Chapter 121

Music Recommendation: Be my Doll- Adrian VonZiegler

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The passage in front of the cell rooms was deserted. Eve could hear the light chatter that belonged to the guards. Some of the prisoners, like her, didn’t dare to speak and looked soulless, while a few leaned in front of the cell, holding the rusted iron bars. There was a look of thirst and violence in their eyes, and they snickered looking at her.

One of the prisoners whistled at Eve, “What is your name?”

But Eve didn’t respond. She heard another man comment, “Judah was lucky to be placed next to your cell, but he didn’t know how to treat a woman.”

Eve felt like she was surrounded by scavengers in the dungeon. The right cell beside her was occupied by an older man whose skin appeared to stick to his bones. The memory of what she had seen before the time of dawn was hard to erase, not because she hadn’t seen something like that before in her town. She knew if she couldn’t get out of here, she would end up, or worse.

“I heard that you were falsely accused. Allow me to help you, and I will give you solace in my arms,” said the man who first spoke to her. His cell was on the opposite side and the left.

“Me too,” another prisoner said before adding, “I would be more than happy to help you remove your clothes and bathe you. Isn’t that right?” A couple of chuckles erupted in the corridor, and dread increased in Eve’s mind. “Stop behaving like you belong to a high family, we all know that no one from a high family comes here.”

“What’s going on here?!” A loud voice questioned the prisoners.

The guard named Deacon walked through the passage, glaring at the criminals inside the cell rooms. When the prisoners made noise, he hit the baton against the rusted bars to quieten them.

“Hey!” One of the prisoners called the guard and said, “Judah’s cell is empty, how about you put me in there?”

Deacon raised the baton with a sneer on his face, “Shut up and sit down, you bastard! No one is moving from where they are. I hear another word, and you know which part of the dungeon you will end up in.”

Noticing Deacon in front of her cell, Eve’s body stiffened. The guard’s eyes moved to look at the untouched food inside her cell.

“Leaving the food untouched? Are you expecting something better?” Deacon taunted her, but Eve didn’t retort and only stared at him. “You might as well start eating it unless you prefer to die out of starvation. We can’t let you die unless you start talking.”

Over the last few hours in prison, Eve realised that this guard wasn’t any guard but the person in charge of this place. The food looked stale as if it had been prepared four or five days ago.

“I have been told to keep the interrogation with you on hold before I deal with you for killing a man from the inner circle,” the guard named Deacon let Eve know with his eyes ready to rip her apart. “I am waiting for the orders. Once I get it, you better pray that you have enough strength,” the guard wickedly laughed.

Eve felt trapped here. She couldn’t defend and couldn’t fight for the crime she didn’t commit because the people here didn’t care. Speaking and not following the orders warranted being punished.

After a minute, another guard walked in and whispered something in Deacon’s ears, who stared at Eve. He then commented,

“Looks like your time is here, you whore,” before turning to the other guard and ordering him, “Open the gate and bring me the whip.”

The other guard, who had come to inform Deacon, quickly turned to him and said, “As this is a high profile case, we cannot harm her.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t kill her. Just enough to force her to open her mouth,” Deacon replied, and the other guard hesitantly opened the gate.

A chill ran down Eve’s spine, and she stood up from where she was sitting. Her voice trembled as she pleaded,

“P-please. I have nothing to with that man’s murder, I was only walking through the place, when I came across the dead person. You can ask my family. You can ask the family I work for! I am a governess in the Moriarty mansion. Please talk to Vincent Moriarty, he–”

Deacon glared at her, the whip in his hand swished near Eve’s feet. He demanded, “How dare you bring a respectable family’s name to associate yourself with it!”

Eve shook her head, “Vincen–”

“Stop your trash and start answering me. On whose order did you kill Mr. Fowler?” Deacon stepped inside the cell. Eve quickly backed towards the wall. The guard was angry that this woman hit him yesterday and he wasn’t able to do anything that time because he had to follow the orders. But now, he would let her know who was in the higher position in this dungeon. “You better start talking. The faster you comply with me, the fewer consequences you will face.”

When the guard raised the whip, Eve clenched her hands and closed her eyes.

Away from the dungeon, in the town of Meadow, Lady Aubrey stood in front of the magistrate’s building, who was the head of the town. He was an hour late than usual. She had sent Eugene to visit the places where the bids and other transactions of valuable items took place.

When the magistrate’s assistant appeared, Lady Aubrey stopped the young man from entering the building.

“Good morning, Lady Aubrey,” the young man bowed his head with a polite smile, “What brings you here?”

Lady Aubrey offered a bow and replied, “Good morning. I wanted to talk to the magistrate. Do you know when he will be here?”

The young man shook his head, “I have been waiting for him too, milady. He has many documents to sign and I thought he would be here by now. Is there anything I could help you with?” Asked the assistant.

“It is something we wanted to talk to the magistrate,” replied Lady Aubrey, and the young man bowed his head and stepped inside the building.

Lady Aubrey tried to find the next options on what to do next. She took another carriage and visited the town of Skellington. She came to stand in front of the Moriartys mansion’s gates. When she tried to enter the mansion, the guards there quickly stopped her and questioned,

“Where do you think you are going?”

Lady Aubrey politely said, “I am here to meet Mr. Moriarty. Vincent Moriarty.”

“Master Vincent isn’t home right now. Come back later,” the guard tried to chase her from the front of the mansion.

Lady Aubrey had come here with hope that Vincent would offer his help in finding Eve quickly. She didn’t know what happened during the ball, but she had noticed Eve had returned home with a bandage around her foot, and somewhere she had tried to understand and believe that the young Master Moriarty had helped Eve. As Eve worked there as a governess, she hoped to be able to find Eve through him.

The little hope she had last night had disappeared, that Eve would return home and wasn’t in trouble.

“Do you know what time he will be here?” the elderly inquired.

The guard shook his head, “Master Vincent has gone to the council. Come tomorrow before nine and you might see him.”

Lady Aubrey shook her head. Right now, she was desperate for help, “This is urgent, I need to talk to him–”

“What’s going on there?” came a soft voice from a distance, and Lady Aubrey’s eyes shifted from the guard to look at a young-looking woman in her twenties with black hair.

The guard quickly bowed and explained, “This woman is here to meet Master Vincent, milady. I told her to come tomorrow, but she doesn’t seem to understand.”

Marceline walked towards them, scanning the older woman, who was a human. She questioned, “What work do you have with my brother?”

Brother? This young lady was Vincent Moriarty’s sister? If Lady Aubrey was meeting Marceline for the first time, she would have been fooled by the vampiress’s sweet demeanour. But the older woman had heard about the vampiress. And though Eve had never told anything bad about the lady, Lady Aubrey already knew the kind of person Marceline was from her perception.

Without giving any details, Lady Aubrey replied, “There was a little problem in the town and I wanted him to look at it. I was hoping to see him here.”

Marceline scoffed, a smile appearing on her lips as she said,

“Do you think my brother is someone who will sit in the mansion, waiting for you to offer him work… you pathetic human.”

The vampiress didn’t hesitate to reveal her true nature because Lady Aubrey wasn’t anyone from her circle or belonging to a high family. She said,

“Such matters are handled by the guards or magistrate. Go there and follow the procedure before it moves to the higher ups. My brother doesn’t work for small people, not humans at least. What a brainless woman. Get out of this place, or my guard will throw you out from here himself. Get out now.”

Lady Aubrey didn’t speak back, as she had to look for help, and it wasn’t her style to lock horns with arrogant children. She politely bowed and said, “Thank you for your time, milady,” and left the front of the Moriarty mansion.