rule of three. [saltburn]

act one.

xxx.

           Things often happen in 3s or 7s. It's rarer for something to occur seven times, but perhaps that only feels true because the rule of three often goes overlooked. No one relates the connection of three separate incidents unless someone else with an outside view points it out. It's why lonely Oliver Quick believed he was so smart, so clever, to have manipulated and outwitted an entire family, to have ripped everything out from under their perfectly groomed nails.

            Until someone pointed out his rule of three, that is. Maybe he acknowledged his own rule of three; three events he caused that truly put his plan into motion. Popping Felix Catton's tire, poisoning the golden child of Saltburn, and only allowing the most naive, gullible member of the group to survive him, if for nothing more than to laugh about the situation.

          Oliver Quick was clever, he was smart. Intelligence didn't spare you from a giant ego, though, and pride was the real rotter of brains, not watching the tv too closely or spending too much time on your phone. He truly believed he was on that much higher of a pedestal, taking Saltburn was a cake walk for him.

          But it was not smooth sailing, not when three other things, three other people, three other events disrupted his plan.

          And maybe that's why I'm the one speaking now. Oliver Quick couldn't possibly imagine a world where someone could catch him in the midst of his plan, or at least not one where that person lived. He couldn't believe, not even for a second to calculate the possibility, that he would be foiled. Maybe by my brother, maybe by Farleigh, maybe by Venetia, but he took care of all of those loose ends, hadn't he?

        Certainly not by someone as 'innocent and dumb' as me.

         Though, I am the one that gets to tell this story now. He would hate that, I'm sure.

          .....

          Let's continue then, yes?

xxx.

ACT ONE.
oxford, fall.
2006.

xxx.