Everyone listened silently as Kimi snickered dryly, his hand covering his eyes as he shook his head. "I already fucking know that." He dropped his hand and curled his fingers to form twin fists. "And do you want to know how I know that? Because Mr. Marshall told me that before he fucking ripped my heart out. I didn't ask for what the fuck you are! I asked you why the fuck you've been lying to me!"
Kara began to wring her hands, her gaze on the floor. "I'm sorry. I was only doing everything I could in order to keep you away from bad people."
"Bad people like who?!" he spat. "Aurum?! Mr. and Mrs. Vdélla?! You?! My sister?! Myself?!"
All around them, cadavers were murmuring to themselves, still waiting to hear the whole truth. The Pristines stood by the entrance, their faces one of worry and shock.
Kara shook her head. "No. I had been doing it to protect you from people who want to misuse power. People like Ace Jaeger. I hadn't even known that his family had been the one behind all of the things that had been happening for more than three decades."
"Three decades?" Aurum asked lightly.
"Yes, three decades. Ace isn't the first person who had come after cadavers. His father had, and back then I hadn't even know who Ace was. Rumours were going around that we were being hunted like animals by some human, that's how Anxo lost his wife, and that's how I had lost my first husband, Kidagakash's father."
Kimi scoffed gently. "What are you going to fucking say now? That I'm not your son and I had fallen from the fucking sky?"
"It's true," Kidagakash whispered, stepping forward. "You and I don't share a father, but we share a mother. My father had been killed a while back by an anonymous person we believed to have been going after cadavers. So I had told our mother to go into hiding, taking my heart with her. To protect herself, I told her to cut all ties with cadavers. As a cadaver, being without my heart couldn't kill me so that's how I knew she was pregnant when she came to my grave to tell me.
"She had found a new life and she was pregnant—pregnant with you. But the fear was that she had fallen for a Hunter, Michael Mikaelis, your father. I decided to let her put my heart in you in order to keep it safe. You were the perfect blend between cadavers and Hunters, and your existence would have been unsuspected. It wasn't until twelve years ago that she finally left, leaving her past behind her."
"But why had she left?! Why had she kept my true identity a secret?!"
"Because... Because I knew something had started becoming fishy. I started having my doubts about Ace when he mentioned something concerning Kidagakash. So I decided to come back to lay my doubts to rest. But before I could actually get answers, the Hunters caught on. I had stayed far too long away from here and they needed answers as to why one of their own had been murdered. But before I could give them answers, I was kidnapped."
"But you had been planning to leave. Again," he growled, throwing his hands up.
Kara's eyes welled up and she pressed her palms together, placing the side of her hands against her lips. "I was doing that to protect you when I realized what the wicked people were planning to do from the way they were killing people. And—"
"UGH!" Kimi gripped his hair and tugged at it. He moved around a spot as he grumbled, "protect me this, protect me that. And how did your protection go?! I still got killed and now I think I'm completely a cadaver! Why do you keep doing this to me? All I want to do is rest from all of this, yet you keep waking me up whenever the secret you've tried hard to keep erupts. I don't think I can ever have it in my heart to understand why you're just... why you're just so..."
Kidagakash heaved a sigh and held her hands before herself. "Then don't understand anything." Kimi shifted his tear-filled glare to her and she flashed him a smile. "But rather, learn to live with it. You're not alone Kimi. This world thrives off of the deception of every living being. Without lies, there's nothing called truth. So... live with it. Besides, the one who wants you dead has been engulfed in his own sin."
Kimi was heaving badly as he looked back at his mother. He kept on breathing heavily before it slowly mellowed down, his whole body becoming mushed by sadness. He could only silently sob. Kara stepped closer to him. She didn't know whether to hold him, clenching and unclenching her fingers. But she did so, holding her breath, her heart pounding. She wrapped one arm around him and froze as he wrapped two arms around her, crying into her shoulder. This made Kara tear up even more.
"You're okay," she whispered, rubbing his back. "We're going to be okay. The both of us are going to be fine." Kimi nodded gently and she also did. "We are okay."
The cadavers watched them as they cried their hearts out. But their quiet time was cut short when two cadavers dragged Ace into the hall. He was yelling like a mad man.
"Where's that useless son of mine?!" he roared, his eyes wide with red cracks in their whites.
Aurum sighed and looked at Kidagakash. "What should we do about him My Lady?" he asked and the cadavers who were murmuring stopped talking to listen to what she had to say. Even Kimi raised his head and looked back.
Kidagakash peered at him with a light frown. "Let the human authorities decide his fate."
"But My Lady—"
She raised a hand and turned to face Ace. "I know that he has spilled a lot of blood to achieve his goal, but Hunters are still humans and they will deal with him."
Ace snickered loudly. "Yes! I am responsible for the deaths of all those useless Hunters. From the Mikaelis to Mikaelmas, I am responsible for all of them. And it's not even only them. Humans are humans and they are all the same and they share all the same kind of organs that Hunters have and I take them all. I had the perfect plan to revive this world! My wife cooperated, my little son cooperated, yet it is only that stupid son of mine who can't even stomach a common liver! If I die, he dies!" He scoffed. "And what do you think the humans are going to do? Sentence me to death? Life imprisonment? I have the money and I will pay them off. Everyone is an idiot when it comes to money."
Elvira grimaced, gripping her neck. "You are a sick man. You don't only need to be confronted by the police, you need immediate help. Making your family feed on the organs of other humans? That's disgusting, and it's coming from a cadaver who actually drinks blood."
Anxo growled lowly, his eyes glowing. "He doesn't need help. All he needs is punishment for ruining my family. He will pay and die a painful death."
Ace scoffed and cocked his head. "And how exactly am I going to pay?"
"We'll know just that when the court declares a punishment for you," Tobe said.
"And how are you going to prove that I'm guilty?!"
Silver walked out of the midst of cadavers and raised his phone. "Everyone will be pointing fingers at you when they hear all that you've just said."
Ace growled loudly and moved to jump at him but the cadavers held him back. "You bastard! I should have killed you like the way I murdered your parents!"
A few people gasped and Silver's eyes darkened. He stepped closer to him and punched him square in the face.
"And that's just punishment number one," he said, gently flinging the hand he used to punch.
Aurum motioned for the cadavers to take him away.
Meraki walked out of the crowd to follow them out. He waved his phone. "I'll just call the police." Aurum nodded and he stepped out, sighing, "I can't believe that that madman is a member of the council."
When he was finally out, Aurum suspired and turned to Kidagakash. "What now?"
"Now?" Kidagakash looked at everybody's face. "Now you are all free."
Aurum quirked a brow in confusion. "Free? I don't understand. Free as in...?"
"I mean to say that you are free to do whatever you want and be whatever you want." She clasped her hands and held them before herself, dropping her gaze. "The tenets of my rule requires everyone to stay under my rule one way or another. Pristines obey my every command and Level Os are under them. I want you all to live your lives yourself. You aren't to answer to any Pristine or Level A ever again.
"I believe this is one of the reasons why Maria had been so easily manipulated. She wanted freedom and Ace gave her the idea that he could give her that." She raised her head. "For those of you who wish to return back to humans, I... I will see what I can do." She looked at Kimi and smiled lightly. "Every disease has a cure, some... more hidden in unreachable places than the others."