THE DECEIT

Chapter 3: The Breaking Point

The tension in the Thorne mansion was so thick, it was like some silent undertow of dread wrapping up around someone. Elise could pick up that feeling in the chill of the marble under her feet, in the judging eyes of the cold portraits staring from the walls back at her, in the hushed but urgent conversations that seemed to follow her everywhere. She had spent the best part of her days trying to put the pieces of her parent's past together, and the revelations now weighed heavily on her.

Her heart was racing as she walked into the library; Charles had summoned her. To her, the mansion seemed like a gilded cage: finely decorated with all the richness and the smell of old money in the atmosphere, it trapped her within this damned world of lies and secrets.

At the swing of the door, Charles paced, a very grave expression etched across his face. There was Ethan, too, with worry plastered across his face. Elise's chest mashed against her ribs as she shut the door behind her with a soft click that echoed ominously in the silence.

"What's going on?" she asked in a quivering voice.

She stopped pacing when Charles looked straight into her eyes; the color in them deepened to what she could only explain as a mixture of sadness and determination. "Elise, we have news, from the people who killed your parents."

Elise felt fear in her stomach. "And what did it say?

Charles inhaled deeply, his eyes flashing a message that she couldn't decipher before locking firmly on her. "They know about the evidence your parents gathered and they want it. They have threatened to ruin us if we don't give it to them."

Charles's words hit her like a ton of bricks, and everything seemed to swim in her head. It was not just the killing of her parents that they had done; now they threatened to take from her every single thing she held dear. Her heart pounded with mingled fear and determination surging from deep inside. She could not afford to lose. She needed a way to stop them.

"What do we do?" she whispered.

Charles glowered at Ethan. There's a need to obtain the evidence before they do; we just have to do it very fast. They are closing in on us as we speak.

Elise could feel her heart racing as she struggled to understand how huge this was. She had no idea what this piece of evidence was or how it might have appeared. Only one thought blared in her: find it and find it fast.

Elise and Ethan exited the library and tiptoed about the mansion in search of some sort of evidence that would finally c***k the case. They searched the attic, the basement all the rooms in between. Nothing turned up. With every tick of the clock, a maddening sensation rose within her that she just couldn't figure out.

"And finally, with the sun setting, Elise found a door to the secret library. It was a hideaway door behind one of the bookshelves, opening to a small gap in the wall. Hope flared within her as she saw a thin, twisted staircase leading down into the darkness.

"Ethan, come look," she called to him, her voice quivering in anxious excitement.

Ethan walked closer and stood beside her, and what he saw shocked him. "What have you got?"

Elise pointed toward the secret door and some evidence. "I think this is it, and the evidence has to be in here."

Determination lined his eyes. "Let's go in, time is of the essence."

It was almost as if, with every step, they took they were announcing their presence within the ancient stone walls. The further down they went, the more the atmosphere seemed to change: from something similar to the almost stuffy humid feeling to more of a chilly draft with darkness looming so thickly that it felt like it was holding them back. Elise’s heart raced with the thrill and fear that every step seemed to compel.

Their feet touched down on the bottom steps, and they passed through the entrance and into a small, dimly lit room. The only bulb in the room flickered and threw odd shadows about the dust-encrusted books and shelves. There was a big wooden chest in the middle of the room, the top of it thick with inches of dust.

Her hands were trembling slightly and she held her breath as she opened the lid and turned it over. Inside it was nothing but a heap of yellow-brown papers and documents, written in full with the handwriting of both her parents. The words, every single one of them, indicated all too the danger both of them are in.

"This is it," she whispered. Her voice trembling greatly. "This is the proof."

Looking at the papers, Ethan darkened his eyes a little. “We’ll pass this to Charles. He knows what to do."

As they mounted the stairs to the main floor, a sense of foreboding swept over her. That gnawing in her stomach—that feeling that something was wrong and that they were walking into some kind of trap was intense. The feeling of anticipation and fear-provoking the thumping in her heart surged as they approached the door to the library.

They burst into the room, Charles was standing by the fireplace with his face full of worry. He turned to them; his eyes flickering for a moment.

"Did you find it?" His voice sounded twisted with tension.

Ethan just held the papers out toward him, looking grim. "We've found it, but we have got to move right now; they're getting close."

Charles quickly rolled up the papers and motioned at the same time: "Time to go. They'll be here in minutes; we can't get caught.”

As they moved through the house from the back towards the front, Elise felt that creeping edge of running out of time. That terrible sensation that things were about to go wrong, and here they were, walking toward the wrong end of it. Her heartbeat scattered in fear and resolve, as her shoe clacked onto the pavement of the night.

Suddenly the sound of muffled gunshots filled the air. Elise was fairly sure her heart jumped up into her throat. They were being attacked.

"Down!" Ethan yelled, yanking her to the ground.

They lay behind the stone wall, continuous fire in their ears. Elise's heartbeat by now was running but lessened up a bit as she grasped Ethan. She couldn't afford to let the attackers win but had to fight back.

As gunfire rents the air, Elise could make out a shadow closing in on them out of the darkness. Her heart started racing with fear when she realized this was the man who followed them, the man who had killed her parents.

"Elise, stay down!" Ethan desperately called out.

Elise was not the kind of girl to lie down and become a victim. She couldn't back down. She got up with all the resolution in the world, picked up an object from the ground, and threw it at him, hitting him on the hand hard enough for the staff to fall to the ground.

The man recoiled and dropped the gun from his hand. That was her chance. No time was to be wasted. She threw her full weight against him. They wrestled in complete darkness, two bodies entwined in a battle for survival.

The next thing she knew, there was an explosion, her heart slammed straight up into her throat, and in that split second, the mansion went up in roaring flames. They all had to get out.

"Ethan, we have to go!" she called, but even in her ears, it sounded as though she had to shout above the roar of the flames.

Ethan pulled her to her feet. Together, they ran, looking for the nearest exit, as the hungry flames tried to lick their faces. The smoke was overwhelming, and it was much harder to breathe through the nose. Finally, they saw the exit and, like a bullet, dashed for the door—the fire closing in on them.

Elise burst through the door with a great feeling of relief. They had made it; they were outside. But a woe of relief had barely begun to strike her in the face as she turned to face the huge mansion in front of her. There was no sign of Charles.

"Charles!" she screamed, her voice barely more than a croak.

But there was no response. Now, the flames had reduced the mansion to nothing more than smeared ruins. Elise lay in sorrow; Charles was nowhere to be seen.

Elise sat at the remains of the mansion, right into the night. Her heart felt heavy, laden with the weight of woe. She had lost everything; her parents, her home, and even Charles. Everything that she held dear all gone. But that did not stand in her way. She had to fight even more aggressively against this great tragedy. She knew that she needed to bring justice to those who took everything from her life and find out the real truth.

At dawn, she swore that she was going to find everybody who took everything from her; make them pay, and do everything needed to bring into light the secrets that that lay deep in the shadows, even if it meant risking everything dear to her."