The deathly regents

Chapter Thirteen

Hello again

Hope

Hope! Hope, wake up. Wake up, sweetheart," the familiar low voice I never expected to hear right now was calling me with such fondness and... dread.

"Ral?" I didn't recognize my own one. It was so raspy, "what the fuck is going on?" She helped me to get the sitting position on the cold cement floor.

"Shhh, sweetheart, they'll hear you," her hand was patting my aching, foggy head.

"They who?"

She paused and I didn't like it.

"Ralody," I began whispering, but it wasn't weak, "where are we? And why are we here?"

It was cool enough to make my skin burst into goosebumps, whereas I wasn't sure they weren't creeps. The place I'd woken up stank of mold, dampness, and raw land. I took it as a probability of being in a basement or a place underground.

"Hope," the leader of Calire broke the silence, "I'm so sorry you've been involved in this."

"Involved in what? Ral, just fucking tell me what the hell is going on because I don't get it. I was kidnapped at the parking lot of the business center where I'd been listening to my dead husband's testament. Just shine the light into what is happening, please. Without a single lie."

"Hope–"

"I knew you lied to me about the reason of why you'd asked Lewis to give the fucking thing he'd known where it'd been and who to hand it over to."

Ralody swallowed audibly and cleared her throat, "I'm really sorry for this, Hope, but the more you know, the more jeopardized you are. I wish I–"

"Tell me the fucking truth, Ralody Brine!" my screaming whisper circled the room we were half-sitting half-lying on the floor.

She exhaled. "Do you remember I asked you about Lewis's death? The way he died."

Why did it all always lead back to my husband's death?

"I was stunned when you said he'd died from the blood loss because I saw the preliminary coroner's report."

"How the hell did you do it?"

"It doesn't matter now, Hope. What matters is that the cause of his death was asphyxia, not the loss of blood."

"What?"

"He died in the carriage suffocating."

"Does it mean he... he was strangled?" The only idea of it shattered my heart into millions of the tiniest pieces. Who had done it? What for? Why him?

"This was the first thought that came to my mind when I saw the report, and it encouraged me to dig deeper. You're a smart woman, Hope, and, I suppose, you guessed that our childhood wasn't the only thing that brought us together. This was and still is our huge secret. I swear, sweetheart, one day I'll tell you every detail of it when it's safe enough for you and me, but, for now, let's leave it there."

The old-fashioned incandescent lamp above crooned a sound of heating the tungsten filament, and both of us raised our heads up.

"I want you to know," I said, "that I will never forgive you for hiding the real cause of Lewis's death from me," my voice broke, "I'm his fucking wife, Ralody! Didn't you have a single clue that I had to know that?"

"Hope, please, I–"

"What did you find out?" I interrupted her, without a single will to listen to her apology, "I don't think we would've stuck in the current situation if you hadn't planted a bug on these people."