Chapter 56

When Athena got to Frank s house, he was waiting for her. At some point, it had started raining and she didn t bother to take a cab and kept walking under the rain. When Frank saw her drenched, he was surprised; "are you that penniless that you had to walk under the rain?" he was now angry.
Athena looked at him, she played an image in her mind, if it had been Sean, he would have asked what happened and would have wondered why she would walk in the rain and even before questioning her, he would have made sure she changed out of her wet clothes and had a hot cup of coffee. She knew that because it had happened before. That was after one month of staying in his house, she had gone for a stroll and it had started raining, she wasn t with cash and had no choice but to walk home.
She had met Sean and Smith on the way, they were looking for her and when he saw her, he had come down from the car and approached her and then carried her into the car. She had been so cold that she was shivering and when they got home, he had Esther fix her a hot bath and after the bath, he had made her a cup of hot coffee and stayed with her in the room till she warmed up. That was when he asked her what happened and she told him and he had told her to never leave the house without cash, no matter the short distance she would be going for she doesn t know what might happen in the next minute.
After remembering that, her mood was so down that she walked past Frank to the bedroom. As if recollecting himself, he ran after her, "I m sorry, Athena. I have just been so worried about you and seeing you that drenched, I couldn t understand why you would walk under the rain."
Athena shut the door and bolted it so that he won t come in after her; she went to the bathroom to get out of her wet clothes and turned on the shower. After washing off, she dried up, entered the bedroom and brought out something warm to wear, she doesn t want to talk to anybody or even think again so she forced herself to sleep.
***
TB personally came to pick Athena on Wednesday afternoon for her photo shoot, when he saw her approaching his car, he was shocked at her appearance, "girl, what the heck happened to you?" he asked when she opened the front door to get in, "have you been starving? Isn t that guy able to at least feed you?" she was sitting in the car now and he couldn t stop looking her over with a scowl on his face.
"TB, please, I m not in the mood for this," Athena said, even her voice sounded weak, and she looked so thin like she hasn t been eating in days.
"What do you mean by not in the mood for this? Athena, you look like hell, Sean is going to kill somebody if he sees you like this."
"That s if he cares," she whispered.
TB rolled his eyes, "Athena, you think we shouldn t postpone this shoot, I mean look at you, you don t look like a human at all, let to talk of a model. Your eyes have fallen into their sockets, there are huge dark circles round your eyes, you look so thin like you have been starved and so pale, your lips are chapped, are you dehydrated? To cut it short, Athena, you look like a ghost; there is no way Face of Brand would be looking like this."
Athena closed her eyes, she has not looked at herself in the mirror since Sunday evening she arrived there and after coming back from the mansion on Monday, she ate nothing. When Fred had come to see her yesterday to ask about Sean since the news didn t say much, he had been worried when he saw her that he dragged her to his apartment to make something for her which she had eaten little. She doesn t know what was wrong with her; she had lost interest in everything and has little or no appetite for food. If it wasn t because the shoot was for Sean s company, she wouldn t have bothered herself to even attend. After listening to TB s complains, she said, "well, you are a makeup artist, can t you conceal my weakness and bring out the flair and beauty you want?"
"I can do that but it s not just about the shoot, Athena, it s about you. Have you been sick or something?"
"I m fine, TB."
"Maybe we should go to the hospital?"
"Really, I m fine," she looked at him, "I m just not in my best days, that s all, I will be fine."
TB sighed and started the car, "really, I need to have that guy arrested for mistreating you."
"He is not mistreating me, rather I m mistreating him."
He glanced at her, "that s good then," he said and Athena chuckled.
Getting to the studio, there were a lot of models around, apparently, they have other shoots they were conducting. "Come, let s get you to your dressing room, your shoot is the last for the day and these commercials would be done soon, they started since morning and I need a lot of time to hide this ghost face of yours," TB said, dragging her into a room.
"Hey, TB, what s up? You think you can help with my makeup?" The model there asked.
"I m sorry Tat but I need to work on her and I need all the time I can have."
Tat looked at Athena and then at him, "that s okay, I will go meet Bjorn."
"That would be awesome," TB replied with a smile before sitting Athena down as the model left, "alright, let s get this started." He placed his makeup box on the table and fetched out all the things he believes he would need and started working on her face.
Fifteen minutes into the makeover, the door opened and a man entered, "is she ready, she would be up in twenty."
"Twenty is enough for me, Jorum, I just need to make her look exquisite, Sean won t take less and you know it."
"Well, just get her ready in twenty minutes," he said and closed the door.
"Good, all your hollowness is gone, now, let s get this over with," he said to Athena. After the makeover, he looked at his hand work with a satisfied smile, "good, now that s the Athena I know." He chuckled and fetched out a gown from one of the racks, "this is for your first shoot, hurry up and dress up while I go tell Jorum that you are ready."
Athena nodded and took the dress for him, "go into the restroom, anyone can enter here," TB said before leaving the room.
Athena went into the room and just as she undressed, she heard someone came in but didn t pay mind to it until she heard the door click. She frowned and turned the knob to discover the door have been locked from outside. "Hey, open the door, I m in here," she said, banging on the door, believing that the person thought no one was in there but after banging and calling out and nothing happened, she had a bad feeling and that was when she understood she had been locked in there on purpose. She heard the front door close and panicked but just then, she remembered that TB knew she was there and would come find her so she left the door and started dressing into the gown he gave her.
Right after she finished dressing, she heard an alarm go off and she needed no one to tell her that that was the fire alarm. She became afraid and started banging on the door, "TB, TB, TB, I m in here. Is anybody out there, please open the door, someone should please open the door." She cried and then searched for her phone only to remember that she left it in the room. She banged more furiously on the door; hoping one of the models would come in to collect their properties and would be able to hear her calling.
Soon, her hands started aching and she picked up her shoe and started hitting the heel on the door but no matter how loud she screamed or knocked, no one opened the door and soon, she started perceiving smoke and she knew, there was no saving for her, she might die here but she decided she won t give up just yet and continued screaming and banging on the door, both with her hand and shoe.
TB had left to search for Jorum but he wasn t in the building and he went out to find him, just when he did and they were going inside to take the pictures, they saw everyone rushing out. "hey, what s going on?" TB asked.
"The fire alarm went off and there is smoke everywhere," one model answered.
"What?" TB and Jorum asked at the same time.
He looked at all the people rushing out but he couldn t find Athena, "where could she be, didn t she hear the alarm?"
"Who?"
"Athena," he answered.
"Where was she when you last saw her?" A model asked.
"In the dressing room," TB answered.
"That means she has ran out already because I passed the dressing room and the door was open and no one was there, also, the fire seems to be coming from that side," she answered.
TB was worried, he had a bad feeling and just as he heard Jorum calling for the fire service, he called Sean, "Sean, there is a problem."
"What is it?" he asked casually.
"There is a fire outbreak at the studio and I can t find Athena," the line went dead immediately, "hello, hello Sean?" he asked but there was no answer and he looked at the phone to discover he had hung up. A loud crashing made him yelp and he looked at the studio to see that the roof was falling, the fire was huge and eating everything on its way, "oh my God," he whispered, how could there be such fire? He wondered, and just like that?
"We need to shift from here, I can feel the heat already," Jorum said, retreating to join the models and staff at the safe zone.
"But I can t find Athena," TB said to him.
"Look around, she might be somewhere," he said.
As they looked around, they discovered Athena wasn t the only one missing and when the fire fighters arrived, they were told about the missing persons and one by one they brought them out. TB searched through the rescued victims but he couldn t fine Athena, the fire was growing bigger and bigger and even the fighters were getting afraid of going back inside. His heart was in his throat and just then he saw Sean s car arriving and immediately rushed to him.
Sean had been shocked when he heard what TB said that his phone had fallen out of his hand onto the floor, he was in a meeting but didn t bother explaining his action as he picked up his phone and ran out of the conference room. On his way to the studio, they had met traffic and had to wait for it to clear while he died over and over in worry. Soon the fire was on the internet and when watching the live video and seeing how the fire fighters were bringing out people, he had calmed, believing Athena was one of them.
But when they arrived at the studio and he saw TB running towards him in fear and worry, he needed no one to tell him what was happening, and he felt like he had died for the last time as he thought about it. Athena was still in the fire.