CHAPTER 145: THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTO

Veronica, clearly stressed, rubbed her temples and sighed heavily. "Yeah...you have a point; we can’t just dive into this," she conceded.

Standing with Mary, she continued, "First, we test him for blood and tissue type. Let’s just start with the obvious. Once we establish he is clear—with no AIDS, no infection—and once he trusts us a little more...then we can talk about this."

Mary crossed her arms, showing her irritation, "But, sister, how can we do that? We don’t have the instruments for blood tests or tissue analysis! We only possess the things for minor incidents and a few syringes for drawing blood!"

Veronica was looking at Mary with a sparkle of resolve in her eyes. "The fortress is stocked with everything we will need."

The expression on Mary’s face mirrored the approaching thunderstorm. "No. Definitely not. We are not going back. Not even once," she said with a firm and definitive tone. It was more than mere fear that informed her voice—it was a promise, a dividing line in the sand.

Veronica remained unfaltering. "It is not necessary for us to return there permanently. We could secretly go in, take what we require, and leave without anyone realizing that something is missing."

Mary’s voice was broken, angry, and it had a rawness to it that resembled betrayal - "No! You can’t be serious!" Her hands were turning into fists as she was trembling through her entire body. The fortress was not just a location to her. It was an injury, a memory of the time when they barely made it through.

Veronica’s eyes were fixed on the photo frame that showed the picture of a woman... I assume her dead mother, her mouth drawing in as if she was trying to suppress a surge of her feelings. She didn’t argue or insist.

Instead, she simply averted her gaze from reality and looked at the woman in the picture—a woman whose cheerful look seemed to be forever stored, a ghost from their past. "There’s still another way..."

Mary inhaled sharply, her voice quivering. "What could it possibly be?"

Veronica kept looking at the photo. "I mean her."

Mary’s voice was breaking like ice cracking underfoot. "NO. Never." The word was like a sharp, final, closing the door with a slam. "Did you already forget? She is no longer our mother. She left us to rot in that world. If we hadn’t managed to get out, we would be dead by now. She does not love us. If she did, we wouldn’t be living like this,"

The space between them was getting heavy with the old wounds that hadn’t been healed and the pain that was not even spoken. Veronica’s shoulders went down, and her voice was closer to a whisper than anything else, "I am aware of that."

I took another look at the photo, the thoughts in my head were flying. Their mother was not dead; she was the one inside that fortress. And she wasn’t just any woman—she was another MILF, just older. She wasn’t even seemed old enough to be their mother, maybe an elder sister. But the similarity was there, in the edges of her face, the power of her eyes.

Veronica’s voice was so quiet, almost like she was talking to herself. "However, if she loves and cares for something, it must be her experiments. Her research. She might be the one to help us."

Mary’s voice was icy and full of bile. "NO. That woman shouldn’t be relied on. Not after the dad died because of the virus. She changed and became obsessed with research. She doesn’t love us anymore. Maybe she is the one who will betray us, lock us up. And why would she need help from us? Most probably, she has already kidnapped some savages and started her experiments on them."

Veronica let out a breath, and her tone showed that she was not pleased with the idea, "That... could be the case. She doesn’t need us."

You could pinpoint the defeat in her gaze, the way her shoulders dropped. One more dead end. Now, the existence of a crazy scientist just added to the equation—the scientist happened to be very attractive but also very dangerous.

After that, Veronica stared at me with an unyielding look and said, "It would be better if we just let him go."

Mary agreed with her, saying, "Yes, sister. I think it will be better if we do not have any dealings with these savages. They could be the source of our troubles."

Veronica turned her voice low and sympathetic, but there was no warmth in it. "I’m sorry... but we’re the ones who have to send you down. After that, you can’t come back here. And don’t tell anyone about us. "

Her arm was in mine, and she was already walking down the ladder of the treehouse. "Come... come..."

I followed, my thoughts completely elsewhere. As I was going down the ladder, I saw Mary holding her gun with her fingers curled tightly around the grip. She also came down, but she was watching me all the time with her eyes.

As soon as we were outside of the tree house, the tension was an awkward heavy silence. She didn’t really think about it but relaxed her hand from mine and stepped further away, as if putting some distance into the situation would ease her burden.

Mary aimlessly pointed the gun at me. Her arm was steady, but she wasn’t pointing in an aggressive way; it was just to be temperately cautious.

Veronica’s voice was weight and very soft, but it wasn’t a weight that came to sound as she opened the last Chapter of a weary book. "Go. And don’t come back," she said.

The reality is, I did not get out. I stood in place, and inwardly I was scratching my head in an overly dramatized confused way. My face was dull, not showing how bemused I felt. I think they viewed me as a lost, unsophisticated savage who couldn’t comprehend a single logical action.

Mary exhaled deeply and lowered her head, her shoulders dropping in defeat. "It seems like he didn’t get it," she said.

Veronica was biting her lip, looking at me and then at Mary, deepening her furrowed brow. "What are we going do now?"

Mary spoke in a very cold, almost mundane way and very nearly disinterested of the person as if she were commenting on the change of weather rather than someone’s life, "We can kill him. Just to be sure that he doesn’t cause us any more trouble."

Veronica was startled and rushed to put herself in front of me and Mary, whose face was at this moment covered by the gun barrel. "Mary, what the hell are you doing?" She was a step ahead, a tremor of surprise in her voice, "He didn’t do anything to us! You can’t just—".

I looked covertly at Mary pressing the barrel of the gun down hard, and then I looked up at the sky. The first light of the sun was just last night, coming out over the horizon—the sun was rising. I thought of Ravina and those waiting on me. They would all be worried if I didn’t go home soon. And I had to contend with the Kronos Tribe. So I couldn’t stay there any longer.

I produced meaningless garble, my own voice raw and overdone, as if I were straining to say. "Ohh... Oh... Jaklolo... Ollo..." I just left without waiting for them to respond, plodding away slowly yet assured.

Mary’s voice followed behind me, and her tone was emphatic and raw, and she seemed very shocked with whatever amount of reflection she’d done. "Sister, he-- "

Veronica was calmer and more reflective when talking to herself, and it seemed like she was figuring something out. "Maybe he saw that we are the ones who want him to go away..."

A breath of the morning air, carrying Veronica’s last sequence of words: soft but apparent. "Goodbye.... stranger..." I did not glance back.

No meaning of rushing either. I knew I would have plenty of time to be back, to play this game "if" the time was right. At this time, I was going to other places and other roles.

But during my exit, I could not stop the corner of my mouth from beginning to have a weak grin escalated to the other corner. It was not over.