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.

accidental invention Vivienne had stumbled upon during her leisure time on

she discovered that her first

never brought the pills

life and

the pill might be a mere extension of life,

people killing for just one dose. That wasn't

just ten pills

as a scientific challenge, one

had invented the

would have been unnecessary. Capturing Vivienne could have given

at him dismissively. "I don't waste

the exit, pausing only to deliver a parting shot. "Francis, remember to please your masters in your next

she and Percival stepped out. From her backpack, she

Boom!

explosion echoed through the valley as Vivienne and

Percival was silent,

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

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

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

the truth-that it wasn't his uncle who betrayed him, but Francis-filled him with

unsettled he must feel. Now that Francis was out of the picture,

that gnawed to the bone until his dying