Nox (Outcast Warriors MC #1)

1

Athena

It was after dinner and I was sitting on my bed applying moisturizer to my body. I looked up when I heard a sound, the familiar rumbling of uncle Liam's car. Then came the familiar sound of the car door opening, and closing before the sound of his feet carrying him to the door. My brows furrowed, wondering why he was here.

I stripped off of my towel and wore the clothes that I placed at the foot of the bed then tied up my hair into a messy bun before sauntering downstairs. I followed the hush voices of uncle Liam and my mother which led me to the latter office. They immediately stop talking when they noticed me standing at the threshold.

My mother was staring at me with a look I couldn't decipher then look at uncle Liam but he quickly looks away and faced the bookshelves instead. His posture was tense and from the looks of it, I caught them red-handed, for what that I couldn't answer.

Uncle Liam was my mother's older brother. They had always been a team. He was there to help her get back on her feet after the untimely death of my father and older brother. He used to live here with us but he moved out when he got a job offer at one of the veterinary clinics in the city. Nonetheless, he would sometimes sleep at our house.

"Hey, is everything okay?" I asked when it became clear the two adults wouldn't say anything. "Well?" I folded my arm across my chest as their behavior was getting me nervous. I looked back and forth between uncle Liam and my mother. She was staring daggers into his back before sighing then leaning back against her table. 

"Sweetheart.." my mother called then said, "come in and sit down." She gestured towards the sofa. I complied and sat down with my legs immediately bouncing up and down. The tension in the room was palpable, it was suffocating. I did the breathing exercise my doctor taught me. 

Breath in, hold, breath out. Breath in, hold, breath out. I chanted in my head.

"Athena," the sound of my mother's voice brought me back to reality. "I told you, Liam, she is not ready for this." My mother said to him, exasperation clear in her voice. 

"You- we have to tell her. She deserves to know the truth." He fired back, voice laced with anger. When he realised his tone of voice he looked at me and apologized when he realise I recoiled slightly into the sofa.

"Whatever it is that I'm about to tell you, promise me that you will listen and not get angry?" My mother said when she had sat down on the armchair beside me. 

I stared at her, searching for something that maybe could give away what they were hiding. "I will," I answered when I couldn't get anything.

"Promise me?"

"Mom, what's going on?" Curiosity and frustration were gnawing inside me. This was the first time I witnessed her acting like this. She opens and closes her mouth then turns her gaze, again, to my uncle with a pleading look. 

"Athena, what did you know about your father and brother?" Uncle Liam asked. I looked at him like he had grown horns on his head. Really, he was asking this question when he already knew the answer.

"Well, they passed away in a car accident, that's what mom told me," I answered, the sassiness evident in my voice, who told him to ask me such a ridiculous question and a question that he knows the answer to.

He rolled his eyes before saying, "What if I told you that was a lie, a cover story to hide the fact that your father and brother were still alive?"

I chuckled, "You know that's absurd right, uncle?" I looked at my mother and her expression said it all. That what her brother just said was the truth. "Mom?"