A moment of stunned silence later, Athena finally takes notice of the blood that is ozing down her thighs.

A startled yelp escapes her lips as she scrambles back in fear. With tears rolling down her cheeks, she comes to the conclusion that she is dying. Athena slumps down on the floor and pulls her knees to her chest.

Few seconds later, Vittorio finally steps in. He immediately sees her fragile frame on the floor, with her back to the door.

Seeing her shoulders trembling slightly, he sighs.

"Ariana!"

In response, he gets a choked sob and thus, he decides to approach her.

"What's the matter?"

"I-I'm d-dying." She cries even more harder at the revelation. Vittorio rolls his eyes and states back.

"I think not!"

He crouches down in front of her and tries to touch her face but she jerks away. Vittorio's eyes narrows at this but he does not scold her.

Instead, he stands up and then suddenly he glances at the bedsheets. His facial expressions first showed panic then confusion, realization and at last, a bit of disgust before a slight sympathy for the crying girl.

A knock sounds on the door and two maids enter the room with her food. They bow down in front of Vittorio respectfully, before glancing at Athena with concern and confusion.

"Calm her down." Vittorio grumbles, sounding annoyed and he storms out of the room without another word. Both of them look at each other in confusion.

They settle the food down on the table before bringing their attention on Athena who is sniffling quietly. They finally approach her when suddenly one of the maid's eyes accidentally catches the sight of bedsheets. Her eyes widen in realization and she tugs her friend's hand to get her attention.

It takes complete half an hour for them to make Athena understand that she is not going to die. They explain everything to her while helping her bath and wash the blood off.

Athena was flustered. She called herself stupid uncountable times in her mind when the maids were changing the bedsheets.

After the dinner, she sits down on the bed as the maids leave after wishing her goodnight.

It takes her little while to fall sleep again but she eventually falls into a deep slumber due to exhaustion of all that crying. Next day, she wakes up still feeling the pain in her stomach. She groans a bit before finally gathering her courage to get up.

She heads straight to the bathroom to take a shower and it really worked like magic. Feeling a lot active than before, she makes her way downstairs. As usual Ariana's brothers are present there. Vittorio glances at her and asks her in a mocking tone.

"Oh. So you are still alive?" Athena tries to dodge his stare and comment. She thanks Rachel in a quiet manner, she was one of the maid from last night. Rachel smiles at her and pours orange juice in glass for her.

Romeo, however glares at Vittorio but others pretty much ignores his statement. They are aware of what happened last night and they know mentioning it again in front of the young girl will only embarrass her more.

Just like this few more days rolls by.

Athena quietly doodles on the blank page of her notebook. She is sitting in the back of classroom. Ariana's best friends Max and Sarah are sitting on either side of her.

They try to initiate conversation with her everyday but Athena rarely talks to them. She could only say that both of them are true friends of Ariana. She must be really lucky to have them. They always have her back and they truly worry about her.

However, the rest of the students does not like Athena as in Ariana. According to them, Ariana has grown vulnerable and it is the right chance to get revenge on her for everything she has done in the past. They are always looking for the chances to pick on her. It is so wrong of them but they have lost the rationality to care.

The sound of the ringing of bell catches Athena's attention. Sarah and Max follows behind her to get to the gym class. It is the one of the classes that Athena hates the most. She dislikes every class though. She is illiterate and it is hard for her to understand whatever the teacher says.

None of the teachers really care about her lack of response. They only assume that her quietness is because of the traumatic accident she had gone through. But in the P.E. class, she has to do extracurricular activities and she assumes that she is nowhere near to be good in it. She gets tired easily.

It happens every time when she takes her self defence class with Alexander every early morning. Alexander is simply cruel. He likes to push her past her limits and once it led for her to black out.

Athena snaps out of her thoughts when she hears Sarah's gasp. Looking up, she realizes that they have reached at their destination. She follows their gazes to see some university students. They are playing basketball.

Her eyes catches Stephan Riccardo. Wearing all black, he is easily pushing past his opponents by leading the ball.

"Omg! Why are they here? Most likely, why is he here?" Sarah lets out a dreamy sigh. Her eyes are never leaving Stephan's movements.

Their gym teacher whistles loudly to gain the distracted students' attention

Then, he bellows at the top of his lungs.

"Stop looking like creeps and change! We are going to play dodgeball today!"

Athena frowns at his words. What is dodgeball now? The rest of the students groans and winces.

Athena follows Sarah to the girls changing hall. After changing in her gym uniform, she heads out to see the students lining up in two sets of teams. Sarah drags her in Max's team.

"Ariana! Why do you look so pale?" Max asks her by throwing an arm over her shoulder. Athena flinches a bit but then she shrugs.

"You don't remember but this was always your favourite game. You were always so over-enthusiastic about this." He grins at her and Sarah also nods in agreement.

"It's simple in case you forget. Just hit the opponent's team members but try to avoid getting hit." Sarah explains her after judging her confused expression.

"Don't worry we won't let anyone hurt you." Max assures her with a beaming smile playing on his lips.

As the game is about to start, Athena feels a heavy gaze burning in the back of her head. She tilts her head back slightly to catch Stephan Riccardo staring at her in an unabashed manner.

Athena looks away from him instantly, feeling uncomfortable. As she did so, she catches a glimpse of her opposite teammates, whispering to each other. Few of them even catches her eye. It feels a little off.

As the game starts, Athena only stands at the back while Max and Sarah are trying to shield her as much as they could. They try to block the balls that are directly thrown in her direction.

It does not take them long to understand .

"Fuckers!" Max curses, as a ball hits his shoulder. It catches him a little off guard.

Athena gasps. She is about to approach him when another ball comes flying in her direction. She covers her face with her arms on the instinct. But before it could make the painful impact with her, it was blocked merely two inches away from her body.

Upon feeling no pain or impact, she looks up genuinely confused. Her eyes widens. Standing in front of her is Stephan Riccardo, holding that ball in his hand.

Athena finally notices the extreme silence around her. Though, she could feel every eye staring in her and Stephan's direction.

"Miller!"

"Yes, Stephan." Their usually angry gym teacher responds, politely.

"Cortello is not fine. Let her sit. I am sure her family will drain your blood dry out of your body when they see a slight scratch on her."

His words were like a warning to everyone who was present there.

"Right, Stephan." The gym teacher sounds like he just suddenly realized this.

Athena did not know what to feel as she watched him walk away.

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