Leopold and Matthew had just finished loading the Abernathy family into the van, including Cormac, when the stench inside hit them like a wave, almost driving them back out the door. But seeing Vivienne and the others frozen by the bedside, Leopold steeled himself and stepped inside.
The woman on the bed was a shadow of her former self, her hair tangled and matted like weeds upon the pillow. Her face was streaked with dirt, and it looked like the Abernathys hadn't bothered to clean her in ages. If it weren't for the faint rise and fall of her chest, Leopold might have mistaken her for a corpse.
Wait a minute!
Those features...
How come she looked a bit like Percival?
Realizing this, Leopold's pupils dilated, his finger pointing shakily at the woman on the bed.
Then he glanced at Percival, whose stony face was unreadable, and noticed the air around him growing colder and heavier. Leopold took a step back, feeling as if his throat had been seized. He couldn't manage to utter a complete sentence.
Finally, it was Vivienne who broke the silence. "Mr. Wolf, let's get her out of here first."
She was genuinely shocked. They had only come to fetch a witness back to Rivenwood, and here they were, stumbling upon the very person Percival had spent years searching for.
Mr. Wolf's aunt, the Ellington heiress-Holly Ellington!
"Gavin Abernathy!"
devoured any trace of light, leaving their car in the darkness, save for the occasional flash of headlights that flickered before Vivienne's
seemed to crawl
setting, yet Vivienne heaved a sigh of relief as she said, "Mr. Wolf, trust me, I will heal your aunt." Percival's grim expression
bubbling up inside him toward
as the Ellington heiress, she would be placed in an unknown hospital with professional care to at least keep her alive. But the reality was
had pulled back the covers, even he
where that foul stench lingering around the Abernathy property
was Holly's withered body, wounds festering and crawling with
that moment, Percival felt a
But the agony he felt
his head deeper into Vivienne's stomach, his clenched eyes
her eyes. "Mr. Wolf,
time he had seen such
ancient warrior lineage was formidable, but
cared about, they couldn't just hand their life over to the Grim Reaper without
he glanced at the caller ID before saying, "Vivienne, it's
"Hand it over."
the
tinged with anger, came through,
done now?" Vivienne didn't need to guess; she knew Gavin must have
taken the ashes and are threatening that if we don't hand
phone tightened as she inhaled deeply. "How is
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