As expected, the McCoy's arrival shifted her mother into a home news reporter with the headlines being the obvious; The McCoy's in town. The news in full mentioned their visit to the new neighbors on Sunday after church service, baking a cake or a pie— whichever she ended up settling with, and giving her and Petra behavioral lectures. Her, Gianna, most especially, given her striking hate to the family over the weeks. Now she was glad, short-lived but effective; away from her born again McCoy praising mum, where her ears could rest and where she discovered where Petra got her endless blabbing gene from, Gianna checked herself for the nth time in front of Mimie's floor length mirror. Because she wasn't a fashionista or a dress-up guru, she appreciated the little effort she'd made to look a little out of the ordinary. First of all, her curly hair was unusually loose, too voluminous that it made her face almost non-existent and barely recognizable. Incognito mode 1 was checked. Her low

When Elodie saw Adam furiously stomp toward her, her lips immediately constricted from the laughter that previously added to her glow. "Where's Gianna?" Elodie smirked, "having the fun of her life." She sipped the liquid that later splashed on her dress as a result of Adam ungraciously pulling her by the arm and heading upstairs. "Stupid creep, get your hand off me." "Until you tell me where Gianna is." The party, at this moment, froze as hundreds of eyes concentrated on the four individuals. "What part of having fun don't you understand? Leave me alone, you're embarrassing my personality," Elodie cried. "What direction did they take?" He referred to Mimie, at the tail of the line. "That way." So did the line bend into a long corridor of doors. A boy walked out of one of them struggling with his zippers while a girl followed cue with a bird's nest in the name of hair. The two regarded them like aliens from planet non compos mentis "Which room?" Now he referred to Elodie. "A

The aura around Adam had shifted as she had twice noticed—when he forbade Gianna from going to Elodie's party and the night he'd shown up after Gianna's danger alert. He looked like a whole different person behind his glasses. "Did you ever notice something strange with Gianna?" Mimie's heart cooled a bit, however, hurt. She'd expected more critical but she'd not expected Gianna to be the source of the cause. Like the other times. "What do you m-mean?" "You know, I was able to delve into her bag the other day in search of a pencil and...I saw this unusual stuff in there. Something like a square or was it a rectangular leather case? Well, she sort of looked...protective of it, is it?" His question was rhetoric and more to himself as if he'd not used the proper descriptive word. "Have you seen it before?" Mimie nodded. "She said it wa-was a pencil c-case. Customized." "Ditto," a heartbeat silence reigned. "But I don't think so, not that I ever seen such before. Why would she be so

Her mother was still hell-bent furious as they rounded up with dinner that she'd failed to drink water before eating, as per her meal habit, and had spat fire to every question bombarded her way despite it being part of a harmless table conversation. Siesta was a do-or-die with the lady, another contribution to the sour temper. Especially with her finals at the doorstep. A little she could understand there.Gianna had learned that afternoon that her father was the ongoing building project's designer. It did not stun her much. The man was excellent at what he does. However, it was a perfect chance to know what the construction really was. She'd asked.'A little bit of everything,' her father had replied. 'Love hotel, Casino, Night club, and all that.'Gianna scrunched her face. 'Sounds heinous. What about here? What are you up to?''Workers quarters and a wine brewing factory,' her father had smiled, admiring the progressing construction, extremely proud of himself than anyone was of

A dark brown-haired girl, who Gianna guessed was in her early twenties, showed up dressed in a crop top and indecently destroyed faded blue jeans with wailing Ethan in one hand and a feeding bottle in the other. The cute baby boy's face was red and wet from crying. Poor thing.The girl froze with an 'oh' when she saw them but that wasn't for more than a second as her duty to rid herself of Ethan was yet to be achieved."Sorry," she flatly apologized as she hiked straight to her mother, handed over Ethan and the feeding bottle, and left. Mrs. McCoy shook her head, her arms pacifying Ethan almost immediately before the bottle's nipple was introduced. "I'm sorry about the interruption. Kids of nowadays. That was my second daughter, Fay. And this is Ethan, my littlest." With a smile, she finger-played with his chubby jaw. The discussion after that was strictly business-related, later on, Mr. McCoy and her father stepped out after a diversion to golf leaving behind the ladies and Ethan w