The Million-Dollar Heart

Flynn's pupils contracted slightly at her words, and then he let out a scornful chuckle. "F-Poison? And who's Samantha? You're speaking gibberish to me."

Vivienne regarded him coolly. "You insinuated yourself into Flynn's life, became his confidant, and waited till he let his guard down. The day before the shooting, you two switched identities. In that massacre, the real Flynn died a hero, saving lives. And you-you lived on, wearing his face.

Francis, you've schemed for eternity at the cost of everything, even delivering yourself into our hands. Did you ever calculate that this life would be your last within these walls?"

Flynn-no, Francis now-his expression cracked at her words, but he quickly masked it with laughter.

His face, or rather the lifelike mask he wore, began to split, revealing a much younger visage underneath.

Vivienne couldn't help but feel a pang of surprise. Willa was well into her forties, yet the man before her, supposedly her father, looked to be in his early twenties.

"Vivienne, you're even sharper than your mother," F-Poison admitted defeat. There was no point in hiding anymore. He had lost, utterly and without a chance to turn the tables. Yet, losing to her didn't feel like a disgrace. Vivienne was the most formidable adversary he had ever encountered.

Her mother, Karen, was formidable too, but he sensed in Vivienne that rare quality of the student surpassing the master. Given time, she would certainly eclipse her mother.

"But I'm curious, how did you unravel my secrets?" Now that his true identity was exposed, he abandoned all pretense, his youthful face twisted with a grotesque smile that was wholly unsettling.

"I've explained once to Samantha, and I don't fancy repeating myself," Vivienne replied, her gaze piercing.

She leaned in slightly, a smirk playing on her lips. "But there is one thing I will tell you."

Francis raised an eyebrow. "What's that?"

"While you and Samantha devoted your lives to the quest for immortality, I haven't concocted an elixir of eternal life, but I have created a life-extension pill that adds five years to a person's life. It's based on your ST-1, and it's given me a direction for my own studies into immortality."

The life-extension pill was indeed real.

Vivienne had stumbled upon during her leisure

devise a life-saving pill, she discovered that her first

never brought the

her, tampering with the natural order of life and death

might be a mere extension

if released, with people killing for

she made just ten pills and kept them

the concept of an immortality drug intrigued her not to sell, but as a scientific challenge, one she was determined to conquer. Francis' pupils dilated in shock. "What did

invented the life-extension

had known, all the elaborate schemes of RST would have been unnecessary. Capturing Vivienne could have given him everything he

"I don't

shot. "Francis, remember to please your masters in your next life as a lesser creature, to atone for your sins in this one. Otherwise, you'll be trapped in a cycle of rebirth

those words hanging in the air, she and Percival stepped out. From

Boom!

Vivienne and Percival drove away from the

silent, his

turned to him, held his hand, and said, "Mr. Wolf, let's go fetch

had been Percival's uncle, the one person in the Ellington family he

wearing his uncle's face. Before uncovering Francis' identity, he had despised Flynn for his perceived betrayal and the

him, but

weighing on Percival and knew how unsettled he must feel. Now that Francis was out of

torment that gnawed