Kill Me, Kiss Me

TWENTY NINE

    KEIR did not have breakfast with him. After a roundabout glance of the items in the bag, he'd simply left Theo with a curl of his lips and "Let us hope I will not find anything out of place."

    Out of place?

    Theo laughed dryly and slumped back onto the chaise lounge. Breakfast had been abysmal, the food was good, that he couldn't disagree with, but Leo's message evaded him completely. The only clue left were the books, but those, can they really contain anything worthwhile?

    He played with the embossed covers with their naked men and garish letters. What else was he left to do anyway? He hadn't seen Keir about the manor after that meeting, but he was sure that man wouldn't leave him alone now, especially after the encounter with Leo. Shaking his head, he splayed open the book and rested his cheek on his fist.

    The writing was poor, but he was surprised at the sophistication of the plot. The premise was well laid out and clear, and the characters were well crafted and three-dimensional. Except for the awful title and amateurish writing, the book itself wasn't actually as bad as he expected. It wasn't particularly long, the whole thing only took him about two hours, though judging from the last sentence, "We'll meet in hell." There was probably a sequel to the volume.

    Rubbing his brow, Theo picked up another volume in the pile. This one, he didn't expect much from, the title was even worse than the one before, friends? A nemesis? The author may as well have explained the whole story in the title.

Flipping through the thin pages, he raised an eyebrow and raised the small volume closer to his eyes. His back grew straighter and straighter as more chapters passed through his gaze.

So that was the idea...

Theo quickly grabbed the third book, skim reading through the blurb and the first few chapters. Catching a phrase in the book, he threw back his head and laughed.

Clever fellow. He had to admit, Leo was a clever fellow when he wanted to be. The idea was actually quite brilliant. 

Placing the books on his knee, the clues wormed through his mind. The second book had been the polar opposite to the first - the writing had been brilliantly executed, the plot not so much. The third lay in between the two with mediocre writing and a mediocre plot with very few surprises, however, they all had certain themes in common.

Theo itched to write it all down, but it was half certain that Keir was probably watching him this very moment. He couldn't     quite remember all the intricate detail, but first of all, from what he's read, all contained a childhood love or first love - typically a childhood friend who was also a first love. Secondly, all books write about betrayal, and none, none of the volumes depicted it kindly. They were all betrayals that led to blood-shed and tragedy. How could they not when the characters' hearts were trampled into the ground like shodden petals? When a sword was thrust straight through their back to tear their chest in half?

And lastly, lastly, there was the vengeance. It smoked into an inferno of hell and was strong enough to 'sacrifice every citizen of this world to appease his suffering' as one book described it. And how the characters acted on it, it hadn't been pleasant to read. None of it was pleasant to read, it had never been fashioned for younger readers from the beginning.

But now he didn't even need to finish the second, third or fourth book to understand the outline of what was going on. That is, if he guessed Leo's intentions correctly. It was a simple story that went something like this: a childhood friend that Keir loved betrayed him and drove him down a path of no return. This childhood friend was someone both Alexandr and Magda were acquainted with and someone that both happened to like as well.