0.1 | No Exit from Deception ✓

0.25 | Lights, Camera And Actionnn!!

The car pulled up in front of the towering metal panel gate, manned by a quartet of security guards sitting inside the cubicle, and many more as per Joseph's correct information. Joseph cast a glimpse at Ruby fleetingly who had her eyes shut closed and lips set on an ecclesiastical chant as she sat next to the driver's seat.

Before one of the security guards could walk any further and open his mouth to question his identity, Joseph revealed his face by rolling down the mirror. From a distance, he gave a nod to the other guard and the gate slid open with a rattling sound.

"Ruby, open your eyes. It's time we'd run up to the event," he reminded her while driving through the straight road: moving slowly along the yards of tropical-looking plants and trees spread across the sixty acres of land.

He lifted his hand from the gear as he jerked her arm slightly, and soon enough Ruby yelled, totally off guard, "Who the hell is this Elizabeth?" She cautiously lowered her voice, "Oh, I mean Ruby? Don't call me by my real name now."

Joseph pressed the brakes abruptly, her body moved in the forward direction and hit the seat afterward. She looked at his face which was covered with specks of worth-addressing horror. "What's cooking up in your head Ruby!? We have entered the lion's den and you are asking who the den belongs to. You are not sane."

"Did you hear me say something absurd?" Ruby questioned, unbeknownst to what trouble she would cause next. "I don't know why I just feel like puking."

Joseph growled, "Ruby if you really want to puke then do it on my face, in this car, but not when you appear in front of them." He laid back his head and rubbed his temples as his eyes widened frantically. "How am I supposed to answer Mrs Warner if she questions your abnormality?"

"Joseph, I'm all good, just a little nervous but that will eventually go away. I'm fully sane. Don't ruin your plan," she assured him, massaging his temples. "Let me-" He pried her hands away slightly and looked astray.

The mansion loomed proudly flanked by skeleton trees. At its threshold stood the delicate marble fountain, the soft gurgling of the clear water melodic as it resonated in the surrounding silence.

Her wavering eyes swept across the serene beauty culled from a sumptuous magazine, wanting to capture the tiniest detail that filled her vision. "Holy shit! This place looks so cool. Looks like a shooting set of some grand movie," she acknowledged, plastering her hands on the window.

Joseph objected with a small scoff and found her head sticking out of the window by the time he could confirm his take on love, sentiments, and emotions. "Look, you've to clamp down your excitement. Act as if you have seen much bigger and more luxurious places than this. It should look like nothing would tempt you . . . okay?"

"I believe her electricity bill might stretch to a mile," Ruby drawled, staring at the glitz that poured out of every corner of the edifice.

"Ruby! Are you even listening!?" Joseph spoke out of agitation that made him throw both of his hands off in mid-air.

"Gosh, if she lets me in, it will be so much fun. I have never imagined a paradise to be like this even in my dreams." She breathed, without looking at him. After a moment of savoring the lit-up landscape, she turned to look at him. She felt the heat approaching from his side as his unsparing eye detached from her face slowly. "Oh, you were saying something I guess?"

"Never mind," he muttered.

"Okay," she resumed in her breathy voice, shrugging off her shoulders and peeking outside.

"Y-Your . . . hairstyle. It will ruin your hairstyle if you put your head out of the window like that." He pointed a finger hesitantly, not wanting to show his concern for her by any means, but couldn't help it at the same time.