The Façade of Quad in Nimrod ✓ | Satire, family drama, dark society

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By the time the house was quiet again and all worried thoughts were numbed by sleep, it was already six o'clock, yet outside was still dark for the days were growing shorter. Georgina was the only Quad awake and she put on her shawl and dolled herself up, leaving the house before her husband or daughter woke.

With all the drama gone, the spotlight could now be put on Georgina Quad. Wearing her signature deep red lipstick, she headed off down the lane in a brisk walk. 

It was going to be a bright sunny day in such contrast to the murkiness this early morning at the mansion. It gave her a sense that she had escaped her cage and was now walking free of Mordecai's regime.

Turning down smaller roads, she came upon suddenly a group of people gathered around something. Some had faces contorted in fear while others stared in amazement. She tapped the shoulder of a young man in the back and he turned around.

It was Valerie's tutor.

"Mrs. Quad!" he said surprised. "Good morning."

"Good morning. What is this?"

Thomas grimaced. "It is not pretty. Seems the infamous Red Circle has struck again."

"Ah." Georgina had heard of the Red Circle. A sophisticated group of assassins were loose in Lwendolen. They killed only those with bad reputations or so stories said. Because they left a circle of blood on the victims' foreheads as their signature mark they came to be known as the Red Circle. 

No one knew who they were, and no one had seen them. The only evidences left were the blood red circle marking and a knife that could not be traced back to anyone by any acclaimed detective.

The idea of the Red Circle fascinated Georgina. That something so dark and sinister could be in Lwendolen of all places made her wonder what kinds of dark angels ruled the organization. She wanted to see a victim herself too and leaned forward into the crowd when Thomas held her back.

"Mr. Ben—"

"I don't think you should. The real thing is far worse than those drawings in the newspaper. I shall be on my way now," he said and let go of her arm. Georgina watched him go and once he disappeared around the corner, she looked. 

She gasped at the sight, but it didn't horrify her as she expected. The fact that it was a real bloodied dead body with a knife piercing its chest didn't register in her mind. It was all very surreal and as the police came to take it away, Georgina had a strange feeling grow inside of her. She wondered what it was like to stab someone in the heart.

Her thoughts should have frightened her, and she tried to send them away, but Georgina couldn't get the image out of her mind. She put her hand to her hard-beating heart and took a few deep breaths before heading off down to the bar where her lover awaited. 

The thoughts of the Red Circle never left her, and she found herself imagining Henry laying on the ground, stabbed in the heart with the red circle marking on his forehead. She couldn't take it anymore. Dashing into an alley, she leaned against a brick wall, gasping for breath.

"Beautiful," she whispered and closed her eyes, thinking about Henry's bloodied body. Georgina Quad had a secret fantasy. Blood excited her since she was a child and she had often dreamed of killing something, but such things she knew would not be accepted in society and hid her true self.

An idea sparked in her mind. "No one wants him anyway," she said in a hushed voice and imagined killing her son or torturing him for being the wedge that drove her and her husband apart.

"Aulen," she whispered her lover's name, "you asked me what I wished for more than anything." She began to snicker like a little girl at the thought of making her wish come true.