Writer in the Dark - J. HALE

23 - ɪʟʟɴᴇꜱꜱ

ATHENA HAD remained at home for three days, not wanting to leave in case someone happened to turn up at her door. She watched movies, scrawled random ideas into journals, read and annotated through her entire stack of new books that had been delivered at the beginning of the week and talked to a few people on the phone. Every time the phone rang her heart leapt and then fell, once she discovered that he hadn't been the person on the other end. So, when the phone rang as she was feeding Benji and listening to music she ran across the room and picked up her fully charged phone, answering it without even looking. "Hello?"

"Athena." She furrowed a brow as the wave of disappointment relaxed the tension in her shoulders. Sleep sounded good right about now. She soon tagged onto the concern that wove itself in his voice, embedding deeply as if something was seriously wrong.

"Jake? What's going on?" she asked frantically trying to listen for background noise. Well, he wasn't in a hospital so that's good.

"Dad," he paused. "He uh-" Jake paused again as great whooping cough echoed down the phone. It sounded so horrific and painful that Athena recoiled, feeling such sympathy for Billy.

"That's a cough and a half," she grimaced, now fully understanding why Jake had been so concerned. Athena struggled to remember the last time Billy had gotten sick. They had sent letters ever so often, she would send them to his house and he would send them to whatever address was on the bottom of the last one and would adjust hope that she got it. Not once, in around one hundred letters, had he mentioned a sickness. Not that Billy would ever complain that much about something like that. She wondered whether it was something due to him not phasing anymore.

"I know." Jake sighed with a shuffle that sounded like him running a hand through his hair.

She tensed up, not wanting to ask the very question that popped into her head at that moment. But she dispelled any negative thoughts and replaced them with hoping ones. "Is it bad?" she asked softly, the words coming out strained.

He sighed deeply and turned on a tap, washing out a glass. "I don't know. He refuses to go to the doctor."

She glanced to the clock, seeing that nightfall was in a few hours away. Athena didn't fancy running through the forest at night, given that it would be harder to see any attackers. Victoria just kept coming back, like a spot that just forever scarred a mortal's face. As long as she was back in three or four hours. That's all. Billy's health was important and she needed to be there for him, leaving Jasper a note just in case would be enough. Surely? "I'll be there in three minutes," she responded, keeping her voice light despite the dread that built inside. She didn't want to see him sick, it hurt enough to see the wrinkles in the corner of his eyes that grew in length as he smiled. She hated that one day he would leave forever and there was nothing she could do to stop it. His getting sick was just the beginning of a cycle that she had dreaded ever since the news of him not phasing anymore was written in a letter. He had decided the day after he met Jacobs Mother, a mortal he happened to imprint on. She hung up the phone and grabbed the nearest piece of paper, scrawling a note that she left on the kitchen counter - just in case.

She ran straight there, not even pausing when she came across a few wolves who she would normally stop to chat to. Jake opened the door as she walked to the house - having to slow down her pace due to an unrecognisable heartbeat in the distance- and with a reassuring smile to him, she headed into Billy's bedroom. "What happened to you?" she asked softly as she sat on the very edge of the bed, looking over the weak and paled shell of her best friend.

He smiled weakly as her voice reached his ears, feeling somewhat reassured inside. "Wolf immunity doesn't last forever. It leaves after a while of not phasing. Every illness," he spoke slowly and breathlessly, pausing to let another cough (that made Jake wince) out. "I've ever fought off is coming back to haunt me," he sighed, already done with the illness that had he had only experienced for two days. "Did Jake call you?"

"He did. He's really worried," she sighed, listening to him tapping his finger against the wooden table. "Why not tell him?"

"Just in case he turns," he replied slowly, a scratchiness to his voice. It made a lot of sense. He didn't want to make Jake worry about eventually going through the same thing if he did end up turning, his birthday was coming up soon too. Billy thought that telling him would just add even more stress to the turning process and he didn't want his son to suffer the things that he could prevent. So Athena agreed to keep silent.

About twenty minutes passed with soft chatter, mostly from her as it pained him to speak too much. During that time, Athena had somehow managed to lie on the ground next to his bed, as she looked for patterns in the ceiling. Some of the spots looked like constellations to her but Billy thought she was insane. "You know what I miss?" he muttered, breaking a created silence that occurred as Jake answered the front door.

"Mh?" she hummed, half lasing to the conversation Jake was having with one of his friends. It wasn't that she was nosy, she had just heard something rather concerning to begin with and wanted to check-in. The conversation flowed quickly between the two teenagers, revolving around the topic of Sam and his 'pack'.

"The old you," he replied and Athena's attention was fully caught. She sat up and turned to face him, wrapping her arms around her legs.

"The old me?" she echoed with a raised brow of befuddlement.

"When you would talk proper and use words like 'magnificent' to describe the smallest things," he paused, smiling softly at the many memories that flooded through his brain. "And the accent, it's almost disappeared now."

She chuckled softly. "I can bring forward that delightful being any time I do please," she spoke in a heavy British accent, bringing back how she used to talk in an instant - it was muscle memory. She laughed at how absurd she sounded to her modernised ears and vowed to never speak like that again - unless she happened to make a trip back to England. But Billy smiled at how familiar it sounded, the voice becoming something that took him straight back to the beginning of his life. She dropped the accent and continued with a more serious tone, "I had to change Billy, you know that."

"I know you did, I can't help but miss it when we were younger," he replied with the same smile, one that shattered her heart. It sounded too reminiscent of the past. As if they hadn't been running through the forest together just yesterday. Sometimes it felt like that to her - especially on the more lonely days of her existence.

"What you trying to restrain me from killing everyone?" she chuckled, trying not to be too loud so she would disturb Jake (who had promptly passed out on the sofa while watching some documentary on the television.

"And the walks through the forest at night," he added, only increasing the smile that grew on her face.

"Those were fun," she reminisced, lying back down on the wooden floor. "Oh! Remember when my eyes finally went fully gold so we went out celebrated and you got drunk," she laughed, remembering every single messy second of that night in an instant. It had been so eventual that Billy slept for at least sixteen hours afterwards - getting a very overly dramatic telling off from his Mother. Oh, how she missed her.

Billy remained silent, trying to wrack his brain for the memory that she talked so fondly about. "No," he replied simply with a furrowed brow. Athena burst into laughter that hurt her stomach, waking Jake in an instant but she couldn't help it. She laughed so hard that Jake started awkwardly laughing at the situation that clearly amused her and his Dad to the point of pained laugher for the both of them. She momentarily forgot about all the drama going on in the vampire world and just laughed with her old friend, appreciating her existence a little bit more than before.