Bad Company (Seven Deadly Sins #1) ✅ Completed

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Original Telephone Model, 1.0

I turned away from the mirror. Dawn was still not answering me and it was really starting to bug me out. She was the one who told me I needed Dante, but when that failed, I was hoping she’d have another suggestion. Now she wanted to go and disappear – why couldn’t little girl ghosts just stay in one mirror instead of gallivanting all around only God only knew where.

I mean really, where did she have to be? What could be so urgent that it took precedence over my own problems?

I was so busy chewing out Dawn in my head that I practically jumped out of my skin when a shrill sound startled me half to death. Trying to catch my breath, it came again.

Hold up. I knew that sound. It took me a second to work it out, but when the sound came for a third time it hit me. 

It was a telephone!

Holy crap! A real phone!  I hadn’t heard one or talked on one for so long I even forgot what they actually sounded like. How messed up was that?

I ran to the counter where Aunt Celeste kept her register. It took me a bit, but I found the old black dinosaur on one of the counter’s lower shelves. I couldn’t believe it! It was black and heavy and looked like it was a first generation phone if ever there was one. Seeing as how Aunt Celeste was older than dirt, I didn’t put it past her to actually own the very first telephone ever made. I picked up the heavy black receiver, which weighed more than my last math book, and brought to my ear.

“Hello, Celeste’s Gift Emporium,” I said tentatively. I wasn’t sure who it could be considering I’d never even heard the phone ring even once since I’d arrived, but I figured it probably wasn’t Aunt Celeste or Dante. I’d never seen either one of them use a phone now that I thought about it.

"Hey…hi, Eliza.” It was Chase. He sounded a little nervous but I was happy to hear from him.  

“Chase? Are you okay?” I asked lamely, closing my eyes in self disgust.

Brilliant. I didn’t exactly know how to ask the cute boy I sort of liked if he was back to his normal, boy-next-door self, instead of the raging psychopath I’d last seen? Well, as normal as any boy his age could be anyway. It wasn’t like I had a whole lot of experience with the species as a whole, so I wasn’t a particularly good judge of what was normal or not.

“Yeah. I’m good. Really good. I…uh, called to say I was sorry. You know, for what I said and how I acted before,” he started. He sounded so sincere I just let him continue without interrupting, which was like a minor miracle for me. “It’s just that I was really pumped to see you and I got a little ahead of myself. I guess I saw Dante and just kinda lost it. He doesn’t really bring out the best in me, you know?”

He didn’t have to explain that last part to me. Dante could even make those unsmiling British guards in the funny hats lose their cool. He was such a jerk; a really stubborn, unyielding, really unhelpful pain in the…

“I’m really sorry, Eliza,” Chase repeated, breaking into my grumbling thoughts on Dante. Dammit. He could even annoy me when he wasn’t around to distract me.  

I switched the phone from my right hand to my left, since my poor right needed a break. “Don’t worry about it. I was just worried about you.” The second the words were out of my mouth, I realized that I really meant them. It was the reason I was so mad at Dante in the first place. Something was happening to Chase and I wanted to help him if I could. Dante knew more than he was telling, and it was driving me crazy.  

"Thanks, Eliza. Do you…do you think we could hang out later then? You know, after you get off tonight?” he asked.

I could almost see his face. He sounded so eager, but I wasn’t sure. Part of me wanted to make sure he was really okay, but part of me also wanted to do some more digging around here. Aunt Celeste had done something, and I really wanted to find out what it was. Dante wasn’t going to be much help that much was clear. Dawn was MIA, so it was up to me to go all Nancy Drew. I had to figure the big mystery on my own, and that meant I had to stick around here.