Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 97
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[Camping Truck]
Another of Skylar’s bucket list has been ticked—hunting with El Crow.
They entered the deep woods at dawn and are just returning with two deers which they dropped on the ground close to the rain-thrummed fireplace.
“That was epic!” Skylar commented, taking a bite from the apple she held.
El Crow drew her hand closer to himself, taking a bite from her apple too. She laughed deeply, and his arm curled around her tiny waist.
“When we get back later today, we’ll do these deers. It won’t be like the ones you usually kill and just dispose. I want to eat homemade meat this night,” she said with a blink.
“You’re talking about homemade as if you can actually do the deers and prepare the meat yourself. You can’t cook, Skylaar,” he teased.
“That’s why you’re here.” She raised her chin. “You’ll do it while I sit and cross my legs like a queen and wait!”
He took another bite from her apple, and she watched him chew admiringly for long.
Then….she smiled. “You eat so good. Here and There.”
“Goddamn…” He laughed.
Her arms instantly flew to his shoulders as she watched him laugh.
“Tommorow, we’ll visit Mississippi again,” she mentioned.
“Anything you want,” he said.
“You’ve been agreeing with everything I say.” She suddenly frowned. “No objections. No arguments. No fights. Why the fûck aren’t you fighting me? Even when I pretend to get angry and expect you to talk down on me like you always did, you just overlook it like….”
She searched his eyes slowly. “Are you hiding something from me?”
“What could I possibly hide from you?” He frowned too. “Don’t ruin this morning. Let’s go out.”
She sighed. “Where?”
“The tattoo shop?” He raised his brows.
“Bet.” She turned her back on him.
His arms wrapped on her from behind. They stayed that way, magnetized and receiving the morning breeze peacefully.
—
[Jethro’s House]
“Boss!” A guarding staff rushed inside, bearing a little envelope. “Boss! There’s a response!”
“What response?” Jethro sounded, descending the staircase with pocketed hands and glassed eyes.
He took his seat on the nearest living room couch, taking the envelope and tearing it open.
It says… DIRECTLY FROM PRINCESS CHARLOTTE—There’ll be no one-on-one session this time. Sorry if your expectations were cut.
Jethro lowered the envelope, scoffing. “That fake bitch won’t meet?”
“She’s brazen than I thought,” Marisa’s voice bounced around the room as she entered.
“The manner with which you enter my house these days without notice is something to get mad about.” Jethro reclined on the couch.
“But you can’t get mad.” Marisa sneered, white dress flowing with her hair. “You’re still infatuated.”
She sat in front of him, mounting her legs regally. The staffs vacated the living room, leaving just the two of them.
Jethro’s eyes went to the visible dark, web-like crack on the living room floor marble, and something animalistic growled inside those eyes before he faced Marisa.
“Still remember when you came into this house and broke my floor marble because of Skylar?”
“I’ll break more marbles and every single porcelain piece in this house if you do not give me the answer I came for!” She spat. “What is Arturo’s secret job? Give me answers!”
“Why are you so interested in Arturo’s business anyways?” Jethro remained darkly composed.
“I married him only because he was the most mysterious among my suitors! I married him to know where his wealth came from, but in the process, I got pregnant against my will! I was carrying that foolish pregnancy when I entered the ring for my tournament match! …
“And because of the pregnancy, I couldn’t fight well! I lost the match and had to retire earlier than planned! And despite all of that, I still have no answer to the Arturo’s wealth? I’d do anything to get the answers at this point!”
Arturo got up.
“Arturo stole my project, and because of him, you carried a baby against your will. He deserves to be punished…”
“I have plans ready for Arturo’s death!” Marisa glared. “Your job is to tell me his money source!”
Jethro laughed, taking slow steps towards the raging woman.
“Did you get Charlotte’s note too? She’s not meeting anybody.”
“And?” Marisa scoffed.
“Things are tangling. Fakers are even growing audacity. You have to shake hands with the right person.” Jethro stopped in front of her, jaws tight. “What do you think will happen when the two most powerful people in this city gets married?”
“Tell me you didn’t just say you want to get married to me.” Marisa nearly laughed. “This would be your 50th proposal plus the ones you’ve done in the past. It’s pathetic.”
“Something interesting is going to happen soon, and you’d definitely want to be a part of it by staying beside me. Trust me, this city will shatter and you need a refuge which is undoubtedly me,” Arturo spat.
“You’ve gotten obsessed with so many women in the history of your centuries alive, but of all of them, your obsession with Queen of Great Britain is the most dangerous,” Marisa poked his chest, grinning. “You went after her for ten years, but she didn’t give in. She was too powerful for you to handle…
“So when she got married to the King and had a child, you waylaid them on their way back from the hospital and caused a ghastly accident. While everyone was unconscious, you took the newborn baby Avantika and exchanged her with a fake newborn…
“You duplicated Avantika’s birthmark on the fake baby’s chest and cut the baby in two, disfigured her face and then hooked her between the steering wheel to make them think their newborn is dead. Then you brought the real baby Avantika to New Orleans to torture her …”
Marisa paused, shaking her head.
“People will say I’m cruel for feeding kids with human flesh, but they really need to meet you, Jethro. You’re cruelty in human form.”
“You know so much.” Jethro laughed, clicking his tongue habitually. “And we match too much too. This is why we have to stick together. I’m not asking for affection—i don’t need it. I only want your our marriage.”
“No man has ever climbed me, and no man will ever!” Marisa snarled.
“I don’t want to climb you.” Jethro muttered. “Marry me, and you’ll get all the answers you so seek.”
Marisa’s eyes went down.
—
[Tattoo Shop]
There’s no other patron inside the building except Skylar and El Crow. They rented the place for three hours so no one’s supposed to come in till they’re done with their tats.
A female tattooist drew for Skylar while a male drew for El Crow.
While Skylar lay on her belly, El Crow lay on his back. Their stretchers are just right beside each other, and as the tattoo gun worked on their skins, they stared hauntingly at each other.
Blinking would be a sin at this point. They stared till they could tell the features of each other’s eyes.
And for the first time ever, Skylar noticed El Crow has small eyes which brightens at the tight rims whenever he’s looking at her.
El Crow has always known Skylar had the prettiest amber eyes which appreciated her round soft cheeks and the bangs in her hair.
He stretched his hahd, and she instantly stretched hers too. Their hands met in the middle of their stretchers, and he held hers firmly, caressing her knuckles again.
“You’re obsessed with my hands,” she whispered, smiling slowly.
“Every part of you,” he answered softly. “But yeah, I love holding your hands. It’s a way of reminding you that running away from me is not an option… it’ll kill me.”
She went still, throat tightening around nothing. Then, she took his hand instead, stroking his fingers from the interlink to the pads.
The faint buzzing of the tattooing gun rolled around for a second, then her throat bobbed again.
“I’m all yours too, Bray.”
“Totally?” He murmured.
“Every inch on my body, and every dawn of my soul…” She said.
The smile that crowned his lips afterwards? Priceless.
He has been smiling before, but this is different, and his lip ring nearly pierced another hole with the intensity. The mole beneath his lip widened with his scar.
“Do you know you have the smile of a bunny?” She chuckled.
He smirked, and she laughed, his fingers turning warmer in her palm.
The guns stopped buzzing at once, and their tattooists stepped back.
They sat up and checked their tattoos in the mirror.
Skylar turned her back on the mirror, and on her sexy waist, sat her criminally beautiful tattoo.
FALENA with a moth on top of the L.
And El Crow?
His tattoo perched smoothly on his right chest—on top of his heart.
DIAVOLO with a skull on top of the L.
“This could pass as the most beautiful tats we’ve made this year,” the tattooist said with a proud smile.
“I know, right?” The second one supported instantly.
They didn’t even let the tattooists leave the room before they walked into each other, seizing each other’s lips in a kiss that tossed all keys.
The tattooists had to leave the room for them, and their kiss went from high to maddest when he pushed her against the tattooing tools hanger.
Nearly everything on the hanger fell on their heads, but they only laughed into each other’s mouths and continued eating like mad addicts.
“You taste good here and there…so good.” He grinned against her.
“Stealing my lines now? Huh?” She chuckled into him.
“I earned it…” He breathed hotly, cheeks hollowing slightly as he chewed greedily on her lips.
She chewed right back, hands wrapping his body up. She tangled his necklace on her fingers. “I think I’m running mad, Bray…this is unhealthy…I’m going insane…”
“I don’t think, Skylaar, I know I’m going crazy. It’s undiagnosed, but I know this feeling.” He whispered in her throat, necks bending to the back as he shoved his tongue, twisting it toxically with hers.
The only hammer left on the hanger finally fell.
His eyes glowed brighter, and he teleported them from than hanger to the other side of the room.
The hanger fell on the ground.
“You just teleported!” She gasped.
“You have no idea what series of stuff this power contains…” He muttered, lips hot from the kiss.
“You’re so hot!” She hyped.
He laughed, and his phone made a sound, reminding him.
“Oh I have to go get some from Enigma House! I’ll be back in thirty minutes, I promise!”
“Am I to wait here?” She asked.
“Yeah. Just thirty minutes!” He stroked her brows before dashing out of the room as fast as wind.
Skylar sat on the stretcher, raised her left leg to her lap and began stroking the necklace around her ankle.
She was so engrossed, but she noticed when a small paper blew into the room from outside.
She picked it up by her second feet and blinked as she read the note…
→Incoming Tears.
That’s what it said.
“Ok this prank is getting old.” Skylar sighed, tearing it off and leaving the room. She met the tattooists out.
“Anyone entered here?” She asked.
“None that we say,” they replied.
She returned inside, laying on the stretcher. She got her phone to check her new account again.
—
[Graveyard]
Midnight finally convinced Satan to bury Roselle’s body today.
The burial has ended though, and now it’s just the two of them standing by Roselle’s wet tombstone.
“I wish I had just Roselle and Darius, seriously,” Satan said. “At least, now I’d know I’ve lost all my kids. Rosita being alive is such a headache, and now she escaped the cage?”
“We’ll kill her off the next time she shows her face.” Midnight sighed.
His phone buzz made him step back. It’s a call he picked for a minute, and when he came back to Satan, he looked disappointed.
“What?” Satan faced him.
“Roy just called to say Princess Charlotte doesn’t want to meet.”
“What!” Satan sounded.
—
[Enigma House]
El Crow promised thirty minutes, and he wasn’t planning to spend more than that. He wasn’t even able to respond to greetings as he entered the house. He went straight to his suite and threw his living room door open with a sharp swing.
He entered the bedroom and picked the key to the new bike he bought for Skylar from his bed drawer.
He kissed the key, imagining how happy she’d be to see it.
She’s crazy about bikes.
He made to leave immediately, but when he saw how empty the space beside his bedstand is, he decided to use it for a befitting purpose.
He picked five candles from the drawer and lit it up, placing it on the small space. Then, he went back to his living room and picked a package from the second couch.
When returned to the bedroom, he unwrapped the package, and it turned out to be a framed picture of Skylar—one of the unaware pictures of her that he took at the truck.
He had sent it to the studio, and they diligently delivered the frame when he wasn’t around.
He placed the frame behind the candles, forming an altar.
He shut his eyes, worshipping her for a while before leaving the room.
At the living room, he removed Darius’s picture frame from his wall and walked out with it.
He threw it at one of the disposal cans beside house before driving off on the brand new bike.
Unknown to him, the frame broke immediately he disposed it, and from the middle, a memory card and a small journal slipped into the can.
Someone walked over to the area, bent over the cans, and picked both the memory card and journal.
—
[Jethro’s House]
Jethro was escorting Marisa out of the house when his staffs reported Bellatrix is awake, so he diverted to the Pit immediately.
Bellatrix is awake on her chair, and Agatha is still on the floor, silent.
Bellatrix has stopped shaking now, just looking empty and desolate as she stared into space.
“You know you had lots and lots and lots of chances to run away, but you choose to stay… It’s almost like you love death so much,” Jethro said.
“I was waiting for your disgrace!” Agatha spat from the floor.
“Oh I forgot.” Jethro nodded. “That’s what you always said. You’re waiting for my disgrace, but guess who’s dying today? Your days are over.”
“You have no idea what the future holds, Jethro,” Agatha spat. “You’re so short-sighted you think everything is meant to work in your favor, but when the change comes, even a beggar will pee on your head!”
Jethro picked a long knife from the table of weapons.
He went behind Agatha and yanked her head up by her hair.
Her blind eyes went to the rear, but they remained open, staying on Bellatrix as if she could see her.
Jethro placed his knife on her neck, sighing with pleasure.
“Any last words?”
Agatha’s mouth forcefully parted…
“Daugh…ter…”
That was all she managed to say before Jethro’s knife sliced across her throat, slitting it apart.
Her blood sprayed Bellatrix’s dress, and her emptiness was instantly replaced with horror and despair.
“Mummyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!” She screamed, peeing hotly on herself. “No no no no….mum…mummy!!!! Mumm…yyy!!!!! Ahggghhh!!!!!!!”
She threw herself down with the chair, crawling with the chair and the ropes and chains towards Agatha’s bloody body on the floor.
Jethro’s laughter was searing, manic, sharp like his wicked knife as he spread his palms like giant wings.
“Now, on to the most important part of the story,” he said. “You’re not the only child I have, Bella.”
Bellatrix kept struggling, dragging herself through bones and chains and wood, screaming to get to her mother’s cold body.
“All my life, I’ve only fertilized eggs with my sperm twice. The second one was you, and the first one?”
He laughed again, swaying the bloody knife. “He probably doesn’t know about it too, and that’s the best part, cos I can’t wait to introduce myself to him properly as his father…that arrogant stitchmouth…”
Bellatrix paused at this point, ears ticking like a bomb.
Her breaths froze.
“Yeah.” Jethro squatted beside her. “El Crow’s egg was fertilized by my sperm too. My two ApexPlus projects were both my sperm, and that makes him my biological son! You both are Ortega siblings—my children.”
Bellatrix passed out, again.
TBC
