Chapter 230: Cursed Love

Cassidy gasps for air.

Everything aches. She feels her arms stinging as she struggles to push herself up. Smoke is billowing all around her, trapping her in what feels like a vortex of carbon and cement.

She pulls herself together, coughing, and uses her shirt to cover her nose and keep herself from inhaling any more smoke.

'I'm going to die,' Cassidy thought hopelessly, her mind as muddled as her surroundings.

Her left part feels charred. It's like she's been left on the grill for too long. She brings a hand to a throbbing in her side and pulls it back to see it stained with black and red.

"Blood..." she breathed shakily.

"I'm bleeding."

Cassidy reaches for something she thinks is at her side. Her bloody hands are singed by embers. Cursing loudly, she cradles her hand to her chest, and she thinks that wasn't supposed to hurt. Then, she recalls something.

'Adrian! Aira! Sir Ray!'

Her senses fire up then. She struggles to her feet, her fingers pulling at the smoke as though she can wrench them away from sight like curtains.

"Adrian? Aira? Sir Ray? Where are you?" Cassidy called, limping as she walked.

Pain courses up her leg, but she ignores it.

Adrian was just with her before the stairwell blasted off. That realization hits like a twelve-wheeler truck. She hurries back in the direction she came from, looking around the debris for any sign of him. He was there. She knew he was just there. She was holding on to him, and she wouldn't have let go.

Catching sight of a figure, Cassidy sprints over on her wounded leg, falling onto her knees against a crumpled form. She reaches out, looking for Adrian's face. And then, she is cupping his cheeks, staining them with her blood.

"N-No..." she stammered out, drawing him to her lap.

"Adrian, wake up! Please!"

His eyes remain closed. His bangs hang over his forehead, matted together with what is decidedly not her blood.

She blinks away the sting of the smoke in her eyes and continues to shake him. At this point, she is close to tearing up.

"A-Adrian..." she called again as she tugged on his shirt.

"Adrian."

"You only had fifteen minutes. You were supposed to make it count."

Cassidy immediately snapped her head around, her eyes searching her surroundings. The smoke is dissipating into the sky, but the night prevents any light from shining through. There is only the harsh, haunting glow of the dying fire.

She thinks she can see the glint of a knife, and suddenly, she is looking up into a pair of hollow eyes, the long blade at her throat keeping her from moving her head any which way.

But Cassidy is long past being scared.

"That didn't feel like fifteen minutes..." she hissed, unconsciously digging her fingers into Adrian's hair, her arms covering him protectively.

"You cheated."

"Oh, did I...?" Dylan chuckled, smirking mockingly.

"Or perhaps you were simply too slow, my dear niece."

"Why here? Why now?"

He lets out a harrowing cackle while she grounds herself. Her eyes sting from the glint of the blade.

"Is that a twinge of defiance, I see? You, my niece, are at my mercy. One move and I can have you beheaded. And yet you continue to fight."

His weapon leaves her throat in favor of a new target. The tip of the blade presses against Adrian's chest. Cassidy growls, her hands itching to do something – anything at all.

"For what? For your so-called family? For this man? He who mistreated you before you lost your memories...?" Dylan continued, his voice a disdainful drawl.

"He whose family brought down ours and proceeded to deceive you through some sort of belated redemption?"

"Adrian isn't a monster like you," Cassidy spat out.

"As if one has to be a monster to lead the downfall of our family. You are still quite ignorant, my niece. Adrian was in the prime position. He was ready to lead by his grandfather's side. Do you know what stopped him? Do you know what caused him to rebel?"

"The heart that he has - and that you don't."

"Ha!"

He barked out derisively, his blade coming up to point at her instead. Still smirking, he then said, "He doesn't have a heart of gold. He's just a boy. And it's you. You ruined everything. You turned his head around. He was the hand that burned us down, but you were the spark to his flame."

Cassidy narrows her eyes, not quite understanding. Dylan notices the look on her face.

"I can't believe this...!" he scoffed and tilted her head up with the knife, like he's studying her in a new light.

"You don't know? All this time, all your efforts, and all you are is a pawn in the game."

"Maybe..." she hedged, unsure of how to retort to his maddened spiel.

"But you're playing this game, too."

"Were you not so ignorant, you would have been such a worthy adversary, my niece."

"Enlighten me, then."

She challenges him if only to stall for time. Hoping with all her heart that she can save Adrian at the very least, she continues to entertain him.

"Don't you like the hunt, Uncle? Don't you like playing this game? Why don't you tell me what I don't know, and I'll show you just how 'worthy' of an adversary I can be."

Her head is swimming.

Maybe she isn't thinking straight. Maybe she's starting to hallucinate from all that smoke. But still, she will not let her loved ones die under her watch.

Dylan shows a sign of amusement.

"You have no idea how involved you became when you decided to play around with a Millicent. Your father was foolish enough to exact revenge by getting close to Maruschca Donovan. He hadn't even meant to kill her. The one he's truly after was Grisham Donovan. But then, that rotten family made it appear like he was going to assassinate her instead. His daughter, on the other hand, is quite foolish too. How could you love someone whose family destroyed your own? How could you forgive them like that? Your love is cursed, dear. It's never meant to have a happy ending."

Cassidy remained still. She took it all in. Dylan kept on, telling her a different side of the story she'd come to know.

"But from now on..." he continued, grinning wickedly.

"The cycle will be reversed. Those who're at the bottom have the upper hand again. We will be the exterminators this time. They'll be the ones who'll burn down next. It's a little bit of poetic justice, isn't it? From the ashes of the Millicent's, the Eleanor's will rise again."

All it takes is a moment - one heart-stopping moment for Cassidy to recognize her role in the grander scheme of things.

There's the glint of the blade raised high above her. And there's the soft coarseness of Adrian's skin beneath her fingers, his faint breath brushing against her palm.

She knows what she must do.

"Wait...!" Cassidy cried, her lips settling in a grim line, making Dylan pause.

"We're not done yet, Uncle."