The Dark Side Of Fate

To Sam Street ~Liam~ I felt uneasy about how to handle sharing and discussing the text message.

I worried that mentioning Sophia might trouble Josephine, even though I knew she was resilient.

But I also feared that it could set back the progress we had made so far.

Instead of announcing the text to everyone, I decided to talk to Josephine first.

“Hey,” I said, linking her, and she turned to face me, her brow furrowing.

I expected this reaction, as linking in close proximity was reserved for private discussions.

“I want to show you something,” I said, handing her my phone with the text message.

She took the phone, read the message, and then returned it to me.

“The team should know,” she linked back, and I observed her carefully.

“It wouldn’t bother you?” I asked to be sure.

I was still new to this relationship thing and didn’t want to make any mistakes.

“Not at all, Liam.

We had our discussion this morning, and I’m confident that Sophia’s name won’t bother me anymore.

I promise,” she said with a smile and playfully punched my shoulder.

“I’m not that petty or jealous, Li,” she laughed, and I felt relieved.

“Attention, everyone; Li has something important to share,” Josephine declared, and a chuckle escaped me.

All eyes were on me, and I cleared my throat before speaking.

I put on a serious demeanour because the situation warranted it.

If they had Sophia’s mother’s phone, there was a possibility that something significant had occurred, and their circumstances might have altered.

Navigating through this with limited information wouldn’t be a simple task, but we must exercise utmost caution.

“I just received a text message from Sophia’s mother’s line, the same line she used to communicate with me,” I explained, passing my phone around so they could read the message.

“The last time she spoke to me, it was through Charlotte’s phone, as I hadn’t recovered my line back then,” I added.

Marvin was the first to ask a question.

“So why is she asking us not to search for her?” he inquired.

“That’s precisely my point.

If it were truly Sophia, she would have called instead of sending a text message.

message suggests an

it was genuinely from Sophia, it would have contained more helpful details,” I explained, and Noah voiced a

a vague message

called

rarely sends text messages; she’s more of a phone person,” I explained before

enemy and needs to

no choice but to send a text message,

to share my theory if I didn’t believe the message was from Sophia,

think someone is trying to establish communication with me while pretending to be

too long without any word from

it were genuinely from her, it would have been sent to

would have also contained more details about her

my mind

spoke was back when

seems off, as if we’ve

recovered my line, so she would likely

risk sending a message to a line that might still be switched off,” I concluded,

not have been entirely clear, but I had a gut feeling that I was onto

point, Li, but you’re right; this message doesn’t provide much information,” Charlotte acknowledged, stating

hand, had

of communication has been opened between

it leads us,” she suggested, using air quotes when saying ‘Sophia,’ which elicited a

is posing as Sophia must

engage in conversation and share specific

can wait for her

cleverly mislead her captors and

knows we’re searching for her, and her captors might have informed

for her to mislead them in her answers to help us uncover what’s really going on,” Josephine explained, perfectly echoing

looking at her,

to worry about my

she’s just your friend, nothing more,” she

added, but I could

managed to keep

that she noticed my momentary unease, but it was our inside joke, and the

hope she’s still alive and safe,” Marvin

won’t dispose of her

her, and if they have some ulterior motive

they accomplish whatever they have planned,” Oliver pointed

but the idea that Sophia couldn’t reach out to me when

and prayed that we could

back after seeing the Gamma and the Beta off, and we remained

he inquired, and we all laughed because it was clear that Justin had cleverly left us alone

a smart

the questioning and making it a casual

couldn’t accuse us of treating them as