To the bones

Athena's diary

'*******' before a paragraph means you're reading a flashback.

For weeks now Andy had been trying to help Athena. Every then and now she would also try to get Miranda's attention on her daughter's state, sending some subliminal messages to her. But her boss wouldn't pay attention to Andy's SOS. Or so she thought.

*******
'Guard this with your life.' Emily told Andy handing her the keys

'Of course.' She paused before saying rather happily:

'You know, if I can deliver the Book, that means I must have done something right. I'm not a psycho! Oh, and you know she called me Andrea? I mean... she didn't call me Emily which is great. Isn't that great?'

'Yeah, whoopee. Right.' The first assistant was actually upset Andy got to deliver the Book.

'Now, it's very important that you do exactly what I'm about to tell you.'

'Oh okay'

'The Book is assembled by 10:00, 10:30. And you must wait around for it until then. You will be delivering Miranda's dry cleaning with the Book. Now the car will take you straight to Miranda's townhouse. You let yourself in. Andrea, you do not talk to anyone, do not look at anyone. This is of the utmost importance. You must be invisible do you understand ?'

'Uh huh.'

You thought... I'm willing to have a little talk with Priestly Junior, thought Andy as her colleague kept on explaining everything she had to do.

But when she arrived to Miranda's townhouse Athena was nowhere to be seen. So Andy first focused on her first mission: delivering the Book and the dry cleaning. Emily had told her to put the Book on the table with the flowers and the dry cleaning in the closet across from the staircase but Andy didn't know which one and started to panic.

'It's that door on the left.' Said a voice behind her.

Then a young woman walked down the stairs and took the dry cleaning from Andy's shaky hands before putting it in the closet. Then she took the Book, took a quick look at it and put it on the table next to her.

'I'm sorry... I- uh... M-my name is-'

'-Andrea.' The girl cut her off. 'But you like to go by 'Andy', I know.'

She chuckled to the older woman's surprised face.

'I'm Athena, Ms. Priestly's daughter. My mother talks a lot about her work and how incompetent her assistants are. But not you. On the contrary she seems to be rather fond of you.'

Athena looked at Andy with her usual mixture of fear and natural hate for strangers. But there was something new that looked like fascination. Athena wondered what was so special about Andrea that made her mother actually like her.

Andy wanted to say something, to explain how she wanted to help but no word came out of her mouth and then she heard a fight upstairs.

'Is that your parents ?' She asked shyly.

'Yeah... the usual evening fight... You should leave now before my mother bursts in here and decides to fire you.' Athena said before turning her heels to leave.

'Wait !' Andy said grabbing Athena's arm. 'I'm here to help you !'

Athena's eyes instantly turned dark and icy just like her mother's.

'Oh I see... Nigel sent you here...'

Andy didn't get the time to answer, Athena continued:

'You don't know me. You know nothing about me or my family situation. You think you do but you don't. Being the closest assistant to my mother isn't enough. I don't need your help. Now please go.'