Triple Point

Chapter 22: Sleuthing and Sorries

They left the store and drove home in record time—Kat didn't even pause whenever she greeted someone she knew. It didn't take long for Camilla to be forced onto the living room couch with some aspirin in one hand and a cup of water in the other. After giving Camilla strict instructions to rest and ordering Elsie to enforce those instructions, Kat hurried off to put the groceries away before busying herself in the garage that had been converted into a wood shop.

Once Elsie made sure Camilla took the aspirin, there was nothing better to do but wait until Kat gave them permission to do otherwise. Elsie found a movie playing on TV, thankfully not one of hers, and set the volume on low before settling herself into the recliner chair with her phone. Her mom would throw a fit if she caught Elsie sleeping on the job (wasn't it supposed to be Camilla that was watching Elsie?), so she needed all the help she could get to stay awake. She took her time scrolling through social media, searching for posts that caught her eye.

The first was from Jordan with a selfie of him and Minyoung in a car with burgers and fries on display between them, the iconic red and white wrapping clearly visible. Jordan had taken the photo from the passenger seat and was making a small heart shape with his index finger and thumb; Minyoung was focusing on driving in the background, possibly unaware that Jordan was taking a photo with him.

As Elsie added a "like" to the post, she noticed Mack had done the same. She wasn't sure when Jordan and Mack added each other, but Elsie made a mental note to question Jordan about it the next time they met up.

Mack's own post came up shortly after, showing him getting fitted for his For the World costume. As expected, Jordan had liked the post already, and Elsie added her own acknowledgement to it as well.

Further down was a video from Hitomi showing what looked to be a variation of Japan's guardian uniform getting destroyed by a group of scientists. Or, at least, they tried to destroy it, using things like knives and blowtorches, but the fabric stayed in relatively decent shape. Based on Hitomi's caption, it was a prototype uniform her company was working on that was designed to be resistant to mild attacks.

Elsie didn't know much about the science behind it, but it definitely looked impressive. Hundreds of thousands of other people seemed to agree, judging by the amount of likes it got. As Elsie was adding her own to the mix, she noticed that Camilla's was there as well.

Elsie had added Camilla as a friend on the site shortly after her rescue several years ago, and Camilla had returned the gesture. After their falling-out though, Elsie had since hidden Camilla's posts, not wanting to unfollow her completely out of concern of the public's inevitable scrutiny that would follow. Elsie hadn't known or cared if Camilla still followed her or if she ended up blocking her completely, but if Elsie could see her activity then Camilla must have just left things as they were.

As if expecting to find some explanation for this, Elsie snuck a glance at Camilla from her peripherals.

Camilla had seated herself on the far end of the couch so she could set her water glass on the side table, and she had one elbow on the arm rest so she could use that hand to prop her head up. Her gaze was fixed towards the quiet TV, but it was apparent that she wasn't actually watching it with the way her eyes kept drifting closed and snapping open again. At one point, she squeezed her eyes shut and used the hand that was holding her head up to gently massage the space between her pinched eyebrows.

"You can go to sleep, if you want," Elsie said before she could stop herself from willingly admitting to staring.

"No, it's fine," Camilla replied, sitting up straighter. Thankfully, she didn't seem to notice Elsie's unintentional creepiness.

Camilla didn't look as fine as she claimed to be, but Elsie wasn't going to press her, and instead turned back to her phone. Curiosity got the better of her and she tapped on Camilla's username in Hitomi's post and navigated to her profile.