Chapter 26 Strange Text Message

After a night in the hospital, Annie's high fever had subsided. Although she still felt weak, she did not need to stay in the hospital any longer. She asked Fiona to settle the bill, and they completed their discharge procedures before heading home.
As soon as Fiona returned home, she busied herself in the kitchen while Annie offered to help but was refused by Fiona, who said, "You should go rest properly. Leave everything here to me." With that, Fiona waved her hand and shooed Annie out of the kitchen.
Although Annie's fever had gone down, her heart failure condition had worsened. Her chest hurt, and she felt dizzy; her body lacked oxygen and blood supply, making it difficult to stand up straight.
Given this state of affairs, there wasn't much that Annie could do to help Fiona around the house, so she obediently went back into her bedroom after being told off by Fiona. Unfortunately, as soon as she lay down on the bed intending to nap, a text message notification from an entertainment news account popped up on top of her bedside table.
Ever since following Brandon around recently, Annie hadn't been very familiar with his schedule, so whenever he appeared in some news report or other media outlet occasionally, she would follow some entertainment accounts online to keep track of him better.
She opened one such message now only to find paparazzi photos showing Brandon carrying Annika into an emergency room, followed by reports claiming their old romance had rekindled. The comments below praised how well-matched they looked together, given their good looks and family backgrounds - like two peas in a pod!
Annie also thought along similar lines when looking at those pictures: Brandon looked cold yet noble while Annika exuded elegance and gracefulness - indeed, they did make quite an attractive couple.
She smiled bitterly, deleted the message and was about to turn off her phone when she noticed another text message that she hadn't had a chance to read yet. It was from an unknown number which said: "What were you doing at the hospital?"
This question took Annie aback - how did this person know she had been in the hospital? She checked the time stamp on the message and saw that it had come in last night just after she woke up in the hospital...
Annie kept staring at this text message repeatedly, feeling incredulous. Brandon was the only person who knew of her presence at the hospital last night; could he have sent it?
Her hands trembled as she typed two words: "Who are you?" She didn't expect a reply so soon, but three more words came back within seconds: "Answer my question."
As Annie stared at those three words, her heart pounded rapidly - although this cold tone sounded like something Brandon would say, her intuition told her otherwise; there was no way he would send such a text message to her.
Frowning deeply, Annie held onto her phone tightly while typing another response: "Who exactly are you?"
This time around, though, he had not received any immediate reply. Finally, after almost an hour without hearing anything back from him, Carl responded with just one word: "Carl."
Annie's nervousness dissipated immediately upon seeing his name appear on the screen instead of Brandon's. However, Carl's mobile number was supposed to be different from this one...had he changed his number again?
After thinking for a moment or two longer, though, Annie still felt uneasy about all this, so she decided to call Carl directly using his work phone number.
He answered quickly enough but spoke very softly, with some impatience evident when asked what was going on since they were in the middle of a meeting. Annie didn't expect him to be in an appointment and quickly replied with "Nothing" before hanging up.
What kind of lunatic sends text messages from unknown numbers while they're supposed to be attending meetings anyway? So Annie thought to herself, but then again, Carl had been known for harassing her using different phone numbers, so she decided not to overthink it this time.
She put down her phone, intending to ignore him completely, when another message came: "Answer me - why were you at the hospital?"
Annie felt like he was crazy but also worried that he might become even more agitated if she ignored him. So gritting her teeth, she typed a response: "I had a high fever and went there for treatment."
Thinking that he would ask further questions after receiving this reply, Annie was surprised when no other messages came through from Carl afterwards. She assumed that maybe his mental illness had flared up again, and he fell asleep feeling exhausted.