The rain certainly did its heavy duty to practically blind me as I sprinted out into the muddy front lawn, plunging my body heat downwards. Thankfully, Sebastian had already cleared a route for me to follow in the sludge since I would have certainly slipped and fallen if he hadn't. There were too many mud ditches and puddles already making themselves rather difficult obstacles to overcome, forcing me to twist and turn here and there as I continued running, practically out of breath. I could feel my chest already begin to tighten, but I would not stop until I caught whomever I had seen through the window.
At the moment, that was the best I could give her right now.
The water poured down mercilessly on my shivering self, causing my clothes to stick unpleasantly and my hair to weigh my head down, worsening my vision by the second. It felt like ages as I followed Sebastian's trail, until finally, I skidded to a stop at the edge of the woods that enveloped the manor's perimeter.
He had left his tailcoat at the trunk of a nearby tree, neatly folded and unsurprisingly dry. I slipped it over my head hastily and continued on.
The branches above created a type of canopy over the forest floor, which was a rather satisfying difference between the forest and outer environment.
Against the freezing air, my shallow pants and quick breaths were visible in small white puffs which gave a clear giveaway to my location, but I was too enveloped in my determination to care.
Sebastian had to be nearby with the culprit. I was sure of it.
Clumsily, I rubbed the water out of my eyes and began to look around for any hints as to where they may be, becoming slightly impatient the more and more I was met with nothing.
No more than a few minutes later, however, I finally heard what I was searching for.
"You don't know what you've just stepped into," It warned furiously against the strong current of the wind and rain, clear enough to be understood but too muffled to be identified.
Ironically enough, my shoes had stepped in and wedged themselves in the growing mud as I trudged over to wherever the sound had come from, hoping that whatever direction I turned led me to my destination.
My heart was pounding loudly in my ears despite nature's immense roars and I couldn't quite tell if the water on my hands was from the rain or perspiration. I supposed this case was more intimate than the others I've working on, explaining my humane reactions I thought I had long ago buried.
Today was quite the day for the rising of once thought to be dead emotions.
I blindly continued forward, shoving back down my thoughts of another trifle. This had to be fixed first and foremost, whatever the cost may be.
Or, at least, that had been my decision before walking into the small opening of the woods and coming face to face with the man Sebastian and I had been chasing.
Now, I was robbed of words.
The man writhing and twisting about on the wet floor, wrists and ankles bound with wires, mouth gagged and eyes blindfolded, did not shock me much at all. In all actuality, it was the only relieving and slightly understandable sight in view. Why he was bound as such, was what I did not know, however. I could only painfully look up from the ground and dare myself to ask Salvador why he had done it.
"You should have stayed and danced longer with la Condesa," he muttered to me, his usual lively dark eyes now dull and void of the usual happiness I could find there.
I curled my fingers at the mention of Adelina and my thoughts began to race at the realization that I would have to tell her who had been murdering her family. She would not take it well, I had to think this through.
"That would have been practical, yes," Sebastian replied with a smirk as I stayed silent in thought. He waved his gloved hand down at the man on the floor, curious. "I don't suppose you'll explain your motives?"
My gaze followed Salvador as he shockingly bent down and snatched at the back of the man's head, yanking him up to his feet by his hair so harshly I could have sworn I heard a crack. The man moaned in pain but Salvador clearly did not care.
"This man is a piece of shit," Salvador began, teeth bared in utter loathing, once again surprising me.
He shook him fiercely for a few seconds before letting him drop.
"He was talking about how Little Adelina looked so appealing in her new dress. It was disgusting."
The man heard this and instantly began shaking his head rapidly, nearly loosening the cloth tied around his eyes. Salvador noticed and tightened it once more, roughly. His words sunk in seconds later and I then too turned to look down at the man with abhor, nearly ready to swing my foot across his jaw when Sebastian spoke, stopping me and bringing me back to reality.
This was not about agreeing with the method of his madness, no. This was about righting the wrongs he had been doing from the beginning. Though my head could not wrap itself around it, I knew one way or another, he had to be put down.
It would only be fair to Madame Red.
"You can't possibly be working alone," Sebastian mumbled, hand at his chin. "I was nearly sure if it..."
I scowled.
"So what you're saying is that you lied to me when I deliberately asked you if you knew who was respons-"
"My Lord," Sebastian said, cutting me off with a deep bow, "At the time of Arnold's death, I did not know precisely whom it could have been because the crime scene had been left perfectly clean of evidence. I also had no clue as to what motive the perpetrator could have had either."
My scowl did not waver.
"What you're telling me right now is that you're useless."
Sebastian chuckled and shook his head.
"What kind of butler would I be if I was useless? After all, I did manage to comb out a few conclusions."
"Oh, we certainly would like to hear those."
From the shadows behind Salvador, a small flicker of a light came into view and I squinted my eyes to see Rodric approaching us, holding an oil lamp in his hand with the twins tailing behind him. Eren held an axe over his shoulder and Erin's fingers fiddled around with a kitchen knife, its sharpened edges glinting in the shy light that came from the lamp. Both of their eyes contained the same vacant stare that Salvador had, unnerving me. I was so used to seeing a cheerful smile from either one of them.
"Maldoris, what say you explain what's going on here?" Sebastian offered, taking a step forward, displaying a smile that was blatantly synthetic.
Amidst this incomprehensible situation, I managed to notice that Sebastian nearly seemed........aggravated. Had he really been so fooled?
Impossible.
"Oh no," Erin said softly, now aiming the knife at me.
"We can't possibly do that." Eren finished as he tilted his head.
Shoving myself past Sebastian's extended arm, I stood firmly in between both parties, irritated at the conviction in front of me. I was trapped between a rock and a hard place.
On a personal note, they had managed to hide and destroy the evidence right under my nose. Deaths could have been prevented if I had just opened my eyes a bit wider. Looking back, I easily saw the mistakes and obvious clues that hinted at their involvement. In the first murder, the three of them had been the last ones to see Arnold's body before it disappeared. Since the beginning, I suspected two culprits, which I could now see were the twins.
"So you three disposed of Arnold with the suitcases," I said, hand at my chin as I audibly connected the pieces together. "But, which one of you murdered Dianesse?"
At this, Rodric chuckled.
"Who else seemed the most upset by the news at first?"
My lips pursed as the pit of my stomach twisted, realizing that the whole party responsible was not here.
Yuki was still with Adelina.
"Let me explain before you try to go and save Little Adelina. I can assure you that she is more than safe," Rodric hummed, handing the lamp over to Salvador as he cracked his knuckles. Sebastian pushed me back once more and I nearly growled at the feeling of not being considered an equal.
I would stay quiet, however, if it meant getting the entirety of the story.
"Arnold was killed off by Erin and Eren, who volunteered to start this inevitable massacre. I heard you say so yourself when you announced it: two people had committed the crime. I was rather impressed you deduced such a difficult clue, but nonetheless we could not have anything more revealed."
Erin smiled widely and hooked arms with her brother.
"So we chopped him up and have him ready to be shipped off to London!" She sang with a sickening giggle.
I nearly looked away due to my immense discomfort. Rodric proceeded.
"Dianesse was an accident. That putrid Aunt Opal was supposed to be next," he said, shaking his head in apparent embarrassment. "Yuki, however, did well and managed to even more so ruin the trail the guard dog was walking along. I didn't even need to clean that up myself."
The image of a carved red smile passed through my vision, sending a frown up to replace my grave expression.
"And this last victim was Salvador's," Sebastian concluded.
Rodric nodded. I curled my fists once and then relaxed them as thunder clapped above, giving everyone a moment to pause before returning back to our unfortunate circumstance.
They had told me who had done what and where. What was left was for me to ask-
"Why?"
The three of them exchanged a fleeting glance of uncertainty and Rodric only sighed. It was mystifying how their eyes that had reflected disgust and utter hate only seconds before were now replaced with guilt, despair and anguish. Erin was now sobbing and Salvador let himself fall against a tree.
Even Rodric, a demon, now seemed to have less of a front.
"A-Arnold was trying to t-take advantage of little Adelina and her company!" Erin cried out, rubbing away at her eyes as the tears refused to stop falling.
I blinked. I recalled that and it was true.
Eren followed soon after. "Aunt Opal was being so nasty to her, she didn't deserve that at all. Dianesse was going to be next anyways."
All the words Adelina's cousin had spit at her were certainly ones I wanted to personally retaliate. Murder had not been a solution that had crossed my mind, though. I found it hard to accept their excuses.
"This disgusting man doesn't deserve to see her with his eyes like he did," Salvador muttered, hand running through his hair.
Pained, they all stayed frozen in their places. They seemed finished. Done with their explanations.
But I could not face Adelina without a proper retort. What they were presenting to me wasn't enough. It just couldn't be that simple.
"That can't possibly be it," I said, stepping around Sebastian to make myself visible, determined to receive a better response for their actions.
The twins snapped their heads to look at me and Rodric's eye narrowed down, now the menacing pink that told me I was right for continuing to press on.
So I did.
"Motivation, yes, that is likely. But those cannot be your sole purposes. I'll ask again. Why would you kill Adelina's family, when she cares for you all so much. Did you even stop and consider what this would do to her if she found out that it was the lot of you?"
Erin's panicked shout made me flinch, stopping me from speaking any further.
"We'd kill ourselves before allowing our Countess to find out what we've done for her!" Erin cried out, scrambling up to her feet in a haste, knife clattering to the floor. "She can never know!"
Eren wrapped his arms around his sister and she again collapsed to the floor, hands covering her face as I took a moment to process what she had said. Now more than ever I was sure that they were hiding a deeper secret than what they claimed.
I needed to know what it was.
"Ciel? Are you there?"
The twins gasped and my heart sank. Adelina's voice was horrifyingly close. Yuki had failed in keeping her inside and from the mortified expressions her servants had, we had no time to delay.
"Sebastian, go," I ordered him with a hiss, jabbing a finger in the direction I had heard her, "Keep her away from here and get her back into the manor!"
Her voice echoed again through the forest. "Sebastian, where are you two?"
Sebastian was gone the next second, leaving me with the perpetrators and my doubts.
None of us exchanged words. Salvador was silent as he picked up his victim and began heading into the deeper side of the forest. I didn't try to stop the twins as they too took their leave, anguished.
I looked to Rodric. It took a few moments for him to respond to my unspoken question, but he did, much to my pleasure.
"Why we did this is a secret we cannot divulge, not to you, not to her, nor to anyone."
Crossing my arms, I frowned.
"And I suppose that is supposed to be enough for me to keep my mouth shut?"
"If you truly care about her like how we saw in the living room parlor," he said, beginning again with bared teeth, "You will trust us and know that we were just keeping her secret."
I refused to answer, but Rodric was not amused by my silence. He stepped up to me and loomed himself over, mauve eyes boring into mine. I raised chin and met his stare.
"You love her, don't you?"
"Of course I bloody do."
He smirked at this, stepping back to give me my space once more, hands folded at his back. I leveled myself once more to him as I waited for his next words.
Though, they were too shocking to comprehend.
"If you tell her, she won't ever be the same. She won't be sane, either. You will drive her mad if you tell her what we did. I assure you this, because this is not the first time it's happened."
My blood froze.
"The episode she had before the curry contest more than supports my claims. Don't you remember how scared she was?"
I could not swallow.
"If you tell her, you sentence her back into her traumatic stress. This is for her own good. You cannot say a word of what you've discovered. Do you understand, Ciel Phantomhive?"
My palms shook. She would not go through that.
My head spun.
My lips opened. Closed. I would not let that happen.
My breathing shallowed.
My head nodded. I would make sure she stayed safe. Even if that meant lying through my teeth to her.
I responded, defeated.
"I understand."
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GUYSGUYSGUYSGUYS IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS CHAPTER PLEASE ASK AWAY BECAUSE YOU WONT WANNA BE CONFUSED ONCE THE CIRCUS ARC STARTS, WHICH IS AFTER THIS NEXT UPDATE
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...My Countess orders, I obey; Anyone who dares interfere, will have Hell to pay...