Infernal Academia

Chapter 49 - Pharmine's Folly: Part 4 (Tragedy)

Seated in his sleek black car, Stefan Blackwell gripped the steering wheel tightly as he drove down the rainy streets of Plymouth, glaring hard at the road ahead.  In his pocket, he could feel his mobile phone vibrate violently with an incoming call.  It started the moment he got into the car, and hadn't stopped since.

That bastard - who ever he was - was persistent.  

As he turned a corner and overtook a couple of vans, the Fallen reached into his pocket and shut the phone off, tossing it into the backseat with an inaudible growl.

No sooner had he done this when the car's dashboard suddenly lit up and began to play a jingling ringtone, the words "Incoming Call" proudly displayed upon a small monitor.

"For fucks sake, leave me alone!"

He violently turned the wheel, forcing his car down a smaller side street.  Anything to get home faster.

But as he drove, the ringtone jingled on endlessly, causing a high-pitched whine to build up in the back of Stefan's head.  Eventually, he caved and slammed his fist down on one of the dashboard's buttons.

"What do you want?!" he roared, leaning heavily on the acceleration pedal.

"So you've been ignoring my calls as well as your mother's.  She's quite upset about that; I can hear her from here." spoke the voice of the mysterious caller in an almost nonchalant tone.

"This is my last warning!  You keep this, and I'm gonna-!"

"Gonna what?  Come down here and give me a good talking to face-to-face?  By all means, Stefan, do.  You may as well drop in on Jelli while you can.  She's just woken up from-"

Pulling up in front of his apartment building, Stefan abruptly ended the call and shut the car off.  Grabbing his mobile from the backseat, he stepped out into the rain, swearing beneath his breath as it soaked straight through his suit jacket.  Kicking his car door shut, he gripped his briefcase tight and marched into his apartment building.  

As he made for the elevator, the man at the front desk cleared his throat.

"Mr. Blackwell?  I've had a couple of calls come in here for you," he said, pointing to the phone next to his computer.

"Don't answer them."

"But-?"

"I said don't answer them!" he snapped, aggressively jamming his thumb against the call button.

Stepping into the lift, Stefan clenched his fists and paced back and forth, seething beneath his breath the entire time.  Why was he allowing this to get to him so badly?  Surely this was just some kind of phone prankster.

A phone prankster that knew all of his phone numbers and had intimate knowledge of his family issues...

No, there was something off about this whole thing.

Once he arrived at his floor, Stefan made a beeline for his apartment, only to stop dead in his tracks outside the door.  He could already hear the phone ringing inside.

He bared his teeth.

Throwing the door open, the Fallen threw his briefcase aside and marched straight for his apartment's phone.

"What do you want?!" he barked, nearly tearing it off the wall.

"This could be your last chance to see her, Stefan," spoke the voice in a serious tone.

"What?"

"She could be dying, you know."

As soon as those words reached Stefan, his grip on the phone loosened.  His eyes widened.