Maggie shook her head helplessly. "I have no idea at all."
Her expression brought Tompson even more concern, and he couldn't help but frown before changing the topic of discussion. "What about your special training these days?"
"Not fun at all," Maggie answered and smirked darkly. She had thought that it would be possible to have more opportunities to be together with Edgar, but it had ended up backfiring, and his harsh face was the only thing that she saw every day! She gained no benefit in the end, so she exclaimed, "It could be the darkest moment in my entire life!"
Tompson was amused by her complaint. "So are you saying that you are unhappy with your beloved Edgar?"
"Unhappy with what?" Maggie's face became streaked with bitterness. "Could you ever imagine that your lover would wear a poker face while being with you? Meanwhile, you need to tolerate the fact that your love rival has re-united with him, and tortures you. Of course you can't say a word about this. Besides that, there is a super handsome guy, who is an eye candy for others, but a nightmare for me." Finishing with her initial rant, Maggie let out a half repressed shriek of frustration. While speaking, she couldn't even bear it. "The more expectation, the more frustration. You're so damn right."
Hearing what Maggie said, Tompson sensed that it was far more complicated and frowned again. So he called a taxi and invited Maggie to get in the car. "Why don't you go home first?"
"Why don't we leave together?" Maggie couldn't figure out the reason for Tompson's sudden farewell.
Tompson shook his head. "One of my friends will be arriving in two hours, so I need to wait for him." While speaking, he gave the address to the driver and shut the back door without waiting for Maggie to reply.
When Maggie's car was out of his sight, Tompson called another taxi, and identified his destination to the driver, "S Army, please."
The driver turned back to cast a brief glimpse at him, and then started the car. "I can only drive you to the vicinity of the security fence. There's a cordon in effect, now that it's approaching the Spring Festival."
"Fine." Tompson agreed without paying too much attention, and dialled Edgar's number instead. The beautiful and sweet artificial voice which sounded over the phone always had the habit of instilling the angry impulse to throw the phone on the ground in everyone who heard it.
Tompson didn't give up and dialed again, but again what he got was, "Sorry, the number you have dial is not in service." Hearing this, he hung up and dialed William's number, but to his surprise, it wasn't connected either.
Now that was so weird! It might be possible that Edgar couldn't be connected, since even though he was the Captain of Eagle, he also fulfilled the same duty as the other team members did. However, the fact that William wasn't connected felt so unbelievably strange.
"Sir, would you please hurry up?" Tompson urged the driver, and his face turned increasingly serious at the same time. He just hoped that he could make it. After he couldn't reach either of the men, however, he predicted that events were already unstoppable.
*
Looking at Cain sitting next to him, Richard was so shocked that his mouth opened slightly, since he had never imagined it would be him. A great number of people had been possible candidates in his mind, but he had never even considered Cain as a potential for his list.
"Uncle Richard, you seem pretty surprised." Cain smiled sweetly at Richard.
Richard nodded, and his staunch face filled with astonishment. "You... You're... You're not..."
"Yeah, I'm still alive!" Cain reclined further back in the seat with a victorious smile. He looked out through the window and then continued, "Sometimes humans are too vulnerable to withstand a single accident. Well, that was what you said back then, if I remember it correctly."
Richard seemed embarrassed, and his Adam's apple moved up and down as he tried hard to calm himself down. "I'm glad to see you now, two decades later."
Cain smiled and leaned closer to stare intently at Richard whose facial expression was still nervous. Then he voiced his doubt at Richard's words, "But from my point of view, you are not happy at all?" There was an almost humorous tone in his voice that mocked the other man.
"What? I'm glad to see you." Richard's face grew pale and he appeared to be anxious now. "When did you return?"
Cain was irritated by this silly question and burst out in laughter. "Uncle Richard, my permission was illegally granted by the supervisor. I'm wondering, whether you know about my present identity, or not."
As a matter of fact, Richard already knew it and because of that, he suffered and seemed to be choking on it. When he had glanced over Cain's appearance, he had known him instantly. But Cain was such a perfect combination of all the merits of his parents, so people could easily be deceived by his appearance. Of course, another reason for Richard's consternation was that things had taken an unexpected turn. Even though he had thought that he had already settled everything, but...
Richard took a deep breath in order to summon up the nerve to ask, "Just say it. What do you want?"
"You are still exactly the same as when you betrayed my dad." When Cain stared at Richard's dimming eyes, his expression also became morose. "Just as decisive as that time."
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: Love Began with the First Meeting