Almost Isolated

Chapter 39 - Amore

Robbie was all alone in the white room with the different voices and visions clouding his mind.

He can hear Neri at first but then her voice drowned into a dead silence. After that everything dissolved into pitch black that seized his heart.

Robbie remembered the pain...

Terry and him was to attend the Halloween party sponsored by his family for a fund raising event the evening of October 31. They were to show up as World War 1 soldiers as Terry's wild idea and somehow, Robbie found it nostalgic. He was supposed to pick Terry up by the gate of the latter's residence but after a few minutes of giving his friend some impatient honking with no servants to see him, he'd decided to fetch Terry, personally.

Robbie remembered the whole scenario - the massacre of the whole household. He remembered his struggle with the big man, the murderer. The same face he saw in the Jones' house. Helen Empoy's killer.

Then he remembered her face - the mastermind!

His body began to quiver, uncontrollably. Like something within in was being lit up.

Robbie gasped for air trying to be calm. Just then, bright lights exploded from around him, blinding him. Then he was being pulled up... faster and faster. He felt he was going to throw up. He closed his eyes...

~oOo~

Sofia Amore Romana, half-sister of the late Juan Terciano del Valle II aka Terry, wore a white suit, her dark hair in a bun. She may look exactly like Elaine Empoy but her aura, spoke of wealth and power... and danger.

"But we'll have to finish them all too," the large man with the knife told his lady boss. He pulled his cloth facemask to his chin. "They'd seen your face."

Neri recalled the murderer's name: Silas.

Sophia Amore walked gracefully towards them. She halted in front of Doctor Zoila, giving the latter an icy stare.

"In that case, I'll have to put on a silencer before shooting them all."

"Please, Amore," Doctor Zoila pleaded. 

Sophia cut her off, "You were hiding him all along!" 

Elaine's look-a-like shot Margot a haughty look. "If it weren't for that brat, we wouldn't know where Toby is. Does Regina know?"

The hospital director's lips quivered.

"Then, she'll have to die as well -"

Robbie's body began to tremble, his pallid, thin arms reaching up, his face grimacing as if he was in torment.

Neri made a dash for him, ignoring Silas' threatening scowl at her. She'd managed to caught both of Robbie's arms as she hushed him down. He was groaning. The feeling of joy and fear had overwhelmed her. Robbie was waking up... but two people obviously wanted him dead.

But why? Neri was wanted to piece the details in her mind... why and what. She suddenly realized Robbie was already looking up at her.

"Who are... who are you?" he asked her but his eyes had again closed, his arms relaxed to his sides.

Neri fixed her disposable mask over her mouth then turned to his monitoring apparatus. She saw his vitals had stabilized. She gathered, he'd only gone back to sleep again. Mixed emotions had plagued her, happiness, anger and fear.

Happiness that Robbie had already came back to the real world; anger and fear that some people wanted him dead.

"How inconvenient for him." To Neri's horror, Sophia pulled out a handgun from her white jacket. "You'll have to make Toby sleep forever, dear."

The woman cocked the gun at Neri. "Get his pillow beneath him. Use it to suffocate him."

Neri shook her head. "No... You'll have to kill me then because I won't do it."

~oOo~

Margot had never felt so stupid that she gave away Robbie's safety. How would she know? Silas was about to kill her and Philip.

It was during the trip to the hospital that she found the connection between the Empoy sisters and Tobias Aquino.

"Robbie... I mean, Tobias has nothing to do with your plan, right?" Margot blurted out. "He was just at the wrong time in a wrong place -"

Sophia pointed the gun at her. The lady had on a copper mask but her sinister smile reached her eyes. "Please, enlighten us, girl."

"Leave her out of this -" Neri said but stop in mid-sentence as Sophia's weapon turned back at her.

Margot gulped, hesitated and was encouraged by Doctor Zoila's interested look.

"Terciano is your half-brother, right?" she began. You grew up using your mother's surname Romana. You wanted to have everything so you wanted Terciano out of the picture. You two were the remaining qualified heir."

"Very cliché," Sophia scoffed. "The authorities had thought of that prior but -"

"You have an alibi," she said before the lady could say the police had no evidence on her.

"Elaine Empoy."

Sophia's eyes turned cold.

"You must have met Elaine from somewhere and with her looks identical to yours," Margot continued. "You found an opportunity to get rid of your brother. And fortunately for you, Elaine is... or rather 'was' an actress. You hired her to be your double. While you personally, did the job yourself, you let Elaine to appear as yourself in the resort creating your alibi."

Silas and Sophia's attention were glued to her; Margot saw Neri winked at her to continue.

"Then after killing your half-brother, you must had realized, you didn't want any witnesses especially an ambitious someone like Elaine who was likely to blackmail you despite of that large sum of money. You decided to kill Elaine and then her sister whom she trusted."

"Very good," Sophia scoffed, moving the gun at Margot's direction. "Unfortunately you have no proof and your testimony will be of no use since I'll have to kill you first."

The acting CEO turned to Silas. "You'd dealt with everything, correct? Burned all the evidence?"

Silas hesitated, his fierce face turning white and unsure. Apparently, terrified with his boss. "But the money -"

"You stupid fool!"

"I have them safely hidden -"

That was the moment; Neri sprang on Sophia, knocking the latter to the floor as Margot's cousin wrestled for the gun.

Doctor Zoila was almost as tall as Silas and half the size; the lady doctor slammed her body against the stricken man who dropped his knife. Margot can only gape at her cousin during confusion as Doctor Zoila grabbed her to escape. Unfortunately, Silas was instantly back to his feet. He had caught them both by each arms and they were thrown to the floor.

"Take care of Toby! Kill him already!" Sophia commanded as the lady struggled to hold on to her gun from Neri.

Both women were petite as if fragile for their own good but no one seemed not to be giving up.

"No!" Neri shouted as grasped around Sophia's wrist; the gun's barrel pointed to her face. "Please, don't kill him..."

Silas picked his knife from the floor and strode for Robbie's hospital bed. Margot heard Doctor Zoila gasped as the large man's knife rose above the helpless body.

Then, out of the blue someone came running from the door behind them. He attacked Silas, giving him a powerful blow to the head with a metal tray -

Sophia's gun gave a big 'bang!'