I heard my burner phone ring. Shit! I haven't changed the SIM yet.
I picked. "Tori, you shouldn't have called this line back..."
"Are you okay?"
I sniffed. "Trying to be."
"You saw the article, didn't you?"
"What article?"
"Don't play dumb with me!"
After all these years, she still knows me better than anyone else.
"So what if I did... a news like that was surely gonna hit the screens soon."
"Yeah, I guess..."
"What?"
I could sense something was wrong.
"Nothing just—"
"Tori."
"Look, I didn't wanna tell you. I mean, you had made plans for a long time. I was afraid that if I told you, then you would just go off the grid again, and you wouldn't get the chance to see your grandparents."
"Tori, talk to me. What's wrong?"
"It's about Ares."
I hated how much my insides shook whenever his name was mentioned. It was as if my entire body was designed to act on it like a switch.
