Chapter 34 - They're Found
The business deal had been proposed, the setting clear. The waiting was a formality, a flare of impertinence and superiority, he supposed. Eventually, the three worded code was uttered to a guard and his access was granted.
He'd prepared for weeks; the formula was ready. To be sold and savoured by the steeled hand of his current employer. It was doubtful, however, how long the man would require him before the order to shoot him in the back of the head would be made. Not long, now. If by the way of things, he'd correctly guessed.
Perhaps, if it was dire, the event of selling this drug would be his last paid deal. One that Erik, admittedly, didn't mind the prospect of. Benham tired him. An uncouth man with a more lethal turnout than his other competitors. However, was limited by the amount of hires which had only a series of grunts to articulate themselves. Erik had seen more literacy with a troupe of limboing monkeys than the lackeys Benham surrounded himself with.
Still. The money gained was enough to ease himself into an early retirement. If he wished it.
The room was jaded in shades of opium-hazed draperies, the equivalent to a smoker's den and a bacchanal, studded with haphazard chairs and a singular cabinet withholding alcohol.
"You're late," voiced a figure which rose at Erik's arrival, shaking a dirty finger, "I thought you'd forget,"
"And yet, you endeavour to bore me with meaningless pleasantries," Erik's voice emanated silkily from his mask.
The man laughs, though there is no mirth behind his eyes, "You are always ah - ray of sunshine, Phantome. Shall we get on with it then?" with a click of his fingers, three men filed in, one holding a case, who passed it to Benham.
Erik flicked open his coat, revealing the object within, and tapped against the plastic genially, "A deal is a deal. I have more, but it will arrive once I walk away with my payment. You know how this goes."
Benham folded his arms, sneering, "Today, I give you one more gift. Izad bring it in, carefully. We do not want it too ruffled."
The door opens again, and Izad appears with another man gripping a figure between them, the head swallowed by a sack.
Observing with cold detachment, Erik remained unmoved as the figure was thrown at Benham's feet, bound hands ruthlessly, unable to stop their head smacking against the floor.
Erik's lips curled in distaste, "Why is this brought here? They have no ties to our arrangement."
"Perhaps they might," the man's lips curled, "I thought you might enjoy this. Have fun with us, tonight, and you shall receive much more than a lump sum of money,"
Erik narrowed his eyes, the offer lingering in the air that tasted false even to him.
No. This is Khan's doing! They know. And I am a fool. A fool.
"Come on, Phantome, show us what you can do – provide us with some fun. You'll enjoy it."
Erik sneered, "I have no wish to perform torture this evening, gentlemen. You have your toys,"
The man's eyebrows raised innocently, surprise forming indolently on his mouth, "Torture? Allah no. We aren't talking about that sort of torture, are we boys?"
The men around him grinned, a ripple of laughter bolstering Benham's claim.
"No, we are offering a different experience tonight." Benham smiled devilishly, and with a sudden movement, flourishingly revealed the evening's guest.
Erik stilled.
Before them was no haggard man, no debtor who'd become entangled in Benham's empire, no.
It was a girl, brushing the age of adulthood with startlingly green eyes, that hooked on him with a sudden great fear.
And he saw the frightened ruin in her, the pleading, ragged breaths he'd once breathed, the shorn tatter of a bloodied top, encasing pure untainted flesh. And he'd ask himself, had they already stripped the girl of virginity before she'd been dragged through that door? Had they already destroyed the being that trembled before him, still kneeling despite bared knees, burning through the floor. Seeped with shame and humiliation.
The tears that refused to fall, her lips proudly stirring and chin that never left the tilted sullied pride of her head. Challenging and at once rebelling the choking humiliation of being half-clad against five men, jeering over their jutted noses and jagged smiles. Begging to be saved.
It was less a snap and more of a shatter, a howl that echoed in the sickening slice of one man's gurgle, from a fist rocking through his throat. Eyes ballooned backwards when the dagger slid into the stroke of the underbelly, and the guard fell, almost poetically, to the hardened floor.
But the attacker was in transition, flowing into the next pose, the next move as a dagger thudded into thigh. One lethally positioned body throw, as the victim's neck was caught into death's grip and cracked ungainly into the crux of its elbow. The body crumpled.
But it moved on, speed nothing when the next victim's pale blue eyes widened, mouth opening to scream. Left an open gasp when the next dagger landed in the central plate of his chest, torn through his armour like paper.
The guard that had the automatic rifle aimed shakily at the spectre, when the malevolent force rushed forward, serenely knocking the gun before it had chance to fire. Cracking the arm that went with it, the screech of its owner suddenly inaudible when the black hand squeezed against the trachea. A vein burst against the forehead, as the body dropped from the hand, collapsing. A discarded doll.
The shadow stepped forward, watching hawk-like as the last man hammered against the door concealed at the back of the room, frantically screaming into an un-lit receiver.
"You would think that I would walk into the den and not disarm the bear," the reservedly cool tone lilted, "This would offend some, but, I am aware that your intelligence is severely lacking."
The man turned, red fury spat at the toe of the polished gentlemen's shoes, "You shall pay for this, Xiyânat-kâr, I will tear you apart with bare hands! They were my most loyal men!"
"And yet, you cower against your 'supposed' escape and expect me to believe that I would be intimidated by you," he hissed, his mask shifting as the glowing irises flared, "I have learnt much in my time on this treacherous world, and never so much as showering those with pain, who justly deserve it as much as an insipid creature like you!"
"Why waste all this wealth when that little slut over there is offered to you? You do this on that little thing's behalf, as if she's more than useful for just pleasure – why would you not use it – you've unlikely had it served on a damn silver platter –"
"Finish that sentence, and I'll carve your vertebrae small enough to fit inside my palm," he spoke so quietly his breath hushed the air, boring into the gaze of a man who resolutely stared back.
"I've tolerated your dealings with distaste, ever since I arrived," he continued, "I have overlooked your treatment of your produce, because your filthy money was easier to hold, and I have overlooked the treatment of torture because I am not the one doing it. I have given you the tools, and how you've used them have been your choice – until you throw a creature worse off than I at my feet. And expect me to break them for your pure amusement!" he rose over the man, and Benham shrank to the ground, mouth flapping uselessly.
"And I would never pass off my villainy to a child, drive them to insanity! I will give you what you desire." He slunk closer, the paralysed man gaping with fear, the radio hanging limply in a hand, "You shall be my final subject, to taste a dose of your own delivered medicine. And if you survive, then you're as despicable as I," he leant closer, grinning crookedly as he unhooked the syringe from his pocket, "And this, Monsieur Benham, is exactly what the doctor ordered."
Clattering stones crumpled underneath tyres as it rolled onto the driveway. The delicate figure was lifted from the grasp of black leather, into paled white fingers washed against moonlight, and cradled against a thinly breathing chest, that reverently held her head aloft.
White sheet-like clothes adorned her, draped across with willowed comfort of travelling. Seeped with her curving scent, he barely dared to breathe in, unable to taint the exhale with his own accursed ugliness.
The manor's doors opened, a creak subtly flavouring the air, and a figure meekly pervaded the night.
"You're home, Master," her voice uttered, eyes lowered to the fountain of fabric that hung over his arms, "Would she like some supper?"
"No." his figure glided past, leaving her to push the heavy door closed, the sound clunking against the moon's sudden shuttered light.
His foot had stepped to the staircase, before her voice rose haltingly, "Is she aware? Aware of what –"
"She is asleep."
Another few steps before she aired the tremulous question, hovering closer to his shape hunching into the shadows, "Did she say – did she say –"
"She did. Now quietly depart."
She resolutely stared at him, the thinned coat that was limp against his protruding spine, warring against her unquestioned obedience. Those meek years of service. The pull of fear for her spiralling hero. After all these years, after all these years, he'd never once seemed so thin and weak in the dim hold of the night.
Shaking her head, unwilling tears rose at the sight of the prone figure so carefully arranged against him.
How dare she betray his happiness, his own pursuit of what she'd been faithfully given. To assume against him.
And yet her eyes remembered the sparkle that the girl had, sitting in front of her against the waning sunlight, cheerfully teasing, a breath of something Clarice hadn't felt in years. Hope. Knowledge that she'd discovered what her Guardian had. Life.
Despite that, however, the frightened pallor hadn't once faded from that girl's countenance, even relaxed under the guise of freedom.
Once, a devoted love for her master would have been enough to ensure the favour of returning the same gift of second chances. But, the vision of violence which had splattered the tenure of her release from a wildly different life, had ensured that encouragement of their union, wouldn't create another happenstance of her master's vitality. The expression of his anger still painted her nightmares.
However, she'd long adjusted to a life of darkness in the shadowed manor of his home, willingly devoted hours to living a peaceful life, here in the spades of gardens and gilded walls.
But her. Her, who'd run and run to the hills, who'd screamed for another sort of freedom, whose eyes had wondered to the peaks of Paris, filled with hope – well, the prone figure encased within such withered arms…
Her yes was not gathered in peaceful willingness.
Still, Clarice breathed not another word, as the figure silently carried the girl up the staircase and disappeared into the gloom.
Morning touched him wearily as the gusting wheels touched the ground, and jolted away the vestiges of unrest that had plagued him during the flight.
At some point, he'd started disliking planes too. The drab little windows and grey landing that swallowed the air; simultaneously it encouraged the tears of children to ricochet off the bending walls.
Nadir was still snoring, and it took an unkind elbow to jerk the man awake. The small disgruntled noise was enough to send a silent reprimand through Raoul, despite the curling amusement he felt at the man's baffled face. How much he looked like Phil just then.
"We've just landed." Raoul gruffly muttered, stretching complaining arm-muscles still unused to such strenuous activity from the day before. He knew that hauling a man on a 'rope' was unlikely to have been pain free, still, he couldn't help but feel miffed at the amount of pain he was in.
Just add another dozen injuries before we reach Christine, and I'll be lucky to even walk without a knee replacement before I'm forty, at this rate.
Nadir and Raoul slogged through the airport, relieved that English was what was spoken in, well, England.
Eventually, they hailed a taxi about an hour later, reviewing their information they had gathered once more, before they headed out of London, northward.
Raoul tapped replay, chewing his thumb, as Nadir's three hour hacked-and-attained feedback began once more.
A train station, and a blurry figure snug under the protection of a lean black arm; the epitome of a loving couple at first glance. A sheaf of thin black hair and an ill-fitted coat, facing away from the camera, almost nonchalant. The average bystander, with an average life, but for the shivering creature beside him, as if from the cold. All normal, apart from the frizz from a mane of curls, too tangled, too crazy to be any other than the girl he'd seen that night.
Had the man been so confident that her hair wouldn't be a dead giveaway? That his mightier hacking skills would be no match of Nadir's, who'd spent hours toiling to grant them access and succeeded?
Raoul let out a half-smile, closing the lid of the laptop with a satisfied click.
We're onto you now, Monster.
Air tasted fresh, as its early morning chill whispered into her room, scenting it with that crisp morning smell that for a moment she just stared, aimlessly into the ceiling.
All those days when she'd waited for that smell. Leaping out of bed, tumbling down the stairs to watch her father and his big boots stoop under the awning of their cottage, fingers grubby with dirt.
Did you want to come with me to water the tomatoes, little älskling? We can see what colour they are today.
The desire to plant tomatoes was a punch in the gut, and she turned over in bed, blindly gazing at the monarch butterfly picture, half wondering if it was inspired by the one that she'd seen flitting over the countryside.
No. That was before I'd seen it. It's always been here. On the wall.
Erik has a fondness for those creatures. He likes pretty colours, doesn't he.
The room hadn't changed from the distasteful yellow. Nor had the bear moved from its sad-eyed perch on the side-table. But as she rose, she was dimly aware that she no longer fit inside it the way she had used to.
She'd grown out of it, tired of its mock-pleasantness that made her long for darker walls.
Longing for the company of music, willing to shred fear with its fingertips.
Breakfast was a small affair, only layered tea-trays and three-tiered mounds of pancakes, and enough whipped cream for a food fight. She wondered if it was irony to note that it was the same whipped cream brand which had faced her long ago, under a different hand.
Erik sat, placidly reading with the newspaper he nabbed on their sojourn on the way to his home. He didn't raise his eyes, nor indicated he was aware of her presence as she folded into the chair, numbly picking out pastries and an errant apple, and a pancake for good measure.
"You slept well, I presume?" he said finally, raising golden irises that pinned her to her seat.
She cleared her throat, eyes flicking to the floral curves of her plate, "Not bad. I think."
"Hm."
Suffering a wince, Christine poked a chocolate swirl with her fork and watched as it fluttered down onto the china, and cracked open.
Silence lingered, past the time when she'd finished sucking the sugar off the fork tines, and drank the pre-poured orange juice.
"Why are we back here?" she at last ventured, breaking the air with timidity. So easy to fall back into their roles.
The man stiffened before her, and his seat in the dining room suddenly seemed far too close.
"Did I forget to clarify? Dear me," his voice practically swayed, "It's all very elusive, isn't it?"
Anger bit her before words burst from her lips, "Well, while you sit here in all your glorious mystery, I'm going for a walk."
She stood, finding an odd clarity to hiss back at him, a sort of vindictive victory as he had the decency to look dumbfounded – before he gave her an admiring tilt of his head.
"So the mouse has a voice at last. I was beginning to wonder where all that delightful spark had gone."
Her hands balled into fists.
"Is that what this is? You told me I'd never come back here! This hell hole that you think is nice and pretty, like a fucking glass menagerie –" she twisted away. Her arms clenched around her.
"I never said we would never come back here. You presumed we wouldn't." he paused, "Is it so contrived that it looks fake? I assure you, it is all real here."
Christine shook her head, grinding in suffocated rage.
"You were happier once, here. You liked the gardens, walking with the girl. Surely that cannot be returned to?"
"Why is everything so difficult?" she breathed, "Why back here, of all places? You say I am to marry you, but why choose here of all places?"
Erik remained silent.
"Look at me," he whispered lowly, and when she persisted staring at the floor, she felt him step in front of her.
"Look at me," the leather slid under her chin, and raised it accordingly, eyes burrowing into her, as if devouring the secrets she'd kept locked away.
"I may not explain my reasons, but it is for the best. You will have to trust Erik in this," his finger slid over her cheek, tenderly, barely present and wanting.
She shivered, turning her face away – hesitantly enough that Erik allowed it, and his weighty hand dropped to his side.
Emotion ran cold as he said, "But you must know, you cannot leave this house."
Her head jerked upwards so quickly that Erik flinched backwards.
"Excuse me, what?"
His dark-clothed chin jutted forward stonily, "I mean what I said. You are not to leave. Can't have a runaway bride, now can I?" his voice slinked forward and hovered in her ear, "Not again. I just cannot allow it."
Christine baulked, found a protest rile in her throat, "But – I couldn't – the dome –"
"And what if I do not want it on!" he rounded, flaring his eyes in that manic way that speared danger to the corners of the room, "What if I want my WIFE and I to LIVE IN PEACE!"
Christine shrunk against his bellow, ducking her head to ease the blow.
Erik blinked, a struggled inhale as his fingers unlatched from their fists, and smoothed his impeccable suit down to its inky edges.
An exhale, calming and calmer as he explained, "Is it so much to ask for a living wife? I dare not ask for loving, but tolerating – perhaps it's within my grasp, hm? Tell me Christine, is it possible for Erik to love his wife, and ask for nothing in return?"
But words failed her, even while her eyes seemed to water at the implicit - despite it all - hope that lingered sweetly, docile in his platitude.
But she had no answer. No answer to parrot back. Not this time when she couldn't promise anything. Not here, where hell had been sung into its walls. Had been sown in like the butterfly into curdled paint.
And Erik said nothing, as he turned on his heel and strode down the dim light of the hall, swathing her in her own bitter silence.
Dullness was the beginning of tedium, and frankly Raoul didn't know where they were headed anymore.
Crouched in the burrow between the men's toilets and a garish sign for Greg's, Nadir and Raoul studied the map of timetables between their location and the potential one for Christine and Erik's current location.
Nadir's jaw twitched.
"Would you stop that tapping? I'm losing what concentration I had,"
Raoul dropped his fingers to his side, returning to his newly acquired phone (the old one had to be ditched after Nadir's technological paranoia), and turned to the times and locations that could potentially correlate on the map. They'd been able to manage to narrow it down somewhat – but it was still frustratingly open.
"They could have gone anywhere!" Raoul exclaimed, sighing as for the fifth time, his guess led to a boat heading for Northern Ireland, "I just can't see them heading off the bloody island."
Nadir raised an eyebrow, before grudgingly nodding in agreement, "I highly doubt that Erik would strain her after just reuniting with her. And it is my assumption that he has returned to the same place he kept her before they journeyed to France. However briefly it was," he paused, before shaking his head, "Though he is a master of evasive techniques, he is one for returning to favoured haunts. It is through my intuition, that I suspect since he is licking both the wounds of being abandoned and fearing Christine's 'safety'. He would likely prefer a familiar environment where he has control over in monitoring Christine. What's more, we will have the element of surprise. I highly expect he thinks we are defeated," Nadir smiled wryly, "He didn't know what a trooper you are, and his arrogance will be his downfall."
Raoul gave a grim half-smile, dangerous relief trickling into him.
"I hope you're right. I think you might just be onto something, Nadir. Now remind me, how much is the coffee here? I think you've earned one."
Nadir raised his eyes to the petrol station's Costa machine and chuckled, "Probably more than what you're paying me,"
"You bet you're right," Raoul half-mumbled, and sauntered wearily over to the machine.
It took little under an hour for Nadir to find the trail which had been left off from Glasgow to one of the stops that would lead to a vast area of countryside. In fact, it was the little known fruit and produce website that caught their eyes when looking up the area. It practically beckoned them with a masked fruit logo, stamped Siren Fruit and Delivery Service. Nadir's face paled ever so slightly, as he glugged down the remnants of cold black coffee, (a sin he was indulging in far more often now than he cared to admit).
That is certainly no co-incidence.
She stared at the door, disbelieving.
It was open. Open, beckoning, and obviously a hallucination. Because he never left doors open. Not unless he wanted her to see. Right? Not unless it was his secret pride, his secret joy that he secretly wanted –
I haven't seen him since breakfast. And it's quiet up here. So quiet – I can hear my own breathing.
Erik hadn't appeared for an impromptu singing lesson. Perhaps he was still upset from earlier, and had fallen into the pit of a mood so tumultuous that he'd fled the house and cruelly shut her in.
Or perhaps, the darker thought was, that three days ended tomorrow. Tomorrow at midnight. So maybe he was blackmailing a venue, or a priest way back in the old church of Sweden?
But she sat there, on haunches, watching the door that beckoned with all the thrill of a horror story.
What is in there? What is in there? Open me. Open me.
There was no light in the third story of this house, dim without the panel-wall lights, hanging over her with sentinel silence. But inside, inside that crack, tendrils of light reached out. It was so warm a hue that it stretched to the curled tips of her toes.
How it struck her, in winter, that the little cottage had once looked so enchanting, when the lights were on, waiting for father and daughter to enter into its ensnaring recesses. Wood-smoke and sweets devoured, and wind-chimes. That sweet little wind-chime – one that curled up in a box beside a glassy-eyed doll and a dust-choked violin.
Nothing stirred, apart her tremulous figure, drawing closer to the light and screw it, if it was her last day as a free woman, looking behind one door couldn't possibly damn her to a worse hell.
Right?
"Damn it, we have to be close; we have to be," Raoul growled, fighting the urge to double dose on the painkillers, which had barely taken off the edge from the ring of bruises that pressed uncomfortably against his trachea.
Nadir pulled his lip as he bit it thoughtfully, "We are. I am sure," he glanced at the half-paved road, and gave a long suffering sigh.
These winding country roads cannot have led us astray.
"For all we know, we passed him in York!"
Nadir shook his head, "I don't believe that. We are only a while away from the postcode listed on the website. And it is located in," he peered closer, "Oh I don't know how to pronounce that,"
"We could be following a spoof, a normal business harvesting normal fruits," Raoul moaned, drawing two fingers to rub at his forehead.
"Now, Mr Unfounding Optimism, are you going to add any more useful amendments today?" Nadir huffed, finding it ever more impossible to encourage the man. While he had been useful – if not vital – in Nadir's rescue, he was ever presently reminded that to Raoul, this was one adventure which had the laborious side effects of travel. Endless travel, inordinate amounts of burnt coffee, and the mind-taxing struggle of saving an innocent before she was carried off the face of the earth, forever.
It wasn't like some reality programme, wasn't what young children were led to believe happened to the good guys. The journey was meant to prepare the heroes of what was meant to occur at the end; but looking at his half-drooping charge, it was a stark juxtaposition.
"Once, my companion and I saved about thirty girls, destined to be trafficked across the globe," Nadir started the car once again, and reversed back from the dead end, and turned down the right turning this time.
Raoul's wearied eyes lit with a familiar tang of curiosity, "What?"
Nadir sighed, shaking his head, "We were – I wasn't – " he cleared his throat, focusing his eyes on the road, "Look. We weren't heroes that day. We certainly didn't feel like it. But all I remember is the relief all those mothers, and fathers, and sisters and brothers we saw. I barely remember those poor faces, but the families – no they are stuck in here," he tilted his head slightly, roving over Raoul, "When we find her, Raoul, you will not forget the look on her face. We will find her, Allah help us, if it's the very last thing I do, and make amends for."
Raoul bit his lip as if he wanted to pry, but with one stare from Nadir, he fell silent.
Still, Nadir couldn't regret seeing the slight lift in Raoul's face: he looked onwards, eyes searching for the light.
It was ironic to think that she made the wrong choice, epically so, once more.
Hadn't she learned? Hadn't she learned!
The room itself was surprisingly mundane; that of itself was peculiar. But, even so, with one step into the new den, Christine couldn't outrun her own damning instinct to understand.
Somehow it was fresher; the air smelt of fine powdery mornings spent in snow. Cold and blue and perfect. Lighter; even the shades of red met its match with ivory, a budding boudoir in a roaring lady's room. Two fine little windows hung with white lace and iced with sour-raspberry and ripe-strawberry red, trailing down as if to hold the room's illusion of winter.
To her side, was a proudly jutting vanity and subsequently padded bench, three mirrors and four empty picture frames, circled around the mirrors neatly. Spotlessly. Not a speck of dust lay on the hardy elm. A golden brush, ornate and stifling, resting, unused in the middle. As if slumbering in dormant wait, for its owner to raise it to flowing hair. So precisely positioned that it indicated – must be - a guest bedroom.
But why would it be on Erik's floor? He would hardly want visitors to stay up here. Even I'm on a different level.
Christine at last acknowledged the most unusual aspect of the room.
A red curtain spread across from the end of the vanity; the whole room was sectioned with the drapery, but instead of opaque satin, it was sheer. She could peer and squint, in in the almost-light, more layers were visible. There was something behind it, there had to be with the dim shape behind.
What is it –
The image of a hung body flashed inside her mind, the sickening crush of limbs and sweat spinning wildly as she struggled to breathe.
No. There is enough death and torture in my head to dare embrace more.
What if Erik had been lying all along about his mercy?
What if Raoul hung there, instead, twisting endlessly in that red knot of rope?
And when she turned, a scream left her mouth as Erik loomed above.
His terrible laugh filled the air and quietly, Christine wished to die.
Sooo…Don't ask me why I have updated far quicker than expected. I hardly know. Perhaps (ahem) Erik and Christine are easier to write? Or maybe my last Chapter unplugged something, and allowed the dam to trickle better? XD
Seriously, I hope you're happy. This cliff hanger is more for me. (Ironic, I know). But my theory is to test how much it'll bug me and eat away at my remaining sanity, so I can iron out another chapter while managing my life. How's that?
There's a delicate balance to Raoul's character; how much is affected by his privileged upbringing while managing his social fear of being rejected despite it, and how much does Nadir forget that Raoul is young and 'shouldn't?' bear the responsibility of his friend's life? Lots of fun.
I know there isn't so much of Erik in this, but there IS Christine! Yayaa. ;) I promise, I do what I do for a reason. Despite what it may seem like. Tehe.
My question to you: how much did you notice in this chapter? ;P And if you're here just to sit back and relax, buckle your seatbelts. It's about to get spicy (and no not that type of spicy, sorry folks). XD
I credit Voiceplay on Youtube for their selection of Halloween covers that got me writing. If you fancy making a Halloween playlist, their 'In the Hall of the Mountain King', 'Ding Dong', 'Grim Grinning Ghosts' and several 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' covers are a must-listen.
I also credit your bolstering and cheering reviews that hit the sense into my head that there are people who truly astound me, by the fact you guys really would wait so long to read more! ^^ Thank you: GothicLolitaxo (I will be leaving a review on your new chapter eee when I have a minute ;), sbollin (awwwwe, you don't realise how much you made me smile! ^^), FreyaCodwell (you forever remain a dear reviewer of mine and your comments about my pacing are so so useful, so thank you ^}^), Luxpop ! (Ahweee, I'm glad butterflies hit all your pheels ~ ngl, Erik wanting to take care of you in the way he loves butterflies gives me all the swoons too o^-^o), and Laurenvbellado (you don't know how relieved I am to still have left you with heartstrings to pull! ;D ^^ thank you!).
Thank you all, for not giving up on me. :'D I'm truly touched.
And, last month we kinda hit 1,170 views – an all time high – on Falling Petals, so – those who are out there, thumbing through thirty odd chapters, thank you as well. :')
I still canna believe it matey.
Now rounding up the extensive AN, have a lovely November (and lead-up to Christmas). ;D
Your humbly named, Enigma.
P.S 'Xiyânat-kâr', after an extended search, was the best meaning 'Betrayer' in Iranian. Again, if this is wrong, please let me know! ^^ I'm just not your local native Iranian speaker here.