♤ 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚒𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 ♤ ʰˣʰ ʰⁱˢᵒᵏᵃ

I. Mr. Mason

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My Sunday morning cup of tea was interrupted by a jarring ringing sound from my landline phone.

I slowly walked across my living room and stared down at the phone. It was the first time I had heard it ring. I wasn't sure why I had bothered to get my old broken one replaced when no one really used landlines anymore.

I supposed this call was an exception. I picked it up.

"Irues."

"Yuno?"

"Good. You still exist. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"Seriously? A collaboration with Threadinger?"

"I know. Ever since I became a bit of a sideshow, sometimes I feel a bit of that nostalgia for the big stage. It'll be great. A take on modern art and magic-"

"You know that's not what I mean. What are you trying to get out of this?"

"What else would I be trying to get out of it?"

Yuno didn't say anything, but the silence hung on the line like the calm before the storm.

"The project," she enunciated slowly. "Keep out of it."

"Which project?"

"The project."

It wasn't like Yuno to lose her temper, but she sounded dangerously close to it.

I sighed.

"Look. I need to figure out what happened that night."

"You ran into one of your performer buddies and drank until you passed out. That's what happened, bozo."

"That's not what happened. I don't even know why I was in Vegas. Someone drugged me, I swear."

"No one drugged you. Why do you keep saying that?"

I hesitated. I hadn't told her about the slip of paper I had found on the floor the morning after. The blue splotches, the words printed on it. The flecks of blue on the inside of my empty wineglass.

"Tell me where the Annie May Project is," I said.

Yuno sucked in a breath.

"You're obsessed."

"Maybe I am. I need my answers."

"Even if someone did drug you, why do you think that has anything to do with the project?"

"I have my sources."

"I'm a journalist, Seuri. It's my job to connect to sources and dig into issues like these. Not yours."