Even before we walked into the shop I could hear Nova yelling in Spanish at the girl working in the station next to hers.

The girl looked embarrassed as she tried to wipe her table off with a fuming Nova breathing down her neck.

"Can you fit four more in?" I briskly walked up to Nova with Kiana, Henry, and Vince behind me.

She huffed and looked at her wrist watch before cursing in her native tongue.

"I wish you would've called me prior," she breathed and snapped her fingers at the workers and customers inside the shop to get their attention.

"Buff Up is closed! Get out of here sluts before you breathe in the toxic chemicals from the gas leak!"

It took a few minutes but the crowd disappeared and the five of us were the only ones left in the shop.

"Hey! You, you, and you! Get back in here! You expect me to do these clients by myself?" Nova held the door open for the workers who sulked back in.

"You really don't have to be here," I mumbled to Vincent.

"I know, but I want Nova to get to know me."

"The mentally unstable you?"

"No, the me that you tolerate," he spoke.

"But what about the gas leak?" One of the workers asked Nova.

"The only gas leak you're gonna be smelling is the gasoline I pour on your head if you keep chomping your gums! Don't make me throw a match!"

"She seems sweet," Vincent mumbled.

"Well you wouldn't know since you were not...present the last time you guys met," I whispered back.

"I discreetly remember her inhumanly strong right hook."

"Good," I smirked but dropped it when Nova turned her attention back to us.

"Henry and Kiana go to those two losers, Amari you're with Becca and Vincent you're with me," Nova settled in her chair at her table.

"My name is actually Betty—"

Nova's slitted eyes skimmed the girl who swiftly went to wave me to the desk next to Nova's.

"I'd actually prefer you, Nova. Since you've been the only one touching my nails," I reasoned. I really didn't want her and Vincent to interact. It was too soon.

"That's the exact reason. You need to learn how to branch out to other people if I'm ever not here. Besides, this is Vincent's first time here and I would like to put him in good hands—and who's hands better than mine?"

Nova motioned Vincent to sit in the chair in front of her, but I saw the mischievous look in her eyes when he sat his hands on the table.

My focus never left Nova as I went to sit down next to Vincent in front of Betty.

"So Vincent tell me about yourself," Nova took out her clippers and began to chomp off the uneven nails she saw.

"I'm an actor which you already know, and I own a few small pharmaceutical companies." He answered earnestly.

"Wait—you're Vince Carter!" Betty froze while filing my nails down and her gaze was purely on Vincent.

"Get back to your job, bimbo," Nova snapped at the blue eyed woman. "You work in pharmaceuticals you say?"

There was a hint of a smile on his face when he saw the exchange between Nova and Betty.

"I do indeed."

"And do you test your products? Like on human beings?"

"Nova," I cautioned her with a look knowing exactly where she was going with this conversation.

However Vincent held up his hand that Nova wasn't working on.

"No, it's fine, Amari. We actually test whatever we make on a blood cell substitute. It's similar to the ones that humans have, and it's much easier to observe."

Nova was in awe after his explanation, but she quickly shot another question.

"So how long have you been in this kind of business?"

"Since I graduated from college a few years ago."

"Where'd you go?"

"New York University."

"Funny, I study chemistry there."

"Funny, so did I," Vincent quipped which surprisingly put a genuine smile on Nova's face.

Oh no. It was happening.

She was being hooked by his charm too.

"Nova-"

"So Nova, does Amari usually talk this much?"

"I do not!" I defended myself even though I tried my hardest to bite back my words.

"Only when she's got something to hide," Nova spoke nonchalantly.

She must've realized what she said right after she said it because the clippers fell out of her hand onto the floor.

I kept my face emotionless to hide my dirty secret behind my lips.

Nova knew me better than anyone in that shop, and she was right about me hiding something.

She was right. I was indeed hiding something. But instead of it being a secret from Vincent, it was a secret from her.

Vincent turned to me and his crooked lips screamed a million brusque words that were saying the same thing.

He was trying to get her to spill.

Vincent knew about our plans to kill him, but Nova was still in the dark of him knowing.

"What could she be trying to conceal?" He interposed. "She's not trying to kill me is she?"

I was sure my indignation was clawing to the surface and I was doing nothing to hide it.

Trepidation gnawed at my skin but my phone began to shout before I could retort back at Vincent. With a glare that fired at sly self, I fished my device from my pocket and immediately felt lightheaded when I saw the unknown caller.

I could already feel my stomach trying to lurch my lunch up and the cold sweat gather on the back of my neck.

With a nod from Nova, which hopefully was reassurance of her keeping Vincent distracted, I got up and walked to her office in the back of the shop.

Thankfully the woman doing my nails didn't get as far as cleaning the old nude polish from my fingers so I wasn't walking around with wet nails.

Even as I walked through the beaded curtain that led to the back, I could hear Nova quieting Vincent's interrogations with her own scrutiny which did nothing to ease my stress of their prior colloquy.

However I sat their problem to the side so I could focus on the one at hand. After closing the door slightly, I blindly accepted the call and what was to follow.

"Hello?"

"It's all your fault!" I heard my dad disparaged in a hushed tone.

I was taken aback when the automatic voice message failed to greet me on the phone. It had almost slipped my mind that my father was moved to a rehab in another state and was now in a prison of his own.

"Dad, what are you-"

"It was you! She's not here with me, and it's all your fault." He rushed while coating his words in slurs. "How could you do this to me?"

"Dad-"

"Don't call me that! She always wanted you to call me that word but she's gone! You have no right to call me that anymore!"

My shoulders became rigid and I could feel my blood trying to strangle my heart. I couldn't breathe. My endeavor to find oxygen was to no avail.

"Mr. Taylor! Come out of there, and give me back my phone!" A feminine voice rang threw the phone before the line went dead.

I dropped my hands on the desk in front of me not caring if my phone cracked beneath the pressure.

My cheeks were burning but my eyes were dry.

I had two feelings.

The first was confusion.

Were my ears deceiving me? Did I imagine that phone call? Did I hear him right?

The second emotion I was feeling was hard to distinguish. Shards of the emotion was cutting into my heart and made me want to tear it out.

Static was being pushed into my ears and my thoughts became too overbearing to hear. It was like if I had screamed that no soul would hear me.

I felt alone. I was alone.

"Amari."

Vincent managed to stealthily creep into the room. It was as if he floated through the door like a ghost because I didn't even hear the door yawn.

I turned to him curtly as if my anger was toward him. Although it was at first, however my anger with him was a spark compared to fire that the man on the phone blew.

I know what I've done to you in the past is unforgivable, but I need you to trust me.

He needed me to trust him, but could I?

"What were you doing?" I queried trying to distract him from the shattered phone in my hand.

"I wanted to see if you were alright," Vincent disclosed smoothly.

"No, what were you doing out there? Asking Nova those questions about our intentions with you? You have no right to manipulate my relationship with her in any way," I criticized while keeping my fists to my sides to maintain my pacifist stature.

"I know you're upset, but don't you think it's better to tell her that I know everything instead of giving her false hope? She thinks that you're going to murder me. Don't you think it's cruel to have her carry on with this pretentious behavior?"

Vincent had one hand in the pocket of his slacks as one ran over his mouth. I rolled my tongue in and folded my lips.

"I'm being cruel? You're the one who literally threatened her life so I would keep my mouth shut about your insane supernatural healing project, and you expect me to tell her what I know and still leave gaps in the story? What happens when she asks how you found out? Or—or if she sees through my explanation of how she ended up in a freezer? She would kill you and she would disown me. And then I would have no one," I moaned but I didn't allow any tears to fill my eyes.

"Princess," he pleaded and his wanting fingers reached out to my face but I dodged it.

"Enough. That is enough, Vincent. You take my love for games for granted, and I don't want to play as your 'Princess Peach'. I can't do this anymore. You're gonna have to kill me because the last place I want to go with you is Italy."

He stood there blinking hard. I could see the light in his emerald eyes be tainted by dark shadows but I didn't care.

I pushed past him and made my way out of the shop ignoring any protests from Henry, Kiana, and Nova.

Right as I made it outside, I hopped on my skateboard and drifted through the mist that fell from the sky.

The clouds mocked my mood of gloom and all I could do was drift.

Drift through the life I once knew. Drift through the thought of the man who raised me. Drift through the illusion of people I trusted.

I was desolate.