Rabbit Hole (Romantic-Suspense)

Chapter 23: Scheming

Chapter 23: Scheming

3rd Person's POV

"You talk the talk…" Lennox said, grinning from ear to ear while his ominous eyes pierced through Alice.

"Do you walk the walk?" He added, making Alice aware that she had been holding her breath heavily.

Feeling the tension, Alice stepped back. As the mere thought of killing someone hadn't come through her mind, but having the gist of what kind of business Lennox was talking about, helped her assume what business he was talking about. Thanks to her quick-wittedness, she was right.

Gulping the lump forming in her throat, she stared at him, speechless. Wishing Lennox was just cracking a hopeless joke on her. But the dead cold air makes it impossible for her, as it says otherwise.

"Lennox, what the hell are you?" She asked, clenching her fist to fight the trembling.

But, Lennox didn't respond. Instead, he scoffs and smiles charmingly. Seeing this face, she understood instantly that the man in front of her wouldn't make talk anything lightly.

The pulse beating in her ears, blocking out the silence, she stood there, frozen. Wide eyes locked on the devil's stare that seemed to be reading her thoughts, a feeling of dread crept up from the pit of her stomach.

Be the devil's accomplice in exchange for his help? Tsk, right. Nothing is for free.

When, at last, she thought the sun's rays had been creeping into Lennox's suite, the full window now illuminated from the suite's living area to its kitchen. Letting Alice see how the sun graces his predator-like eyes, making it feel for her that he could pounce and devour her any moment, she let a fear leak through her gritting teeth.

Feeling terrified, as she could feel how her color quickly drained from her face—there at that exact moment, Alice knew she wasn't yet ready to be his accomplice.

Breaking free from standing there for what looked like almost an hour. Alice intuitively walked her way out before her throbbing heart burst open, but Lennox's last few words didn't let her escape unscattered.

Passing by the kitchen bar where he's at, he calmly says—

"I'll be waiting for your return, whenever you're ready…my dear Alice. Oh, I can't wait to serve you the finest coffee."

Alice then paused and looked at him. Letting her realize that Lennox didn't look like he was sleeping before opening the door for her when she came knocking.

He opened the door quickly as if he'd been awake the whole night.

It was as if he was waiting for me all along—

"Oh! Of course, the coffee you serve is still unbeatable—"

f*ck it.

"f*ck it," Alice curses, still thinking about what just happened at Lennox's suite a while ago as she showers herself with warm water, hoping it'll help calm and take the stress away with it down the drain.

Pinning her eyes shut in anger, feeling played, thinking Lennox already had his hands and eyes on her even before she met him. Alice feels small, cornered, and caged, but she knew deep down that she cannot dwell on what already happened anymore.

"I swear, he's the biggest scum," Alice said, reminiscing of how the seemingly harmless, trustworthy face with the most reassuring smile she ever saw in the elevator that day was the same person that was making her walk on eggshells.

Suddenly, Lennox's true nature, the menacing look that's far too different from the first impression she saw, flashes through.

"That damned, Lennox." She said, her head aching with stress slowly eating her up, tearing her mind apart from the circumstances that had been unfolding at once before her. She holds and squeezes her head as the throbbing pain keeps on stabbing.

Enraged, not entirely because of being stalked and played for years, but because of the ironic, tight spot she's in.

"Hah! I bet you're having the day of your life." She said about Lennox.

Sarcastically thinking how she voluntarily walked into the tiger's den. Just like how Alice willingly sits in and joins Hatter's insane tea party. She laughs to herself, feeling stupid about how she could bring her to that situation.

But then again, the more she ponders about everything, the more she gets limited and convinced that her only rope up from the conflict she has is no other than Lennox.

Yet, anxiousness can't stay still and continues to hurt while unsettling thoughts of Mae keep haunting her. Thinking her only friend, Mae, who has been up until now, is missing and still hasn't been found. Alice understood that she didn't have time to worry about her own sake. Alice couldn't think of any other way to know where she could have gone but to ask the last available person in mind.

"Auntie…" Alice mumbled, eyes fixed on the drain, but just as when she was thinking of personally visiting Mae's mother, the footage of Lennox showing something to her in the elevator before she lost contact with Mae appeared in her mind.

Remembering it, Lennox again. The corner of her lips lifted up but didn't reach her eyes. Smiling at how stupid she had overlooked the chance to ask him before Lennox started spouting about his kind of business, she released a sigh.

"If I approach and ask him now, he'll take it as a 'yes’—ugh! This is frustrating!" She exclaimed, accepting the fact she was eating her own taunts and acting when she tried provoking him by not being afraid of the risks—

"Hah, and here I thought you'd still try to keep a face," Vividly seeing how she says that with a smug look written all over her tone and poise, Alice groans.

"Who's keeping the face, who? Huh, Alice?" She mumbles, ashamed of herself.

I have to make sure not to spout things. I know I'll get myself in trouble from now on.

—However, I want you to know that everything isn't solely my fault for not letting you know what's about to happen. For it was you, you, who let him live. Now, brace yourself because you're about to know that not everyone is worth it—

As if the situation's mocking her more, a memory triggers in her head.

"Why--why?!" She shouted, remembering a line from the first and last letter Dove had sent her.

"Saving? How? When—argh." Alice, feeling powerless with the strings that were already being sewed before she knew it, felt like she was walking on eggshells.

However, no matter how helpless she feels, she knows her decision of seeking Lennox's help was the right thing to do.

Right, before he becomes worse, I might as well use him to my own advantage. This way, I'll also be able to keep

Alice thought, when suddenly—

"If that's what would solve the problem, would you be glad to be an accomplice?"

Lennox's words echo, reminding her that having him by her side means she has to deal with him even in his extremes—

"Dove started sending poems…four years ago, come to think of it. Every poem he has sent has always been about looking out from the devil—he's been warning me about the devil—Lennox." Alice muttered, gritting her teeth.

But then, abruptly and unprepared, another possibility struck Alice's mind when she thought of the most possible 'what if' that could have also happened of why she couldn't reach Mae's mother's phone when she first tried before deciding to take a shower—what if, auntie's being held hostage?

Alice thought, worried about someone who she called auntie despite not having any blood relationship with her. A woman who feels like her own mother—it pains her so much, not being able to do anything about Mae and her auntie's state. Thinking it's her fault, why they got dragged into this mess because of that person she suspects to be the one using and chasing Mae.

"Mae, where are you?" Alice cried helplessly.

Alice stood there, not knowing what to do anymore, knowing she couldn't easily approach the person she suspected was the one manipulating Mae through any possible means. Alice feels she's at the limit of everything. Then, Lennox appears again in her head.

"Lennox…" She mumbled, calling him, feeling left with no choice but to be an accomplice.

This triggers her to imagine herself killing the person she suspects with her bare hands—but before her impulse gets the better of her, she immediately gasps and stops.

"What the—"Feeling on edge, she uttered. Reminiscing the bitter memories of that person in her mind, she began to tremble in rage.

"Why—why can't you leave me alone?!" Alice exclaimed in a rage, hitting the shower stall's wall as if the running waters were not doing their job to calm her nerves. Thinking Mae and her mother's life are being on that person's whim, a tear from her boiling frustration tickles her cheek that mixes with the warm water rushing down her face.

Frustrated, she twisted the shower off, crossing out every Lennox and Dove from her list in mind. Deciding to take things one problem at a time, then, out of habit, she smacks both of her cheeks hard—believing it'll be the last thing that can help her calm her mind.

"Damn, knew it. This has always been the best way." Heaving a sigh, she said, getting ahold of her mind.

"Ugh, seriously, I think I've been having stress for one year now." Groaning, going out as the mist came out of the shower stall's door. Right after that, she hurriedly looked at her phone, just as if she got any replies from Mae, but as usual, she still didn't receive any.

And when she notices its battery's remaining percent, she walks out of the bathroom, not even caring to put on a towel on her dripping wet body. She didn't pay any caution and immediately look for her charger, thinking any moment Mae would come calling.

Yet panic had reached her when she couldn't find it on her bed—not until her eyes caught its cord beneath the bed. Turning around, she crouched and bent hastily to get it. Lowering down to reach and get it, she instantly turns and immediately plugs and charges it in the socket right between her nightstand and the full-size mirror attached to the wall, as if her life's on the line.

Charging it in successfully, before it's one percent completely drains out, she releases a sigh mixed with relief and anxiety.

"Mae…call me again, please." Not even bothered by her naked, exposed body, she prays, looking at her charging phone's screen.

Right then, accepting the usual case where she hadn't received anything from Mae, the thought of visiting Mae's mother personally appeared in her mind again. Although she knows the risks of visiting her auntie personally, the uneasiness bugs her more the more she ignores the urge to go.

"I have no choice…" Alice mumbled.

Standing up, lifting her gaze in the mirror, she momentarily stopped and reached out for the towel on the chair. Damping her wet body and hair, she looks at her reflection in the mirror. Unconsciously, she remembers the first day she met Lennox inside the elevator.

Caressing her nape with the towel, she remembers how shocked she was back there.

"…Lavender." Then, Lennox's voice echoed in her ear—as if he was right behind her. She gasped and swiftly brushed off Lennox from her mind.

Ugh, when will I get over that moment? She thought, irritably crossing out that moment that she didn't know, left a grave impression in her mind.

"Ugh—really, if it wasn't because of his personality. Tsk, what a total waste of good looks." She said, stomping her feet towards her walk-in-closet.

Meanwhile…

"Can you repeat that?" A man asked, couldn't believe what his secretary just told him through the phone. Caught up with the news he had just received, he stopped the prostitute's hands from caressing his back and stood up from the bed.

"ASpex Incorporation registers their name for the project's bidding, Mr. Vice Chairman," the secretary said, repeatedly as told.

"ASpex...as in the architectural firm where Alice works?" He asked, clarifying details as he didn't see things coming this way.

"Yes, Mr. Vice Chairman." The secretary said, confirming it.

"Will we accept them as bidders for the subdivision project?" The secretary asked, checking Alice's profile's link to the firm's employees.

"Yes. Of course…accept them—no, make sure they'll get the project." He ordered, hanging up the call, thrilled as his eyes lit, and his lips curved in malicious pleasure.

"If I knew this day would have come, I shouldn't just use that bitch." He said, thinking of Mae.

"Now, now, who's that b***h are you talking about?" The prostitute said, as her hands lingered on his back down to his abdomen, arousing him.

"No one...come here." He said, turning around. Hugging her down as they continued on where they stopped. However, little did he know, someone had been listening in their room just the moment he answered the call and turned his back from her, just according to plan.

A phone, covered underneath the prostitute's clothes, had been on since he turned around and answered the call—

"Good, good…very good." A man said before ending the call after hearing the confirmation he had been waiting for.

Ice clinking gently in the glass as he rolled it absently between his hands after getting his rum empty since Alice left, he lifted up a printed document and pinned it on the board on the wall full of his target's profile and pictures.

"Oh…Alice," he said, turning back his eyes on a new picture of her secretly taken on his phone. Adoring her at every angle, Lennox felt exhilarated. Exhilarated by many ways he could think of to ruin, the man on the board's life was in shambles. Snickering, trembling with excitement as he knows well how to ruin someone's life in just a snap with every plot he's making.

"Oh, Alice…really, you make me feel alive. I want more." Lennox said, looking at the crimpled pictures of people on the floor. The people who messed up with her in the past met the same end in his hands.

"Ah, Alice… don't worry, I'm here. As I have always been." He said, while the projector's light brushed his pale white skin, a smile bared larger, glistening teeth, curled with mirth, he laughed maniacally and loudly.

Turning his head to his right where Alice's face was projected on the wall. But, after adoring his muse's beauty, his eyes full of adoration shifted back to what was in front of him.

His dilated pupils sharpen as his drunk eyes look harshly on the board full of pictures and papers that are being pinned in a web-like pattern with red strings connecting each essential information and photos.

He then lifted a dart from a classical set beside him and shoots the picture at the center of all photographs on the board.

"You think you got her…but no. I won't let you. Vice-chairman." He said, sarcastically saying the man's title that he could ruin at any moment he wished with all the information he had gathered all over the board.

And then, he slowly turns his gaze back at his right side, where her face covers the wall. The only wall from all corners and sides full of papers, writings, and pictures is clean and untouched, serving as the screen projector.

Then, he sighs and longingly walks near it, adoring Alice's innocent, sweet smile.

"Oh…Alice, you have no idea how happy I am. The moment I saw you moving in, I couldn't help myself and sneak a sniff to check if you still smell like lavender…Oh, yeah, how many years has it been already?" He said.

"Oh, Alice… how long will I have to wait for you to find me here on your own?" He said, talking to himself. Recalling a memory, he could vividly remember.

"Hmm…shall I help you remember me?" He said, tilting his head sideways, pondering on the thought of triggering something he shouldn't.

"But, before that… I'll make sure this pest won't dare to bother you again." He said, turning his gaze back to the person in the picture that he just shot through the head with the dart he just threw.

"No one's going to touch you again, Alice…no one. I won't let them take you away from me again. "He uttered, looking emotionless until his eyes dropped at the next person connected to the vice-chairman's picture.

"Including this wench." He said, clenching his jaw, staring dead cold at the picture with "Mae" name attached to it.

Suddenly, a call was coming, ringing his phone. He mindlessly answered it while his eyes were still fixed menacingly on the picture.

[Good morning, Architect Astor. As you've instructed, the documents are being prepared, but Ms. Gomez's not around so—] Reading through the lines, Lennox interrupted.

"She's not there? Absent?" He asked, looking back again at his phone, tracking something on his map.

[Yes, sir.] The man said. Seeing this would have happened, Lennox sighs and walks out of the room.

"Regardless, I want you all to prepare all the documents needed for the billing."

[Yes, sir, but has the client already accepted our registration?] The project architect asked.

Then, a vicious smile curved up on his face, and he said, "Oh, they will," confidently, and immediately ended up the call.

"Alice, where the hell are you?" Lennox said while tracking her location, but the next thing he saw alarmed him.