"Relax, Tria. You have hardly touched your food."

"Yeah, well, you've hardly told me why you've dragged me all the way out here."

Frenice paused in his meal - some weird pasta dish with really thick noodles and a strange type of white sauce - and glanced up at me. He gestured to my plate, which was the same thing as his, although I didn't know what it was called. He had asked for a table in one of the restaurant's corners, but I knew he did it more for privacy than to help ease my nerves from everyone else's stares. I didn't belong here.

"I want you to eat, first."

I raised my chin, glaring at him dead in the eye. "Why am I here?"

He sighed, raised a napkin to dab at his lips, and rested it in his lap.

"You are relentless, are you not?"

"We almost got involved in a car chase and then you pointed a gun at me," I leaned back in my chair. "I think I have a pretty damn good reason to be pissed."

Frenice gave me a confused smile.

"But you have seen those things before."

I leaned forward on the table.

"Yeah, but it was never directed at me. I've had some fights, sure. Sometimes there's a knife. But I have never been involved in something like that."

"Hmm. Very well, then." Frenice frowned. "I need information."

Yeah, you've said that already. But I wasn't sure if I was willing enough to give it to him. I shook my head.

"Perhaps I should mention that I've never faced those scenarios because I don't talk?"

This time, Frenice shook his head. "No, Tria," he said gravely. "You've never dealt with that because no one cares enough to ask you for information - no one powerful enough, at least. If they did, they would have tortured and quite possibly killed you by now."

Yikes. Taken aback, I tried to open my mouth to disagree (though at that point I would have been bluffing), but Frenice waved a hand to cut me off.

"I am not looking for anyone that you fear. This is about your mother - and not the pretty young woman you live with."

"My . . . what?" I gave him an incredulous look. "You brought me all the way out here to ask about her?"

He remained unfazed. I couldn't help but laugh about the ridiculousness of it all.

"You know, all of this," I gestured to our surroundings, "was unnecessary. I could have told you about her from the apartment."

Still, he would not reply. I rolled my eyes.

"The woman is dead, if you must know. Died a couple of months ago in some gas explosion at a warehouse."

"Oh?" Frenice raised an eyebrow. "To this, girl, I am going to have to disagree."

I grunted out in response. "Oh well. Agree, disagree, it wouldn't change the fact. Would you like a detailed newspaper going over that? Her death, that is."

"Pardon me, but you don't look like someone who just lost a mother."

"I had no love for her." The words flew past my lips before I could think otherwise - I could hear the venom in them as strongly as I felt the sudden round of bitterness in my chest. "If you know about her, you'd probably know that she wasn't around much. In fact, the last time I had a conversation with her was around my twelfth birthday." I chuckled a bit, then looked at him to clarify, "I'm almost eighteen."

Frenice rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"You know little about her?"

I shrugged. "I know she sold herself."

For some odd reason, this caught his interest.

"Really?"

I gave him an odd look.

"Yeah. That's how I came to be."

"What?"

Seriously? As frightening a figure this guy composed, he didn't seem like he knew much about the questionable things people did in the dark.

"She was a prostitute," I said bluntly. "Always pissed one guy off or another, so we moved often. When I was around ten, she ditched me entirely. That woman you talked about earlier was working at a restaurant and found me digging in one of the dumpsters, so she took me in."

"That is it? She just took some kid off the streets?"

I gave him a sarcastic look.

"Not right away. I would talk to her every other night for a few months before I found my mom, and when Hadi realized that the woman would ditch me again, she offered to help me. Some people are kind like that," I added softly.

"A child is no simple matter -"

"Yeah, well, I wasn't the only kid Hadi tried helping. I'm just the one she succeeded at." And the only one she could afford, after, I thought bitterly. "Then we moved to Gallin and got stuck here. I've only seen my mother once before the accident."

"Why would you openly share this information?"

I couldn't catch a break from this guy, could I?

"It's nothing you couldn't learn by asking around," I shrugged.

Frenice didn't say anything for a long while afterwards, processing the information, trying to piece together things that remained lost on me. I glanced up, watching fancy-dressed waiters and waitresses float around golden-rimmed tables with fake, ignorant people that reminded me strangely of old antiques. I turned my gaze back on Frenice.

"Look, man, I don't know what she did to grab your attention, but you probably know more about her than I do."

Frenice nodded slowly. "I think I am starting to agree with you, there."

What a strange thing to say, I thought, unsure of how to respond. I sat back, then a thought came to me.

"What time is it?"

The man grunted.

"Hmm? Oh, your call." He looked down at his watch. "Twenty-four minutes past the seventeenth hour."

Past the seventeenth hour? I paused, trying to do the math. Twenty-four minutes past the seventeenth hour . . . Five twenty-four. Ah, crap.

I made a show of standing abruptly before looking around.

"I'm going to the restroom."

Frenice pointed.

"It is in the back."

Perfect. Awkwardly, I made my way towards the bathrooms, ignoring the strange looks I would occasionally receive by the fake diners. Surprisingly, as I pushed through the door with the picture of a woman, there were rows of bathroom stalls. I was expecting for the bathrooms to be one-person-only. I was hoping that they would be one-person-only.

After checking to make sure I was the only one in the restroom, I pulled out my phone from my back pocket, while at the same time something fell from my jacket. An envelope. The one Ginger gave me.

Frowning, I dialed Jaxon's number and bent down to grab the envelope, fingering it open with one hand. I crouched down against one of the tiled walls for support.

"Tria," Jaxon greeted. "Everything well?"

"Yes," I replied absently, flipping the envelope over to dump its contents on the floor - a folded piece of paper. I cleared my throat. "Yeah, so far . . ."

"But . . . ?"

"It's . . . strange." I tilted my head to hold the phone in place between my ear and shoulder so that I could use both hands to straighten the paper out.

Make No Deals With Giants, the note read in scribbled, messy handwriting. Make no deals with giants . . . hmm. I glanced up at the bathroom door. Landon. The note had to be talking about Landon. If that guy wasn't considered a giant, I didn't know who was.

"Strange?" Jaxon repeated, breaking me from my thoughts. "How so?"

"My companion wanted information about a dead person."

"Oh. What did you say?"

"Well, I told them that the person they were concerned about was dead, and they said that they had to disagree with me. The conversation ended up with them agreeing that they probably knew more about said person than I do."

"Hmm. Well, do you think he'll try anything at you?"

"Hard to say. They are letting me talk to you, after all."

"Doesn't mean anything. They could always go through your recent calls and come after me if they decide to drop you altogether."

I pursed my lips together.

"You're a bright ray of sunshine," I grumbled, stuffing the note in my pocket.

I heard him laugh on the other end.

"Just being practical, is all."

"You don't sound the slightest bit concerned."

He paused.

"I've been in trickier situations."

Somehow, that didn't make me feel any better.

"Well, do you have another number that I could contact?" I suggested. "And I could just delete this one."

"No - don't worry about it. I have friends, believe it or not."

But are they really your friends? I wanted to ask, then decided against it. We weren't even friends ourselves. Just . . . people who were on semi-mutual grounds.

"Alright then. I should go; but I'll keep you posted every half-hour or so."

"Perfect. I'll talk to you soon."

He hung up. A long, tired sigh parted from my lips, and I couldn't have felt more exhausted. I moved to stand in front of one of many bathroom mirrors, resting my hands against the edges of the sink. The face that peered back at me revealed little of the emotions I was currently feeling; I had become so used to remaining expressionless that it was difficult to remember to relax.

"I need to get out of here," I said to myself, just when I felt my phone vibrate in my hand. Stifling back a groan, I flipped it open to see that I had received a text from an unknown number.

Oh, shit. Unknown ID's were never a good sign. Sure enough, I opened the text and felt myself pale over the words.

Evening, Tria, the text said. This is Port. If you know what's best for you, you will get your happy ass back over here before we start to give your wonderful roommate a harder time than what we've been giving her.

Good day, and hope to see you soon.

I don't think I've ever ran so fast out of a bathroom before in my life.