Athena whimpers as she finally takes notice of the blood that is ozing down her thighs. She yelps, scrambling back. Tears starts to roll down her face, fearing that she is dying.

She slumps down on the floor and pulls her knees to her chest. Few seconds later, Vittorio finally steps in. He immediately see her fragile frame on the floor, her shoulders are shaking and she has her back to the door.

"Ariana!" He calls her fake name but freezes a little after hearing her choked sob.

"I a-a-am d-dying." She cries even more harder now. Vittorio furrows his brows and approaches her.

"I think not."

He crouches down in front of her and tries to touch her face but she jerks away. Vittorio's eyes narrows at this but he doesn't scold her.

Instead he stands up and then suddenly his eyes falls on the bedsheets. His facial expressions first showed panic then confusion, realization and in last a bit disgust.

A knock sounds on the door and two maids enters in with her food. They bows in front of Vittorio but gets concerned as their eyes fall on Athena's shaking and crying form.

"Calm her down!" Vittorio grumbles sounding annoyed and storms out of the room without a word. Both of the maids looks at each other's faces in confusion.

They settle the food down on the table before bringing their attention on Athena who is still crying hard. They finally approached her when suddenly one maid glances at the bedsheets. Her eyes widens in realization and she tugs her friend's hand to get her attention.

It takes complete half an hour for them to make Athena understand that she isn't going to die. They explain everything to her while helping her bath and wash the blood off.

Athena was flustered. She called herself stupid uncountable times as her maids were changing the bedsheets. After the dinner, she sits down on the bed as the maids leaves after wishing her goodnight.

It takes her little while to sleep again but she eventually falls into a deep slumber. Next day, she wakes up again feeling the pain in her stomach. She groans and whines a bit before finally gathering her courage to get up.

She goes straight to the bathroom to freshen up. Feeling a bit active, she makes her way downstairs. As usual Ariana's brothers are present there. Vittorio glances at her and asks her in a mocking tone.

"Oh. So you are still alive!" Athena tries to ignore his comment and quietly thanked Rachel, one of the maid from last night when she serves her. Rachel smiles at her and pours orange juice in glass for her.

Romeo however glares at Vittorio but others too pretty much ignores his statement. They are aware of what happened last night and they know mentioning it again in front of the young girl will only embarrass her more.

Just like this few more days rolls by. Athena quietly doodles on the blank page of her notebook. She is sitting in the back of classroom. Ariana's bestfriends Max and Sarah are sitting along with her.

They try to make conversation with her everyday but Athena rarely talks to them. She could only say that both of them are true friends of Ariana. She must be really lucky to have them. They always have her back and they truly worry about her.

However the rest of the students does not like Athena as in Ariana. According to them, Ariana has grown vulnerable and it is the right chance to get revenge on her for everything she has done in past. They are always looking for the chances to pick on her. It is so wrong of them but they just never cares.

The sound of the bell ringing catch Athena's attention. Sarah and Max follows behind her towards the gym class. It is the one of the classes that Athena hates the most. She dislikes every class though. She is illiterate and it is hard for her to understand whatever the teacher says.

Her none of the teacher really cares about her lack of response. They only assume that her quietness is because of the traumatic accident she has been gone through. But in the P.E. class, she has to do extracurricular activities and she assumes that she is nowhere near to be good in it. She gets tired easily.

It happens same when she takes her self defence class with Alexander every early morning. Alexander is simply cruel. He likes to push her past her limits and once it often lead for her to black out.

Athena snaps out of her thoughts when she hears Sarah's gasp. Looking up she realizes that they have reached at their destination. She follows their gazes to see some university students. They are playing basketball.

Her eyes catches Stephan Riccardo. Wearing all black, he is easily pushing past his opponents by leading the ball.

"Omg! Why are they here? Most likely why is he here?" Sarah lets out a dreamy sigh. Her eyes are not leaving Stephan's movements.

Their gym teacher whistles loudly to gain the distracted students attention.

"Stop looking like creeps and change. We are taking the second section of court to play dodgeball." Athena frowns at his words. What is dodgeball now?

She follows Sarah to girls changing hall. After changing in her gym uniform, she heads out to see the students lining up in two sets of teams. Sarah drags her in Max's team.

"Ariana! Why do you look so pale?" Max asks her by throwing an arm over her shoulder. Athena flinches a bit but then she shrugs.

"You don't remember. But this was always your favourite game. You were always so overenthusiastic about this." He grins at her and Sarah also nods in agreement.

"It's simple Ariana in case you forget. Just hit the opponent's team members but try to avoid getting hit." Sarah explains her after judging her confused expression.

"Don't worry we won't let anyone hurt you." Max assures her with a small smile.

As the game is about to start, Athena feels a heavy gaze burning in the back of her head. She slightly tilts her head back to see Stephan Riccardo. He is directly looking at her and doesn't even trying to hide this.

Athena looks in front suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Athena sees that her opposite teammates are whispering to each other. Few of them catches her eye. It feels a little off.

As the game starts, Athena only stands back while Max and Sarah are trying to shield her as much as they could. They try to block the balls that are directly thrown in her direction.

It doesn't take them long to understand that it is a plan.

"Fuckers!" Max curses under his breath as a ball hit his shoulder. It take him a little off guard.

Athena gasps. She is about to approach him when another ball comes flying in her direction. She covers her face with her arms on the instinct. But before it could make the painful impact with her, it was blocked only two inches away from her body.

Upon feeling no pain or impact, she looks up genuinely confused. Her eyes widens. Standing in front of her is Stephan Riccardo, holding that ball in his hand.

Athena finally notices the extreme silence around her. But she could feel every eye staring at her.

"Miller!"

"Y-yes Stephan." Their usually angry gym teacher stutters in fear.

"Cortello is not fine. Let her sit! I am sure rest of Cortello's will drain your blood out of body when they will see a slight scratch on their little sister."

"Right S-stephan." Their gym teacher sounds like he just suddenly realized. Stephan finally removes his stare from her and walks towards the second section of court.