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CHAPTER TEN. THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT DISASTER
THE afternoon passed by quickly and after dinner, Amelia had secluded herself to her room to read THE SONG OF ACHILLES. Mid-dinner, her mother had called and Amelia had assured her that she would visit tomorrow evening. Guess that was another thing on her to-do list now. Fine, she would manage. It would make her mother happy. She would do anything for that.
Amelia remembered the days after Constance had died. How long they stretched, how bleak they were. The conundrum in front of Helen Song ─ she was devastated that her older daughter was dead but felt so blessed that Amelia had survived. Every time Helen Song would laugh at anything Amelia said or did, she would excuse herself to go cry in the bathroom. Amelia had heard it when she had followed after her once. She had sat outside on the floor, ear against the door, a pang in her heart with every gut-wrenching sob she heard. Helen Song was ashamed that she could even bring herself to laugh when her older daughter was dead. Helen Song was wrecked that Constance's laugh didn't join hers. It would take her by surprise every time and the wound would reopen. The infection festered.
Then, the worst feared thing had happened one night. Amelia had awoken to her father's shouts of her mother's name. The red and blue flashing lights had stabbed her sleep-ridden eyes. Heart attack, they'd said. Too much stress. That was the first night Amelia had prayed in a long time.
Amelia took a shaky breath through her mouth now. She'd been lost in her thoughts again, her book discarded. She suddenly felt cold, too. But the feeling was welcomed. Thinking about her mother made her want to cry. She hung her legs over the edge of the bed and pulled her cardigan on, shivering a little when the material brushed her skin.
It was just past ten when Amelia opened the door and walked out to the open hallway on the first floor. Down the row were the rooms of the rest of the team and Amelia didn't bother to look ─ instead, she approached the ledge and leaned against it; her sweat making the cold wind colder. She closed her eyes and a familial face flashed behind her gaze ─ it was Constance, Christmas 2012. An eleven year Amelia was pulling her older sister from where she had been sitting to join her and her mother in performing renditions of Christmas classics while their father recorded. Constance's laugh had been infectious. The joy on her face from that night still thrummed in Amelia's veins. It warmed her.
The door behind Amelia opened and she glanced over her shoulder to find Peter Parker looking like a kid who had been caught stealing candy.
"Going somewhere?" she asked, eyes slit.
Peter decided there was really no point in lying. He wandered closer, pulling on the string of his hoodie. "There's uh ─ " he hesitated now but then looked up and saw her. "A weapons deal. Somewhere in Maryland." He kept staring at her ─ his breath knocked out. She wasn't dressed the way she usually was. She wore a tight camisole that stuck to her skin, an oversized baby blue cardigan draped loose and open over it, and shorts that were short enough to show the curves of her legs up to mid-thigh. Her raven black hair was still open, loose curls of it clinging against the hollows of her temples, and the curves of her collarbones as if it had been raining lightly outside ─ no, he decided then, she had been sweating; hence both the hair and the camisole sticking to her skin. She smiled when she saw him, arching her eyebrows. They were ink-black, like the fine eyelashes that framed her chocolate eyes.
