Heiress in Distress

•Chapter 39: Part 2•

Word count: 2,600

He's alive. Andrew is standing right in front of me. I blink once, assuming he'd disappear, but he doesn't. So, I know it's not one of my mind's contraptions.

But when I close my eyes, I see Andrew trapped in our home, the raving flames eating away every corner of the house around him. A ball of wool settles in my throat. I try to take a deep breath but my chest refuses to expand.

All of a sudden, every emotion that had been holed up surges forward. I'm reminded of the time I'd been grieving him for the first few months I first arrived to France, the longing for him and the way our futures changed that one night. I'm reminded of our life before everything started. I'm reminded of his last words to me.

In that second, all of those emotions converge into one. Anger. I find myself shoving at Andrew's shoulders, sending him a few steps backward.

"You said you were going to be right behind us"

His brows slam down as he stares into my eyes. I shove him again, this time harder and he stumbles backward, again.

"Right behind us, you said!" my voice cracks at the end. He holds his hands up in defence as I lung at him again, "Why?!" I yell, my voice harsh to my own ears.

He tries to hold my arms, but I shrug his hands off, "Why did you lie to me? Why didn't you-" a hiccup escapes, "-I thought you were dead!"

My stomach lurches and I swallow down the bile, "Were you even coming?"

"Lily, I'm-"

"-answer me," I hiss. His eyes shift to my hands shaking at my sides, so I clench them.

He sighs, moving forward to hold my hands or whatever it is he had in mind, but I take a step back. He stops and just stares at me, "Nothing I say can change what happened-"

I huff, folding my arms. Tears are now running freely down my cheeks.

"-but you ought to know, I was and still am a pawn in all of this. Just like you. And Ruba, and Darwin," he must have noticed the stutter in my resolve, because he reaches forward and grabs my hands. I flinch, but not enough to pull my hands away.

"Lily, I'm so sorry about your parents. I really am. The team and I arrived as soon as we..."
His mouth shuts in response to my vigorous head-shaking. Next thing I know, a sob is bursting out of my mouth.

He pulls me in and I collapse into his embrace, crying my way through the reunion. He doesn't say anything, just hugs me and runs his hand down my hair. I don't know how long it takes but he continues to soothe me, absorbing my sobs, saying nothing.

●●●

We're both now seated at the rooftop of the building, an unusual place for a reunion but Andrew and I are not really familiar with usual. I have completely forgotten why I came here and I have yet to ask Andrew why he is here.

As a breeze of air caresses my body, goosebumps sprout along my arms and forearms. I smooth them down, hugging myself.

"Cold?"

Despite shaking my head, Andrew wraps his jacket around my shoulders. When I smile up at him in gratitude, I notice his ring finger. I notice the conspicuous band on his ring finger.
I swallow, averting my gaze and ignoring the pang in my chest.

It's been a year. Of course he's moved on.

Something vibrates from the pocket of the jacket he just gave me. I retrieve his phone and silently hand it over to him, fighting the urge to look at the screen.

Is it his fiancé calling him? Does he have a picture of them as his wallpaper the way he did us? I shake my head. I shouldn't care but I do. I care so much that if I saw his fiancé right now, I might very much punch her in the face.

Andrew's sharp exhale makes my ears perk up, and when I turn to look at him, he's staring at the screen of his phone with a deep frown across his forehead.

"Everything alright?"

He looks back at me with a look that says nothing's alright. He opens his mouth to say something, closes it, shakes his head and then he puffs out a sigh, his frown deepening. When he redirects his gaze ahead, his jaw is clamped tight.

Despite the rising concern, my treacherous eyes steal a glance at his phone, in search for-

"Ever since the General ordered that you and I be separated, I moved back to Germany,"

He purses his lips, shaking his head, clearly distraught. "I started getting these really weird texts-"

"-from whom?" I immediately ask, my stomach already sinking.

"-an anonymous sender,"

My heart plummets to the floor.

"W-when did you start getting them?"

"A little after the housefire,"

My mind speeds through all possible calculations. Just as I'm contemplating the exact time I received the first riddle, Andrew's phone pings a message.
Now he looks at me before opening it.

"The bell tower," he reads out loud as we both look at the bell tower across. Light flashes intermittently from the top of the tower.
We exchange a look before we both stand up to zipline back to the bell tower, but the sound of a distant shot makes us both squat back down. A rain of bullets follows, so we instinctively crawl towards the other end of the building's roof, away from the aerial assault.

Andrew guides me towards the back side of the building, where there are balconies projecting from the walls. The sound of wild bullets doesn't stop.
We carefully descend through the balconies, and I realise that this is probably how he must've made it to the rooftop.

Once we're on the ground, we rush towards the nearest car and hide behind it. Not the smartest idea, but we're not met with many options as we're scurrying away from the undirected gunfire.

Seconds later, the shooting stops completely, and we exchange a look before heading towards the bell tower. When we reach the top of the tower, we grow more alert at the eerie silence.

Both watchful, we sweep the domain, searching for someone or something. Anything that can clue us into the recent activity.
Whoever was here, was thorough in covering their traces-

"Lils, look at this," Andrew whispers, motioning me over to one of the corners.

He picks up a brown folder and unravels the edge. Inside, there are pictures of men around a conference table taken at different angles.
More pictures taken at other places appear, but the faces are unfamiliar to us, except one.

"Theron Arnolds," we say in unison.

He's the only face I could recognize among the others, but then something occurs to me, so I sift through the contents of the folder.
Identification sheets of each and every member of the occupants of the conference table are inside, I notice as the pictures attached coincide with the members of that table.

But then I get to the real monster.

I find myself staring at the identification sheet of Damien McCoy, the founder of a series of software companies. No wonder he was able to remain furtive among all his peers.
The file proves him to be implicated in organised crime and other illicit activities.

In addition to all of that, what's been said about this man is in fact true, I realise as I look back at every group picture tucked inside the folder. In every single picture, Damien's face is turned the opposite way from the camera, and the camera is only met with the horizontal cleft in the back of his head.

Andrew looks at the floor in contemplation, his brows are furrowed like mine. "We were led into this," he says.
A shiver runs down my spine at his point-blank response. I have been thinking the same, but I'm not as brave as he.

Jaw clenched painfully, I wrack my brain for a plausible explanation, other than the obvious one. It doesn't make sense. Nothing makes sense anymore.

After a few minutes of fruitless deliberation, Andrew nudges me, "Let's get out of here,"

Andrew leads me off the main road and onto a side road, which by the sounds of it, seems abandoned. He takes occasional looks over his shoulder before picking up a sprint. I'm following suit.

Andrew stops in front of a car, and drags me towards the passenger door, he's looking around us the whole time. "Get in,"

He shuts my door and jogs over to his side. I don't think he allows himself to properly sit before we're speeding down the thoroughfare. He's silent most of the drive, jaw clenched and brows deeply furrowed.

My eyes keep skipping over to his ring finger and every time I feel a stab in my chest. At some point, as I'm staring out through the windshield, my vision blurs briefly before clearing up as a tear drops down on my shirt.
Immediately, I turn my head towards my window and clamp my hand against my mouth, swallowing my sobs.

After a decent stretch of time, Andrew looks over at me before saying, "How long have you been chasing these leads?"

"a while,"

He makes a sound of amusement, "And how did you know about Theron Arnolds?"

Andrew pulls into the driveway of the hotel I'm staying it. Upon engaging the handbrake, he looks over at me, "When are you going back to France?"

"Two more days,"

"I'll meet you here in two days. We go back together,"