”It’s been two days already, why hasn’t she called yet?”

Tina shrugged weakly. ”It’s not like I would have answered anyway…”

Alice ran a hand through her hair, feeling a bit stunned by the news. ”Helena said she doesn’t talk to them” She said out of nowhere.

”Bette?”

”Yes, Bette doesn’t talk to Shane and Helena, they haven’t seen her since your um…since the party at the Gyre”

”Oh” Tina let out, lowering her head a bit. Then she suddenly looked at her friend. ”Alice? Have you known about that?”

”About what?”

”About what Bette’s doing for money”

Alice shook her head urgently. ”No, I haven’t. Helena never told me a thing.”

”Does Helena do that too?”

”I don’t know, Tina. She is very difficult to read and is secretive all the time”

”Then she is the same. Bette was like this all the time too… Have you ever noticed anything…odd?”

”What do you mean?”

”Like any odd things happening to her? Strange behaviour like rapid mood swings or um…excessive wariness, might I say?”

Alice lied down and propped herself up on the elbow, having a thoughtful look on her face. ”Well, once I was spending the night at her house and at about three in the morning someone began pounding on the front door hard. She became really fussy, then out of the blue she took a gun out of one of the cupboards and went to the door. As it turned out it was just a neighbor.”

”Did you ask her where that gun had come from?”

”She said it’s for self-protection. I didn’t ask any more of it.”

”Self-protection my ass…” Tina scoffed, shaking her head. ”What about strange things like two phones or…occasional cuts, wounds?”

Alice furrowed her brows. ”Yeah, I guess. Not a cut though… She hurt her ribs one time, but didn’t tell me how and under what circumstances”

Tina rubbed her temples. She got off the bed and began to pace with her hand on her hips. ”As I’m now rummaging through our relationship, I begin to realize how naive I was. She’s been lying to me since the very beginning, like how she works at the Gyre, helping Helena with managing, how she has a gun for self-protection, the same exact thing Helena made you believe in. They are both liars, Alice… I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid and blind for the whole six months. Oh God, she is probably laughing at me!”