The Dead Crime (Draft)

Chapter#19

Not long after she got to know about her father being a murderer Camille had found something in Kevin's possession which was a photo of group of 8 students at their graduation ceremony. It that photo at that time only 4 faces were cut out with a red marker. Since then she had known that her father was killing all those people in that picture but she didn't care about it at all.
She thought at that time that it was better if she just stays away from him and doesn't anger him by involving herself in his life in any way. But strangely at the present moment she wanted to get involved in it and save the last person on that photo who was left to be cut out, maybe because she was suspected to be Ethan's mother. If she was her last target then she had no time to think whether she should do it or not, Kevin had already approached her and the next step he was going to do was to drag her to the forest and kill her.
At night she had stolen that graduation photo from his father's drawer and kept it in her pocket, leaving with it the next afternoon long after Kevin had left the house. It took her time to overthink her decisions again and again and at last she decided to risk her life. But she didn't know she was going to pay a huge price for interfering in Kevin's disturbing personal matters. She saw Ethan following her mom walking hand in hand with Kevin. Camille felt the instant urge to grab his hood and drag him into the alley throwing him against the wall and blocking his way by pushing one of her hands to the wall beside his face. He looked at her surprised at her sudden reflexes and made a questioning face demanding an explanation.
Camille pulled out the photo from her pocket and showed it to him, trying to cover the other cut out faces with her fingers but Ethan could still see it from between the little gaps of her small fingers,

"Is this your mother?"
Ethan raised his brows, opening his eyes wide,
"Oh, it's her graduation photo....but why do you have it?"

"That's none of your business." She said and turned away releasing her hand from the wall, "Do not follow me, when I say don't that means don't."
She left the alley and vanished in a minute leaving Ethan to wonder if he should really not follow her or he should secretly go behind her. For a while, he kept going in the direction she ran into and found out that she was headed to that forest. At that moment he ran back to find a garage to fetch a bike as if he had sensed danger.

"Where are we going?" Ella, Ethan's mother asked when they entered the forest.
"To see something amusing." He replied leading her towards a tree where he had killed all his previous targets. He stopped by it, there were dark blood strains on the soil beside the tree.

"You see this."
Ella looked at the blood, her smile slowly fading,
"What's this..?" She asked not wanting it to be blood but something else.
"That's blood. Not of animals though." He smiled at her creepily. Ella started to unlink her arms without making him notice. She was starting to shiver at his cold evilish eyes and that spine chilling grin. She stared at him blankly while slowly getting away from him.
"That's right, you're next." He said, apparently reading her mind at a glance.
She had successfully unbonded her arms from his and made her first attempt to escape which ended up in a miserable failure. Kevin grabbed her collar pushed her sending her down on the bloody soil. She screamed trying to get up but he shoved her against the tree trunk violently tying her with the nails he had struck in the wood for that purpose. Ella kept crying trying to resist his forceful hands stroking against her arms and throat. All of a sudden Kevin knocked on the ground by getting bit by a stone that came hurling at him from behind.  It was Camille. Her aim was perfectly good which even shocked her. Ella pulled her arms, tearing the ropes Kevin was in the middle of tying and ran towards Camille both running away holding each other's hands. Behind them Kevin came running, pressing his hand on his head stopping the blood from flowing down but it still ran down his face. He was a slow but it wasn't long before he caught up with them. As soon as they both got on the road, a bike halted before them with Ethan sitting on it completely surprised to see his mother with Camille rushing out of the forest. Without thinking why and how he got here, they both got on it and vanished before Kevin could reach them. The bike swished across the roads and streets and kept speeding steadily until they made it to home. Ella got off the bike shaking all over, her breath was abnormal and her heart was beating loud. Her face was layered with cold sweat and she wailed softly due to fright. Ethan escorted her inside offering her a glass of water to calm her down. Then he hurried outside hoping that she's still out there and fortunately she was there, standing by the bike catching her breath. She seemed as shaken up as Ella and Ethan could clearly see it.

"What happened Camille?" He inquired, approaching her. She bent down holding her knees in exhaustion.
"That's..." She was still out of breath so she couldn't complete her sentence in one go but Ethan had figured what she was about to say.
"None of my business?" He completed her unfinished sentence. "No, Camille it is. It is my business!" He spoke, almost shouting at the end.
Camille sighed standing straight and circled round to get away.
"Camille." He called her name grabbing onto her arm but she violently pulled it away glaring at him,

"Don't you get it?stay away from me."
At that Ethan wasn't able to stop her. He had so many questions in his mind that he wanted to find answers to but he felt like he had to do it himself. 'what are you exactly hiding from me?' he thought going back inside to his mother.