Almost out of breath, Neera ran down the steps till she reached Andrea’s house around the bend of the road. Before turning the corner, she looked back, but could not hear nor see anything. With a worried heart, she ran up to the front door of the apartment building and scanned the names listed on the intercom. What was Andrea’s last name? It had been a while since high school, she was not sure she remembered. She stopped reading down the list when she recognized a name, Ditto. That’s it!, she thought relieved, and rang the bell a few times.
After a few seconds, a woman’s voice asked, “Yes?”
Taken aback, Neera tentatively asked, “Good evening, is Andrea home?” She tried to look as calm as possible in the intercom camera, but beads of sweat were starting to form on her brow.
“Sure love, hold on,” the woman answered.
After what seemed like an eternity to Neera, Andrea’s voice finally croaked through the intercom, “Who is it? Neera is that you?”
By this point agitation had overtaken her entire being and, frantically, she repeated over and over, “The pawns are here!” Immediately Andrea told her to hurry up and buzzed her in.
Eight flights of stairs later, Neera finally arrived on the fourth floor, out of breath and covered in sweat. Andrea was waiting at the door, and, without a lot of pleasantries, they grabbed her by the elbow and ushered her hurriedly in their bedroom, shutting the door behind them.
Neera rested her hands on her knees trying to catch her breath. A second later Andrea had grabbed a dagger from nowhere, pinned Neera to the wall and brought the dagger to her throat.
“Who are you?” they shouted in her face.
Neera looked at her former schoolmate in shock – was this really the sheepish kid who liked to draw comics during chemistry class? They were still the same built as all those years ago, but they had changed their hair style when they decided to refuse gender denominations: the puffy curly light brown hair was now straightened and combed to one side, the lower hemisphere of the head, shaved. The main change, however, the one that shocked Neera the most, were the eyes. Andrea’s bright green eyes, once sweet and innocent, were now bitter, angry, and sad.
“Who are you??” Andrea barked again, pressing the knife closer to Neera’s throat.
“It’s me, Neera!!”
“How do I know you're not lying?”
In a panic, Neera thought frantically about what to say, but the only things that came to her when looking at them were the memories she had of sweet, innocent Andrea, not this angry beast in front of her now.
“In high school, you had a favourite pen called Milly! Please let me go!” she desperately blurted out.
“Anyone could get that information! Tell me something only I and Neera would know.”
It hit her then, that there had been in fact a time when they had become close, and she clung onto the hope that this answer would satisfy them.
“One summer we went to the beach together and spent the day... and... you came up with nicknames and funny voices for everything you saw...”
Andrea still looked uncertain of her identity, but she could see the doubt in their eyes.
“Yes, do you remember? You called a rock with the name of our math’s professor, making a funny accent!! Please, you must believe me! Theo is in danger...” She was short of breath and felt a rivulet of blood trickling down her neck as the blade was starting to superficially cut her throat.
Andrea finally released her, and she sagged on the floor, catching her breath. Their voice a little softer, Andrea crouched down beside her and asked, “Where is Theo?”
“Up the tracks... there was someone in a cloak... they attacked us...” She was starting to feel the fatigue crashing down on her, but her worry for Theo kept her awake and vigilant. “Andrea, you have to help him! He is all alone...”
“Don’t worry, darling, I will sort this now. You should rest”, they reassured her, and, as they were caressing her cheek, Neera felt her eyelids suddenly becoming very heavy. She closed her eyes.
Before falling into complete unconsciousness, Neera thought she heard Andrea talking to someone. Trying to lift heavy eyelids she peeked at the two people talking. The other person reminded her a lot of Rufus, another classmate of theirs. But Rufus lived in China, she thought, there was no way he was here with them. Convinced she must be already sleeping, she shut her eyes once more and fell into a dreamless sleep.
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