Enigma novel Chapter 7

I sat down on the empty seat beside Lucas. Hudson was still grinning like a fool.

“Hi! We didn’t get to introduce ourselves properly before. I am Hudson.” I opened my mouth to reply but he cut me off. “I know you are Arabella. This one here is Archer.” This time I just nodded knowing full well that he would just keep talking. “Your name is too long. Can I call you Bella?”

I scrunched my nose at that.

“Aria will be fine.”

“Okay.” Hudson said laughing.

“So how are you liking Greycoast so far? It must be a great change from Australia to here.”

“The weather is really nice here.” Lucas replied.

I nodded.

“Lucas said you used to go to Redwood high. Why did you change? You must have left a lot of friends behind.” Hudson enquired.

I scoffed at the word friends and took a bite out of my pizza slice.

“My siblings actually. They still go there. I just needed a change I guess.”

“Siblings?” Archer asked.

That’s the first word he said since the lunch started.

“Yeah. Five of them actually. Three of them are in high school. Two are in middle school and one is just five. My mom home schools him.”

I don’t know why but I felt free talking to them.

“Wow. You have quite a big family.”

Hudson’s eyes flashed with sadness. I wonder what happened to him.

“Oh yeah. That’s just my immediate family. My family is way bigger than that. There are so many uncles and aunts. Eros couldn’t even remember their names at times.” I told him grinning.

“You seem to love them a lot.”

Hudson’s face fell and so did Archer and Lucas’s.

I nodded looking at them with a worried expression.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah. Just remembered a few things.” Hudson gave me a fake smile.

I didn’t ask them anything after that. The lunch went by pretty quietly after that. No one talked. The atmosphere turned really gloomy from that point.

We dumped our trays and exited the cafeteria.

“What class do you have now?” I asked in attempts to get their attention away from their sad memories.

“Biology.” Lucas said.

“I have Journalism.” Hudson said.

His jolly mood was starting to come back a little but I can see the lingering sadness in his eyes.

“Philosophy.” Archer muttered.

“I have biology too. See you guys later then.”

Hudson and Archer nodded and we separated our ways to the respected classes.

“Are you alright?” I asked once we took a seat at the desk.

“Yeah.” Lucas replied but didn’t say anything more.

The rest of the classes went by quickly which wasn’t much as I had only one more class after this. None of the three were in my last class. I didn’t even see them in the parking when I left for home.

They must have left early I guess.

I made my way home and parked my car in the garage but what distressed me was the black truck standing in our driveway.

Zeno and his gang seems to be here.