Silent Storm [ManxMan]

Chapter 36 ~ What now?

"When everyone is against you, it means that you are absolutely wrong... or absolutely right."

- Albert Guinon

[Midas POV]

The woman suddenly standing before us seemed to suck away all the air in the room, leaving us all chipping for air. She was beautiful, I'll give her that, but it was something cold and calculating about her beauty that spoke of experience. She seemed old, yet young at the same time.

I did remember her voice. She was the one who had called me and told me to kill River. She was the one who had probably been behind the explosion of my apartment. She was the one pulling the strings and we were all dancing nicely to her tune.

It tasted bad. It tasted bad to know that her game was played by us. We were the pawns she used to move around and pit against each other. We fought each other while she sat back and watched. We were playing right into her hands and had been for a very long time now.

We were the fools she laughed at before she went to bed at night. We were the ones that failed to figure it out. We had no idea Seth was working against us and we had no idea we would end up like this.

I tried to get River to look at me but he seemed to be thinking about something else. He was so lost in his own thoughts that I was uncertain he had even noticed the woman standing before us. The news about Mei's death had hit him harder than I thought it would, harder than he thought it would. It was obvious that he felt something and it was pretty clear that it had a connection to his old housekeeper.

"Well isn't this little gathering a nice distraction from the boringness of uneventful days?" The woman suddenly said and I could see Seth turn to look at her in amusement. It was clear he felt something for her and I wondered if she was even aware of that.

No, of course she was. She probably knew exactly what buttons to push to get people to do her bidding. Seth was no different. He was just young and naive. Just another victim to this woman's scheming mind.

That's the thing about charismatic people, either they're using their charisma to do good and spread positive influence or they use it to brainwash people. I'm sad to say that for some reason it's mostly the second they choose.

When you can get people to believe in what you say simply by telling them to, it's hard to stay true. That's just how it is and how it's been for a very long time. It takes a special kind of strong to withstand such influence and unfortunately not many people possess such strength.

I'm sure there was a time when River couldn't withstand it either but now he just blinked at the woman and shrugged out of his frozen state.

"Don't waste my time on silly games simply because you have a boring life Marbella. Some of us actually have things to do that doesn't involve playing around." He stated, his voice holding a certain cold I hadn't heard before.

This wasn't the River I knew. This wasn't the young man who liked to tease me about my age and fight his bodyguards on a daily basis. This was the boy who became an assassin at the age of fourteen. The boy who had killed hundreds of people just for money. He was now a killer amongst killers and we could all see the change from just a few minutes before. While I found it slightly bothersome Marbella seemed to get even more satisfied by the whole ordeal. She let out a small giggle that was everything except innocent and she clasped her hands together as she took a step closer to us.

"You really are one of my greatest achievements my sweet little boy." She cooed, her eyes glimmering in excitement and something I could only call insanity.