OPHELIA: Chapter 55
Blurb
Elizabeth Lockwick wants one thing… to ensure Ophelia remains dead.
For years she’s weaved a life seen through rose-coloured glasses in idyllic Vermont with her husband Sebastian Lockwick, an alluring man with a broken moral compass, whose intent lies in protecting his wife. However, apart from her unorthodox understanding of Sebastian’s dark and gritty hidden nature, she finds herself slipping away from her sanity in maintaining this picturesque life.
After receiving a gruesome gift from an unknown sender threatening to expose her, she finds herself haunted and possibly hunted by her buried past.
In order to make things right for herself and ensure that her secret is hidden, she reluctantly travels back to her sleepy small hometown in Wisconsin. A town where young girls seem to be mysteriously disappearing. There, she reunites with the dysfunctional Pierre-Louis’, a French-American family who sheltered her in their manor in her time of need.
With time slipping away, she struggles with her guilt and a dangerous affair and realizes that perhaps Ophelia wasn’t dead after all these years.
Elizabeth suddenly finds herself caught in a game of cat and mouse, unsure of which she really is this time and who she can trust.
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Chapter 55
Every step she took towards the locked cage she wondered the number of heinous crimes committed here, at this very place. These people had no hearts. That, she was quite convinced of. Anxiety swelled within her, at the core of her stomach. It was as if time itself was slowing against her before she could reach towards the lock. Although the room was dim, it was still quite visible. Her heart pounded the sounds of a thousand African drums. She felt afraid, not for herself, but for this girl, and what these people had already done to her.
Ophelia stopped and her breath as well did as she saw the shriveled girl cocooned in the corner of the room, lost within a thought. Her clothing was torn, but not completely ripped off, her face was bruised and her body covered in dirt and wet blood from whatever wounds she seemed to have sustained.
Had she been too late?
Her hands trembled as she unlocked the cage and pushed open the iron bars. The girl’s attention suddenly fell on her and tears began swelling in her eyes. “Ophelia?” Mya whispered in a sore voice. The reflection of her soul through her eyes almost caused Ophelia to sob. She knew that broken look too well.
“I’m here,” she threw herself close to the girl who suddenly clung onto her and allowed herself to be cradled.
“Ophelia,” she sobbed.
“Shh, it’s okay baby, it’s going to be okay. Alright?” She assured her as hot tears also fell down her cheeks. She wanted to say these words. She wanted to say these words so badly before, to Claire, and to all the other girls that were here. To all the girls that this town failed. Words she wished had been said to her.
“F-father G-greywood and- and-”
Ophelia hushed the girl and shook her head so she won’t speak and relive it, “I know, they’re bad people, but you’re safe now. I’m getting you out.” She stood and aided the girl to do the same. Following her out of the cage, she clung to her side when Sebastian suddenly entered. He ended a call he seemed to be on with a deep frown. Mya’s eyes widened and hid behind Ophelia as an armor. “It’s alright, he’s helping us,” she said with a kind tone to calm the shaking girl behind her.
“Is it clear? Can we leave?”
Sebastian frowned deeply into his phone.
“What’s wrong?” She asked, noticing how phased out and bothered he had now become.
“Something’s going on up there,” he said, referring to the group of men at the room we had left behind.
“I don’t understand.”
“We just had some information that Markle George, the lawyer, will be here with the officials. Markle is fine, but if the officials get here and decide to investigate then there’s enough information to end everything.”
“And why is that such bad news?”
“Because you don’t know these men. They won’t allow that to happen. They’re shutting all entrances. No one gets in, and no one gets out.”
A loud thud was heard coming from the nearby rooms. Sebastian swore under his breath, “I need to get you out of here before it’s too late. Before it turns into a massacre.”
“So the Officials could put an end to this?” She asked as he pulled her along with Mya through the rooms with him, “I thought nothing could have stopped these people.”
“It’s different. Complicated,” he answered, “The Official are a group of elite individuals who came together to stop nepotistic crimes. They also aide in other criteria’s. A few years ago there was the Markle George’s case. He hadn’t wanted a lawyer from this town and opted for someone else. An outsider put him into the society of the Officials. He was this close to winning the case of his missing wife but ultimately there wasn’t enough evidence to shut this place down.”
The lights suddenly dimmed and loud thuds were again heard all around. Mya looked up to Ophelia in confusion. “What’s that?” Ophelia asked with a frown.
“They’re closing all the entrances,” Sebastian scowled, “The only way out now is up. All entrances on the flat levels would be shut with the iron doors.” Mya suddenly began sobbing. Ophelia pulled her closer to hush her cries, while Sebastian halted and watched from a corner. Four men in robes were locking the room she had previously been in. Two of the men included the sheriff and Father Greywood. One of the other two was a younger male, and the fourth was a middle-aged man. The youngest man’s face was hot red and he held a flustered expression. He seemed quite panicked as if he had just left a war scene. He suddenly let out a loud groan and knelt to the floor.
“Get yourself together!” The sheriff scolded. Father Greywood placed a hand over the boy’s head almost in a comforting manner.
“They were my brothers! They were your sons!” The boy cried, “This isn’t what we wanted when we joined. You- You killed them all! This isn’t what we agreed to!” He let out another pained scream and slammed his fist against the ground, “This was a mistake. You’re all monsters!”
“Son,” the middle-aged man tried to comfort him, “We are the last of our kind, our Gods have spared our lives.”
“Spared? Spared our lives?” The boy mocked as he sucked in his snot. He gave a bitter, ironic laugh, “You fuckers put poison in our wine, and now you’re trying to make a run for it!”
“This boy’s an idiot,” Sebastian frowned in a whisper to himself, “He’s going to get himself killed.”
“Atius,” Father Greywood cooed into his ear, standing behind him. He began whispering something and suddenly his body slumped completely to the floor. Blood oozed from his neck as Greywood stood with a cold expression. “Let us continue. There will be no ritual today until we can relocate. May God save their souls.” With that, they all walked off, leaving the dead boy behind.
“Do you still have the gun on you?” Sebastian suddenly asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. Use it if necessary,” he instructed.
They watched as the path cleared and walked closer to the body when they felt a scorching heat coming from the room inside. As Ophelia neared the small window which showed the inside of the room, her eyes widened in horror to what she was seeing. The room of males she had left just minutes ago was now a blanket of bodies, froth leaking from their mouths, and broken glasses of wine spilled to the floor. The room, now being caught on fire, the hot terror eating into their flesh, and everything in its way. “Oh my God.”
Sebastian pulled her away from the window, “We need to move fast, they’re going to set this place on fire.”
Mya stood still, her eyes widened, and her body froze. “Mya,” Ophelia tried to comfort her, “It’s going to be okay, we’re getting out of here. I promise.”
“Out there isn’t any better,” she said softly, with a tear rolling down her reddened cheek.
She wasn’t wrong. Ophelia knew this all too well. Monsters, death, pain, trauma, she had known it all her life. Had breakfast, lunch, and dinner with them. They were the family that never left her. The toxic kind. The ones she always wanted to run away from, and no matter how much she tried to get away from them, they always followed, they weren’t only in her house, nor in her head, they were on the streets, in a restaurant, in the strangers that walked past her every day. She never stopped to understand them, the ones within her especially. All she did was kept running. It was all she knew, but ultimately running only made things worst. Running away was never the answer to the way she felt. She knew she had to stop running. She knew one day she’d be tired, and it was either she gave up or confronted those monsters.
“Then we make it a better place,” she smiled, “One step at a time.”
**
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