Chapter 43: All Of Us Are Dead

Closing the door behind her and locking it to avoid any more incoming disturbances, everyone quietly took a seat on the chairs they could find in Orson’s large study room. With only the lamplights on and the curtains closed, the study room appeared dim, and the air carried a mixture of anxiety and focus.

Rounding each other with their chairs and forming a circle, silence suddenly reigned between everyone, and all eyes were now fixed on Madeline as they waited for her to explain where she’d seen someone with that same description Auriela had told Cassian about.

"Are you sure about what you saw?" Cassian asked cryptically. He didn’t want Madeline to get involved any further than she already was, and if it was possible for her to have spotted someone who had the exact features Auriela had mentioned, then that only rings a negative bell in his head.

"Yes, I’m sure." She looked at Cassian, her dark orbs displaying the truthfulness in her words. "But it was a very long time ago. When you first asked me about the description, I told you that I hadn’t seen anyone with such, but it dawned on me that maybe I have seen someone. The accident that had occurred with my parents’ carriage. I can still remember it clearly. There was someone standing right in the alley." She explained as though she was visioning the whole scene once again. "Even as a child, I noticed the person who stood there was watching us intently. He had a red cloak on, and was dressed in all black. It was a dark night so seeing his face isn’t one of the things I can clarify."

"Wait, you mean during the accident that led to the death of your parents?" Inquired Cassian with a raised brow, and Madeline nodded her head while averting her gaze elsewhere. "The strange person was watching our carriage, and that’s when the collision happened like it knew and was waiting to watch the scene unfold. I knew that accident had to be designed by someone, I just couldn’t accept it was a normal collision after my trauma had hit me, and from the sad things that have happened, it looks like that same person is the one responsible for Roland’s death."

Madeline stood up from her chair, stepping out of their circle when a restless thought invaded her mind. "Someone is trying to end the whole of my family it seems, and why? Or how? I don’t know."

"And how many years was this?" Orson asked, sitting up properly on his chair. "I mean, how many years has passed since the death of your biological parents?"

"Sixteen to seventeen years ago?" Madeline responded, not completely sure herself, but she knew it was between these two horrific years.

"Someone from sixteen to seventeen years ago.... I have a little doubt that this same person is responsible. The person should be old by now to even attack someone, and your Aunt clearly doesn’t look like someone who got injured by an old man." Asserted Cassian after thinking a little deeper into Madeline’s story.

"So there are allies, other accomplices." Orson stated, coming to the conclusion that they might not be dealing with just one person.

"I don’t think we’re dealing with one person here." Inna finally commented on everyone’s thoughts. "And Cas is right, someone must be young and skilled enough to perform such a clean murder. If Madeline’s Aunt isn’t kept under watch, the criminal might come for her to finish his task."

"So what does that make us?" Orson inquired as everyone seemed to be having their own ideology concerning the case. When no one responded to his inquiries regarding them personally, a glass shattering sound instantly broke the silence in the room, and shards of glasses came flying towards their direction, leading everyone to take cover in order to avoid being pierced by those glasses.

Orson, who was late to move out of the way, inflicted a small injury as a piece of glass tore through the side of his upper cheek bone, giving him a clean cut that instantly drew out blood. Everyone’s eyes widened when Orson fell to the ground with a thud, by then, the glasses had stopped coming, and there were now broken pieces lying on the ground.

"Orson!" Cassian’s face paled a bit seeing his friend drop to the ground after nearly missing a glass, but to his quick relief, Orson released a slight groan of pain, as though he had fallen too hard due to the impact.

Madeline gasped in shock as she stepped out of the curtain she went to hide. Inna quickly crawled out from underneath the study table she had hidden herself, and Cassian helped his friend stand up on his two feet again, after successfully missing death.

"Are you alright?"

Inna and Madeline also rushed forward to confirm if he was alright, and he nodded in response, gently massaging the back of his neck to soothe the pain he felt there. "What the bloody hell was that thing???!"

Like a response to his question, a big stone suddenly rolled to the ground and stopped right in front of them. Lifting their heads up at the same time, they noticed Orson’s window was broken into pieces, indicating that someone had intentionally broken the glass window with a stone and caused this havoc.

The stone was wrapped with a white sheet, but no one dared to go near it to see what the paper contained.

"Look, the stone has..."

"Stay back." Cassian stopped his sister who was already moving forward to pick the stone, but she halted when her brother signaled for her to keep her distance, and she politely listened, taking a step back and standing beside Madeline who was still in the middle of processing everything that had happened.

When Cassian took a step forward towards the stone, Madeline blurted out of worry. "Be careful."

Staring at the concerned look on his wife’s face, Cassian responded with a nod of his head before moving forward to pick up the stone. It was quite heavy in his grasp, heavy enough to cause serious damages to a human being, talk more of a glass. When he unwrapped the paper and separated it from the ash-colored stone, there were shouting words written boldly on the paper, but with...

’BLOOD??’ Cassian’s eyes widened when he noticed how the blood written words were still dripping from the paper. They were fresh blood.

ALL OF US ARE DEAD!! : )

Madeline gasped in horror after sneaking behind Cassian to read what was written on the paper, and she looked at Cassian when a sudden recognition dawned on her. "Do you think it’s..."

Orson hurried to the window to see who had thrown the stone, hoping to spot the asshole who tried to play such a silly prank on them. Looking around, there was no sight of anyone outside, even the butler had stepped out to observe what the gardener had done to the yard. "This is a mess!" He heard the butler complain. "Where’s the gardener?" He questioned a servant who was passing by, and everything looked fine from the outside.

No one seemed to hear the window shatter.

"Strange, who could have done this?" What shocked Cassian more was the smiley emoji that was added to the written words. He knew the emoji itself meant something sinister, and the anger that boiled in his system made him crumple the stupid note in his grip before tossing it away.

He wasn’t a man of such games, and it looks like that was what their Hunter had planned on doing to them. If this person feels so brave about what he’s doing, why won’t he come out and fight him like a real man would???

"What does he mean by all of us being dead?" Madeline asked in worry while trying to interpret the message, and Inna bluntly responded. "He must be saying he’s coming for our lives." She shrugged, barely looking panicked by the bloody note they received.

Orson winced when Inna applied an ointment to his wound. "Hey, that hurts!"

"Keep whining and I will find out how a grown baby like yourself even got to work with the authorities."

"This is why I didn’t want the two of you to even be a part of this." Cassian brushed his fingers into his hair, looking frustrated since his sister and his wife were now involved in this.

"I call it an adventure." Inna turned around to look at her brother. "Madeline can uncover her parents’ death from this, it’s justifiable if she wants to help, you’re not the only one with goals."

"Goals that are life threatening? What a good choice!" He said in complete sarcasm.

"We should be more worried about this unknown person." Orson stood up from the chair when Inna had bandaged his wound for him. "Whoever it is has traced us to my home, and I don’t want my family to be used as my weak point."

Cassian turned away, trying to think properly while Madeline self consciously moved closer to peer out through the broken window. So what she saw wasn’t her imagination, someone really followed them here.

But what could this person want from all of them?? And why is he doing all of this??

"All of us are dead." She muttered the words on the written paper. She was super sure that statement held a lot more than Inna had predicted, and something told her it’d be connected to the missing people case.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read