to worry about it," I stepped back, letting his hands slip away from my shoulders. I took some deep breaths, letting myself stabilize.

"I don't need to worry about it?" He said, "When you look so pale?"

"Yea," The nurse at the reception said, "You look like you need a drip, girl,"