A few members of the troop had initially eyed her warily, but not wanting to incur his disfavor, held their tongues. She had tried her best to keep her composure from betraying her screaming insides.
Was this it? Was this how it began? She had often wondered how hateful people had become that way. She liked to imagine that the world was good at heart, but what good was that if the heart was so easily swayed? She tried to comfort herself in the fact that she was there in the name of goodness, but then again, couldn't any member of the hateful group claim the same? It all depended upon your measure of good.
"In its very basest, the plan is simple." He had steepled his fingers, the pride blooming in his voice as he unfurled the plot in bullet points, obviously smitten with his own ability.
And it was simple- there were only four steps, really.
Get in.
Get to the safe.
Extract the documents.
Burn the evidence.
Her heart had dropped to her feet at the mention of fire, still mourning the loss of her own home. She tightened her grip on the arm of the chair, her jaw clenched tight. Olaf had glanced at her, but then dismissively turned away, continuing his diatribe.
It was a clean plan- that was part of the problem. For all his decadence and vain dramatics, he knew how to construe a plan so simple, it could not fail. Surprisingly, his henchmen seemed to play little part in it at all. That puzzled her- she had always assumed that they were the purveyors of his dirty work, but it seemed that he had a special interest in this case.
From what she had understood, it was her job to get them in- to be the Trojan Horse of the group. She resented the comparison, but didn't protest, too busy wondering if her family too had welcomed fatal villainy into their home unwittingly. She felt sick at the notion. Seeing her pale face, Olaf had construed a recess, calling for more wine. She gladly accepted the chance to tuck herself back into the kitchen, where she now stood.
Her hands were sunken deep in the warm water as she methodically scrubbed plate after plate, slowly decimating the imposing tower. Her actions were mechanical, unthinking, her entire focus devoted to getting the stack clean. She felt frantic, trapped, but there was nothing she could do to alleviate the pressure in her chest, so she rubbed at the offending plates as if they were directly responsible for her shortness of breath. The door to the kitchen opened. She did not turn, did not look, too encompassed in her drive. Whatever it was, she could deal with it later, she just needed to get these plates clean. They had to get clean.
He stood behind her, watching, as she violently attacked the debris still clinging to the plates. He cleared his throat.
"Will you be returning?"
She stopped abruptly, still clutching the sponge in fingers raw from hard work. She breathed in sharply.
"Yes, I'll be there, I just need..." her voice trailed off.
"This is why I wanted to keep you in the dark. You have an infuriatingly tangled sense of morality, I warned you that this would only make it worse."
She turned to face him, her lips pursed, "Yes, well, I'm here now, so it's much too late for that. I may have been initiated into your... troop, but my apologies if I have a harder time than others checking my conscious at the door."
A hurt anger flared in her eyes. She was obstinate. She always had been. He thought back to her 14 year old self scaling his tower.
Scowling out the window, he looked into the night. "Don't give me that. There's a reason they still don't trust you; you are completely incapable of leaving your conscience behind."
She looked up at him with a chilly expression.
He folded his hands behind his back. "No matter what you say, they know we can never trust your motivations towards our little group. You have a fatally predictable flaw; your hatred will never be stronger than your need to protect your family. And so," he turned to leave, "you've built your own trap." He paused mid-step, turning to look at her. "The trick by which I caught you turned out to be an extraordinary leash."
He walked out, letting the door shut behind him.
She crossed her arms tightly across her chest, leaning back against the sink. He was right, in a half-truth way. Killing herself over the definitions of right and wrong wasn't achieving anything. She had to decide for herself what was noble and what was noble enough. Softly, she reached into her pocket, removing her ribbon to tie up her hair. She would be self-reliant. She always had been.
When she reentered the room, it was with a desperate shove to the butterflies in her stomach, hoping to keep them down long enough to get some actual information. The troop hardly seemed to have noticed her disappearance, only looking up at her when she took her place beside Olaf again. After years of having her be little more than a maid to them, she'd become white-noise. She tucked the thought into the back of her mind; it might come in handy, if needed.
Olaf, however, leaned over and stroked her cheek possessively. "You've put your hair up." She leaned away from the touch slightly, an anxious crawl slithering down her spine.
"You've said you like it better- don't you?" She hoped that by placating his oversized pride, she would avoid his suspicions. While he hadn't been wrong in believing her participation was rooted in the desire to protect her family, he underestimated her hatred, and her ability to undermine his plot, once securely within it.
It was a simple plan, it couldn't fail, unless the actors involved weren't to play their parts.
A victorious grin slunk across his face. "My fiery Countess."
He turned back to his group of henchmen, practically purring. His lovely bride. His. She was stubborn, that much was unchanging, but, when nudged degree by degree, she was more malleable than she cared to admit. They had a lot in common, though she would deny it, if asked. It couldn't have been so long ago that he too had been young and idealistic. Yet, she maintained a fearful guard of her "goodness" in the face of parents' demise. Strange how differently people can react to being placed in the same situation.
Still, no matter, she was here now.
He settled back into his chair, a smirk still across his face.
"As you well know, in reaction to the events of... a few years ago, this building has been elected as the next safe place."
He unrolled a map of the city across the table before them, using his long finger to point to a section in the far corner, covered by a dark coffee stain. "If we are to achieve anything worthwhile in the long run, we need their documents- rosters, maps, anything and everything. Now," he rapped his finger against the table before leaning back again, "finding them will not be the issue, the real problem will come with retrieving them. As you know, there is a high likelihood that the safe will feature a vernacularly fastened door, seeing as they are unoriginal enough to find new methodologies, and instead, keep insisting upon new questions."
The members nodded in agreement. Violet looked around herself fleetingly, scanning the room. She understood every word he said separately, but put together they made no sense. She felt like she was missing half of every sentence- stumbling over crucial bits of information that everyone else seemed to have. She nodded too, cautiously, hoping to mask her confusion.
"As I said, getting to the safe is the easy part- we have a young, promising volunteer on our side." She glanced around as they snickered at her, a tumbling lost feeling in her gut. "While there's a good chance they may initially distrust her, the very fact that she's a Baudelaire ought to get us through the door. And then," he smiled wickedly, "it's a matter of time."
Her heart skipped. What did he mean because she's a Baudelaire? Did these people know her parents? Did they know her? Did she know them? She clutched her hands together, trying to stay composed.
"You, my Darling," he brushed his fingers against her cheek again, causing her to shiver, "have the honor and privilege of being a delicious piece of bait. Knowing anything about them, they'll eat you right up." She shifted uncomfortably as the group tittered with dark laughter again, feeling an impending doom pressing against her chest. "And while we have much to do, let's focus on our first step for tonight- how we get in."