===

If her feet wasn’t so useless she would have made the trip to the prison by herself. Selina hated waiting on the phone line for the other person to pick up. She had been waiting 6 and a half minutes on the phone after the receptionist had picked up. What in the world could he be so busy with that he wasn’t picking up? Selina rubbed her forehead to remain calm.

“Wang Dong Cheng,” his voice came another two minutes later.

“Finally!” Selina shouted. “Do you know how long I’ve waited?”

“Selina?” he said with surprise in his voice.

“I’ll just get to the point. Can you find the Chang’s number?” Selina asked. “I want to question them myself.”

“What are you planning?” Jiro questioned.

“My business,” Selina replied. “Do it for me alright? I have something up later so just text me their number or something.”

“What’s that something later?” Jiro asked curiously.

Selina could feel herself become annoyed with his nosiness.

“Hanging up now! Bye bye!” Selina hung up the phone.

Selina hopped out of the taxi that had stopped in front of the farm house.

“Would you mind waiting for a bit?” Selina questioned. “I won’t be very long.”

The taxi driver frowned, “Are you on a dare or something? Why would you come here?”

“Investigative reporter,” Selina corrected, “it won’t take long.”

Selina closed the door and made her way to the house. The door had, surprisingly, been kept unlocked. Selina hopped into the house and looked around. The place seemed untouched. Had there been something more in the basement that she’d missed because of the attack? Selina rubbed her forehead as she stared at the dented hole in the stairs that hadn’t been repaired yet. She wanted to go down there for another look, but she wasn’t sure if she could. Going down and making her trip back up wouldn’t be easy.

It was hard to push away the desire of going down there as she hopped pass the basement. It felt like restraining herself from eating chocolate when she wanted it most.

There were short wooden stairs that led to the second floor. Selina entered the empty bedrooms one by one. Everything had remained untouched since the last family had occupied the building such as, the drawers, the mirrors, and the doors.

She pushed open the closet in the king bedroom to find it empty. It wasn’t as if she had expected to see a body hanging in there. Selina just wanted to look at the whole house to get a feel of it for herself. Before returning back downstairs Selina glanced out the window at the end of the hallway. From the window the fields of the farm garden could be seen along with the chicken house. Had the deceased father once stood there out looking his farm? Had he felt proud of the things he’d accomplished in his life? Was he a kind person? Or had he been an arrogant father? Silence roamed the hallway as if to remind Selina that no one was there anymore. It felt lonely and the house seemed to drone to Selina to hurry up and find the murderer so that people would start coming to the house once more.

She headed back downstairs slowly and made her way to the taxi.  

“So what’d they make you do? Stand in the basement for 10 minutes?” the driver laughed.

“Do you want me to charge you for harassment?” Selina questioned irritated.

The driver’s face became stern as he drove off.

After returning to Prescon Selina hopped to her seat tired. Her left feet had been feeling tired the whole morning. Hopping for two days on her left feet was actually more tiring than it sounded.

“Where’d you come from?” her boss asked walking over.

“I paid the old house a visit,” Selina replied as she massaged her calf.

“With your broken ankle?” asked her boss.

Selina nodded, “My energy feels like it’s been drained out of me.”

“Maybe you should take a break,” her boss suggested, “you’ve probably done enough reading and won’t be able to do anything else until you can start walking on your own again. Do you want to do that?”

Selina frowned.

“You won’t be able to solve anything at this rate,” her boss pointed out, “when I had a broken ankle walking around didn’t heal my feet up any faster. I know you want to get better fast…why don’t you go home?”

“Right now?” Selina asked.

“Right now,” he answered.

Selina hopped out of the journalism office a few minutes later. She paused to stare back at her co-workers who were ding their jobs diligently. It hurt to know that she had to leave on a break for a few weeks, but eventually she knew she’d have to. Her ankle wouldn’t get any better without a rest; even the doctor had told her that. She could already imagine how bored she’d be the next few weeks without having anything to do.

She felt angry and wanted to curse at her luck that seemed to worsen from her last assignment. In her whole life she’d never experienced anything as strange as she had from solving Jasmine’s murder and everything from after that just seemed to get worse such as, getting attacked at the farmhouse. From other cases she’d solved in the past she’d never run into anyone or had anyone to accompany her or had any weird dreams.

Selina sighed and turned around. It was goodbye to work during the time being. She only hoped the long rest that awaited her would be worth it. She’d heard of people having to go through surgery after their ankles were broken and their ankles never got better. She wouldn’t let herself be one of them.

“Where are you going?” Aaron’s voice suddenly interrupted her.

Selina turned surprised. She had forgotten about him during the short moment.

“Hey,” Selina greeted.

“I thought you were going to stay in the office all day,” Aaron told. “But…doesn’t look like it.”

“Oh…yea it’s kind of regretful,” Selina commented, “I don’t think I’ll be able to make it to work…you know.”

Aaron followed Selina’s gaze down to her ankle.

“Well some rest might do you good,” Aaron told.

“I hope it’s worth it,” Selina said, “I’m going to be super bored the next few weeks. I have to put my current assignment on a hold until I get better. I hate thinking about it.”

“Work-a-holic?” asked Aaron.

Selina raised her eyebrow lost at what he’d said.

“You like working don’t you?” he said.

Selina gave a short laugh, “I think becoming an investigative reporter is the best decision I’ve made for myself. It’s something I don’t hate doing.”

“You’re cheeky,” Aaron replied.

“You’ve become talkative,” Selina told, “you didn’t talk this much at first.”

Aaron smiled at her hoping he looked good. Selina stared at him for a moment and her smile turned into a laugh.

“I’ll go now, my friend came to pick me up,” Selina told.

“If I want to find you to hang out or something…can I?” he asked.

Selina thought she felt her heart skip a beat. Her chest became hot and it was as if she was becoming nervous. Her pulse increased as her lips quickly went dry.

“Yea,” Selina replied. “Call me up whenever.”

Aaron smiled, “Have a good rest then. Bye bye.”

Selina nodded and turned around making her way toward the door quickly. She didn’t want him to see her face getting red from excitement.

As expected Hebe was waiting for her outside in front of the large building. Hebe had been standing outside with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

“What took you so long?” Hebe asked.

Selina just smiled at her.

“I think he likes me,” Selina said after she sat down in the car. “If he asks me if I’d like to hang out sometime that means something doesn’t it?”

Hebe gave an unrealistic laugh, “Sure.”

Hebe shut the door and made her way to the other side. 

“He’s just playing you,” Hebe muttered as she put her seat belt on. “You don’t need me to tell you to be careful do you?”

Selina glared at her friend then turned to look at the road. Maybe the next few weeks wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Selina’s hopes quickly sunk as she received no call from Aaron for a week. There hadn’t been anything from Jiro about her request.

That morning after Hebe had left for work Selina bored herself in front of the TV. The dramas that were playing didn’t seem realistic enough to her and Selina felt annoyed with some of the actors and actresses. After turning the TV off Selina put a CD into a CD player and lie down on the sofa trying to clear her mind.

Selina let the silence around her sink in as she tried to picture a black sky in her mind. That black sky split in half and became a dark gray sky hovering over large trees. Selina found herself standing in the middle of nowhere. She wasn’t even sure if it was in the middle of nowhere. Turning around with her loose hair flying after her Selina found a lonely cabin standing within the trees. For a moment she didn’t move, but only focused her eyes on it. Then all of a sudden the door flew open with a loud sound and something came running at her. Selina felt her eyes open in fear, but her feet did not move. A scream escaped before he wrapped his hands around her neck.