"Gianna, what the hell! You told me they were asleep! Isn't that Kathleen's voice?" Athena delivered to Gianna an incredulous look, her words shrouded in an accusatory tone.
As she spoke, her legs moved hurriedly out of the sitting room to the well lit hallway.
Gianna hurried after her, cussing intermittently at the swift change in the atmosphere. She didn't fail, however, to plead her cause.
"Athena, last I checked, they were asleep. I even double checked. How was I supposed to know they were awake?"
Athena had no response to Gianna's question and plea. She only hoped that the shout she had heard earlier was from protest, and not from pain.
But when she stepped into the room, a sharp cry of anguish escaped her lips.
"What is happening here?!" She screamed thereafter, when she saw her children hugging themselves on the floor. They were crying intensely, passionately.