Demons in the Mirror - Chapter 123

Ever since her mother’s death, Adreanna had been trained to be the best assassin.

Adreanna had been drinking all kinds of poison since she was four. She was basically invincible now for all the hardships that she had been through.

She remembered when she drank the most dangerous poison and puked blood all over the floor. Her father would kindly wipe them all away while giving her a glass of water. Despite all the hardships that her father made her go through, Cain would still treat her like she was the most precious person in the world.

“If you’re this weak, who would protect your brothers?” Cain had said to her after helping her stand up.

That was right. She should have protected them.

But it seemed like Cain’s words were just an empty threat. Maybe her father just wanted her to be the strongest in the family to always keep with the Vergessene family’s legacy.

Because Adreanna was never allowed to come home to her brothers. She didn’t even go to school as normal people would. Cain would be the one who taught her everything.

She was too lost in her thoughts as she paid for the cupcakes that she had just bought.

“Why’d you buy three? I thought it’s only for us?” Zack suddenly asked, eyeing the three cupcakes on the bag in her hand.

Adreanna blinked at the cupcakes and then at Zack’s innocent face. “It’s for-”

The shadow of Axel smiling through his tired eyes, waiting for her to bring him a cupcake, appeared in her vision. She could see the boy, sitting on the chair behind Zack, staring at her with his half-lidded blue eye and the eyepatched one.

Adreanna ignored the breath that almost suffocated her.

“Just in case father wakes up.” She answered.

It was a lie, of course.

Though it was just a lie covered with the truth. Because Cain hadn’t woken up until now, the blindfolded man really roughed him up.

Adreanna gave one of the cupcakes to Zack and brought another one for her, leaving the last one alone in the paper bag. She was the first one to take a bite and swallow it.

Then something clicked in her. As if being struck by lightning, Adreanna quickly slapped the cupcake in Zack’s hand just right as the brunette opened his mouth to take a bite.

The cupcake fell onto the ground, scattering on the bakery’s floor. Adreanna quickly looked back at the baker and found no one behind them. Her gaze quickly darkened.

Someone tried to poison her and Zack. It seemed like the police had found their whereabouts and tried to attack slowly, knowing how dangerous she was.

“We need to move.” Adreanna grabbed Zack’s wrist and threw the paper bag away, leaving Zack with too many questions and a dumbfounded expression. Though, the brunette was used to her impulsive behaviour and went without an explanation.

“To where?” He asked as he tried to keep up with Adreanna’s footsteps.

“My apartment.”

✵✵✵✵✵✵

Adreanna would lie if she didn’t expect Axel to appear when she opened the door to her apartment.

She scanned her apartment around with a dryly look. A sudden pang went inside her chest when she saw every corner of the room with Axel’s shadow doing something the boy usually did.

Adreanna tried to ignore the shadows as she put down her father to the bed. She was the one who carried Cain on her back, not wanting to burden Zack even more. The brunette brought some of his belongings and slowly put them down on her desk after closing the door.

Adreanna could not help the thoughts that kept haunting her mind.

She remembered how Axel would have nightmares almost every night to the point that he did not want to sleep and stay awake all night. She would accompany him in silence, staying with him until morning came or until the boy fell asleep.

She remembered how Axel trembled after he met Kiaran. Then the boy started to tremble toward her too, paranoid of her and Kiaran’s conversation. Axel would ask about the debt all the time.

She should have told him that everything would be okay instead of brushing him off. She should have comforted the boy when he trembled, falling into a pit of worries that haunted the boy everywhere he went.

Adreanna was too caught up with the debt that she owed to Kiaran at that time to notice Axel’s trembling self.

Now that the debt had paid off, she still felt like something was weighing her down. It was in her heart, squeezing it, suffocating it tightly to the point that she would choke.

Zack had said that it was called grieving.

Adreanna finally learnt a new feeling. Though she really hated this one. She wished she never learnt it at all.

After draping a blanket over her father, Adreanna sat on the edge of the bed while Zack was busy cleaning the room. Her ocean eyes stared at the pink ribbon on the edge of her whiteboard dully.

The day Maera died, Adreanna had thought that this was one of her plans, faking her death. The girl was always full of surprises. She might look stupid, but she was a serial killer for a reason.

So when Adreanna learnt that the government had taken her body, she wanted to take her back. She wanted to bury her in a good place.

That was the least that she could do for everything Maera had done for her.

However, the assassin knew that she could not retrieve Maera’s body by herself. She could not bring the body unscathed without having to fight some of the guards or carrying the body to the vent.

She needed a clean way to get her body.

Someone once said, desperate times breed desperate measures. And Adreanna was really desperate at that time. And so she ran to Kiaran, begging her brother who despised her in every way.

It was not a secret anymore that Kiaran hated her. Adreanna realized that it was probably her fault for leaving her brother that depended on her alone. The last time they really had a nice relationship was back on Kiaran’s eighth birthday.

Kiaran had looked at her with cold eyes right when she asked for help, not the usual playfulness just like she saw on tv. But then Adreanna dropped down to the ground, kneeling before her own brother’s feet.

Kiaran had been startled by Adreanna’s sudden movement, but somehow, his eyes had turned colder than before.

But to Adreanna’s unexpected expectation, Kiaran agreed to help her.

“With a few blackmail here and there, I got your friend’s body.” Kiaran nodded at the dead body in the brown coffin.

Adreanna quickly ran to the said coffin and slowly opened it. For the first time, her eyes showed emotions. There was a mix of surprise and longing behind her beautiful blue eyes. Kiaran was the first witness to his sister’s expression.

It irritated the secondborn a little, knowing how her sister hadn’t given a single fuck about their mother’s death.

“Funny how an emotionless monster like you got a friend.” Kiaran chimed in, eyeing his sister with hidden hatred behind his teasing eyes.

Adreanna closed the coffin slowly, ignoring her brother’s words. She stared at Maera’s sleeping face one last time before completely covering her away.

“No wonder why she died.” Kiaran’s sentence caused Adreanna’s hands to freeze at the sudden exclamation.

“Anyway, I’m not doing this for free. You’ll have to pay up one day.” Kiaran said without waiting for Adreanna to unfreeze and look at him.

The mercenary wore his black mask as he stood on the window. “I’ll tell you when I need your payment. Until then, just consider it as a debt.” Then the secondborn free fell from the window and shot his rope gun to the edge of another building’s rooftop.

Now it was done. She had paid her debt off. Everything was over.

Everywhere Adreanna gone to, deaths followed her like her shadow. She shouldn’t have befriended Maera. Now she was gone just like her grandmother and aunt, and many other people.

Maybe that was one of the reasons why she stayed away from her brothers.

Though she made the mistake again. She had gotten close with Axel, so now he’s-

Adreanna inhaled and brushed off her train of thoughts. She diverted her gaze from the whiteboard to her hands.

Kiaran was in prison now. She probably should bail him out tomorrow morning, right before his execution. She needed to protect her last brother. She would not lose this one either.

She promised herself that she would protect Kiaran. She couldn’t lose him too.

Adreanna stared at her pinky finger. Her blue eyes started to drift off somewhere once again, falling into another depth of thoughts.

“Friends forever?” Maera had said one day, offering her pinky finger at Adreanna with a child-like look in her black pupils.

Adreanna had stayed still that day, emotionlessly staring at the pinky finger. Maera quickly grabbed Adreanna’s hand and brought it up to face her own hand. The serial killer quickly intertwined their pinky finger with a bright smile on her face.

“Pinky promise!” Maera’s smile was brighter than the sun itself that day, and Adreanna learnt what it meant to have a friend.

Adreanna blinked once, trying to divert her thoughts away. She was still staring at her pinky finger, not realizing how her mind had brought her somewhere else once again.

One doe eye and one eyepatched eye stared at her with warmness erupting Axel’s whole being. Her brother smiled as he brought up his pinky finger at Adreanna.

“Okay, pinky finger.” Axel intertwined their pinky fingers. “Promise you’ll stay by my side, forever?” The boy asked, and the moon world watched the pact made between the two broken siblings.

“I promise.” She had said that day, and then she hurt him. She threw him off a cliff after trying to attack the boy.

The boy was just scared at that time, trying to protect his only friend. Adreanna really should have known the boy’s desperation. She felt it once already. So why-

She sighed and buried her face in her own hands.

“Nothing ends well with anyone who ever had any relationship with you.” Kiaran’s voice rang in her head despite how Adreanna tried to turn off her own thoughts.

“-just like how your friendship with Maera ended.”

Her lips trembled as she bit them. Her once emotionless face had turned into a pathetic one behind her hands.

“Adreanna?” A hand laid on her shoulder softly, causing Adreanna to slowly look up at the owner of the hand.

“Are you okay?”

At first, Adreanna had seen Axel talking to her instead of Zack. She then choked, flinching away from the brunette as the said man worriedly watched her.

“Uh. This might be not the right time to say it but-” Zack hesitated for a moment, fiddling with his fingers.

“-someone stole Axel’s body.” His voice turned into a whisper, afraid that he might be making the situation worse.

Adreanna quickly snapped her neck over to Zack with eyes that slowly turned dark. He braided hair messily waved a little at the sudden movement.

Zack gulped and opened his mouth, “It’s your brother, the mercenary.”