Silence

Chapter 17

The next few days passed by without any further disturbance from Lukas as far as Phantomhive Manor went. However, two more criminals turned up dead in London in a way that only a Reaper could be responsible for. Ciel was becoming more frustrated by the day that the Reaper constantly managed to evade him.

When it came to Sebastian and Adalina, neither of them were addressing the clear elephant in the room regarding their rather intimate moment the other night.

Adalina knew that the Oracle had been to Sebastian, but Sebastian didn't know that the Oracle had been to Adalina. As far as he knew, she was still confused about her feelings towards him and knew nothing of the transformation process.

While Adalina was cleaning out Ciel's study as he and Sebastian took care of business elsewhere in an attempt to apprehend Lukas, she came across an old newspaper. Curious as to why it hadn't been thrown out, she flipped through a couple of the pages. Nothing seemed familiar. Why hadn't she seen this newspaper before? Seeing as she usually was the one to throw out the daily papers, she was able to read almost all of them. But this one was totally new to her.

She checked the date and saw that it was several weeks old. Why had Ciel kept it for so long?

Her heart stopped when she saw one of the articles. Pictured were several faces that would haunt her for years to come.

They belonged to some of the men who had held her captive.

Her eyes quickly scanned the article. It said that the men had been found dead and all of the girls who had been captured were being well taken care of as Scotland Yard tried to track down their families.

The article went on to say that several of the girls had overheard the men praising someone with the last name Druitt. According to the paper, he had either sold the girls to those men or given them information on how to find them since he kept track of all the most beautiful girls in the city.

Adalina crushed the paper in her hands and let it fall to the ground as her body shook with anger. It was Druitt. Viscount Druitt was responsible for her capture. She could remember her father mentioning him every now and again at dinner, but she couldn't remember why.

He must've learned about Adalina through the connection with her father and then informed those men of her whereabouts. He was the reason her parents were dead.

Adalina recalled how Viscount Druitt had been a suspect during the Jack the Ripper case, and while he hadn't been responsible for those killings, he had been responsible for selling women on the black market. Unfortunately, he had been able to bribe his way out of prison. And to this day, even with this information provided in the newspaper article, he was still a free man.

The head maid knew where he resided. She could easily get there and back without anyone knowing, even Sebastian.

Watching out for the other servants, Adalina snuck out to the stables and saddled up one of the horses. After securing her whip around her waist, she hopped up onto the horse and galloped down the road to head off to London.

Upon arriving at Viscount Druitt's estate, she tied up the horse along one of the gates. Then she went towards the back where she knew a servants' entrance would be.

From her time in captivity, Adalina was an expert at sneaking around and avoiding people she didn't want to be seen by. She had learned from all of the times she had managed to be able to sneak to the kitchens to grab a bit more food and cloths for the injured girls in the room. Escaping had been impossible as they had found out when one of the girls had attempted to do so, but the kitchen was close enough to the room they were all kept in that she could make it there and back undetected.