“What?” I said, too dumbfounded to say anything else. “What does that mean?”
For all intents and purposes, this seemed like a school club I was being recruited to. We didn’t have them in Greece, but I could still see the telltale signs. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it.
“A place for people like us,” said Amdis, nodding towards Manos. “Someone like me, without powers.” He looked over to the girl. “Someone like you, who was cursed by them.”
She chuckled. “Beatrice Accardi,” she said with a slight bow. “And I believe we have a lot in common.”
“Do we, now?”
“If you look at our stories, I’d say yes.” I clenched my hands. No, not just a school club. The way she said that was too knowing. And no matter how similar our ‘stories’ were, or how fast gossip travelled, there was no way they’d know about…the incident with Maria.
Birgit’s brother signed something else, and the other two signed something back. Still, their gaze flitted to me and Ahmed–mainly me–too much for my liking. For some reason it made me feel small.
Finally the guy–Manos–turned back to us, now looking uncomfortable. “We have to go now, but there’s something Will wanted to ask.”
“I-” That took me by surprise. “Sure.”
“Did-did she do that to you?” he asked, pointing to my neck.
He couldn’t possibly mean Birgit. Could he? “Your sister?” I asked ‘Will’ while barely managing to restrain any anger I had at the possibility. These past few months, Birgit had been the only one that was truly there for me and–even though she could be a bit temperamental–she would never do something like-like this.
I knew their relationship wasn’t the best, but I didn’t expect an accusation like that from him.
He stopped his friend from signing. “I’m sorry. We’ll talk another time. Ahmed will explain everything.”
With that, the trio left, leaving me and Ahmed alone. He was the one who broke the awkward silence that followed, telling me to follow him and go to a nearby cafeteria where he would explain what this was. We sat on the farthest table, opposite of each other.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Jensen was the one who introduced me to the society,” he said after we had placed our orders. The whole thing felt like a movie, with us sitting at the corner table of a small cafe, away from the few people that were in.
“Still doesn’t answer my question,” I said to him. “What is the society? A school club? A local organisation?” I looked around us, before leaning close to him and whispering harshly. “Did you fake the moon landing?”
Uncharacteristically, Ahmed chuckled at that. “We are not a school club. Not just a school club at least. It’s made up of people who, due to circumstance, find themselves at the bottom of this society of ours. People like me, you, and William. We help each other find our place in this world. Both here, in other academies, and even outside of them.”
I supposed it made sense. Jensen helped Ahmed get into the school like normal even though his lack of powers was a deterrent. And he had found and trained me and Birgit, even though both of us had a ton of issues.
Something like that, but on a larger scale, it sounded nice. Which meant that something was also going to be wrong.
“There is an issue however,” said Ahmed with a heavy breath. It was at times like this that I wished he was more like Iraklis or even Ivan and just said more words. “Maria Papadopoulou. You know her.”
There it was. At the sheer mention of her, I almost wanted to run, but I stopped myself. No more running.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” I said instead, gripping my hands together. The texture of my gloves felt coarse and rough even though it wasn’t. I could feel it touching my skin discreetly, and not for the first time I found myself cursing them.
“You’ll have to,” said Ahmed, now sounding more insistent. “She is with us too.”
“Then I shouldn’t be.”
“You’re talking nonsense. I don’t know exactly what happened but-”
“Then drop it!” I was too loud and some of the other people turned to us momentarily. “You don’t know what happened, so just shut up.”
He was now looking at me like he was trying to decide what his next move was going to be and I still wanted to leave. Our drinks arrived during that time, and I saw the waitress glance at my choke marks, lingering a little before she left.
“Just think about it,” said Ahmed with a sip from his drink. “Now, how has Atlantis treated you so far? Other than last night of course.”
“How do you know about that?”
“According to Bianca and Manos, gossip travels fast in Atlantis.”
I chose to put that whole thing at the back of my mind, and just have a nice discussion with my…friend? Acquaintance? I didn’t know. But it looked like I couldn’t go half a month without something weird happening, so for now I’d enjoy the quiet.
And pray that it lasted.