Red

"Rise and shine, sister!" I said, busting in through the door and setting the tray of breakfast beside Anna's face before dragging the curtains and allowing the bright light of morning to flow in.

Anna groaned, "Ugh. What's your problem?"

"I'm sorry." I apologized again while sitting beside her on the bed. The beds we were given were small, they were barely queen size and my legs didn't find any room at all to rest. I could understand her frustration being here.

Luciano and I could make it work out, we could have sex anywhere in the room, no matter the bed size—we even had it in the roof.

"I don't care. Don't you have something to do then wake me up?" She pulled the blanket down her face and asked me a in a gruff, furious tone.

"I got you breakfast." I smiled at her. We were so close to leaving this place for once and all and I didn't want my own sister to be angry with me when we would leave.

Her eyes rolled at the back of her head, "I don't care, Red, go do something else, I don't want to talk to you or let alone see your face."

I offered to be friends with her again but I guess she didn't want to be so I didn't further try and instead bombarded her with the truth.

"Fine. I just want to say that, yesterday, I killed Marissa because she caught me and Luciano—"

"What?!" Anna exclaimed, jumping up from the bed and moving her sheets. "You did what?"

"I killed Marissa."

"What is wrong with you? That wasn't your call to take, Red!" The anger registered on her face and she slapped her hand over her head in aggression.

Her reaction was the sole reason I didn't want to tell that Luciano killed her instead of me. It was much better if I was on everyone's bad side than him.

"I told Cordelia—she's fine with it, she didn't mind." I managed to speak again. My heart throbbed in my chest and I looked down, away from my sister. When Cordelia called me back, last night, she didn't scream or argue, instead she just asked what happened.

"Still. It wasn't your job to kill Marissa. God, you're so fucked up." Anna threw away the blanket and got on her feet before running inside the washroom and ignoring me completely.

I had just pissed her more than ever.

I left the room after that, knowing the longer my sister would see my face, the more angrier she would get. She was enraged and irritated with everything I did, even if it was for the better.

I walked across the dim-lit hallways and stopped by a window to take in the scenery on the outside of the mansion. The garden looked beautiful, bright and green. The snow-storm was long gone and the sun was peeking through the clouds.

Upon receiving a call from Luciano, I picked it up and spoke with him.

"How did she take it?"

"Bad." I sighed, swinging an arm by the hem of the window and leaning inwards. "She's in heat. Is Ben the same too? Frustrated and angry?"

"No, he's fine." Luciano replied. "I got reservations done for tomorrow, including everything else you wanted to give Annabeth. But, Ben informed me last night that he got his hands on the key to the room in the East Wing."

At the mention of the key, I felt a rush of excitement along with a bit of curiosity. "Really? That's great." I didn't even know Ben was in the house yesterday night. Guess he came to drop off Anna as she was missing the whole day.

"Yeah, so tonight?"

"Yes, please, I can't get to be done with this. By the way, Dillion told me about his wife, she killed herself and they were married for a very long time." I spilled everything I learned an hour ago.

"I know."

"You know?" My back arched at his response. Wait a second. How did Luciano know anything? He barely spoke with Dillion.

"Yeah, I'll tell you later. I've got to run now so I'll see you later, okay?" He ignored my question and said.

"Sure."

"Take care. Love you,"

"You too."

I dragged the phone away from my ears and the call went off. My eyes wandered back to the garden and I admired the mother nature. I still couldn't shift without going through immense pain. According to Cordelia, it would take me a longer while to get my wolf side out of me compared to my witch side since I had betrayed my wolf when I shifted to a human.

I desired to run in the wild again with my wolf, wander around and feel the splinters poke through my bare feet. But for now, I needed to be thankful for what I had already had. My witch side was still intact, stronger than usual.

—

We were all gathered around the East Wing of the mansion when the night fell upon us. Ben had the key to the secret room that could finally tie all the strings together and reveal what exactly Dillion had been hiding.

"How did you even get it?" I asked Ben while rolling the thick key around my fingers. In the dark, I barely made out his face. The East Wing didn't have any lights switched on compared to the rest of the house so we were all standing in the complete dark, our hearts racing and assuming the worst.

What if there was someone inside there? What if Dillion kidnapped someone and kept them in the room?

"I just pulled it out from Dillion's stack of keys when he was taking a shower last night." Ben responded, a smirk forming on his face.

We heard a pair of footsteps approaching us. Our heads turned toward Anna that sneaked in at last.

Ben leaned over me and whispered, "Don't mind her. She's a little too overheated."

"I can hear you, Ben!" Anna yelled, "I'm not overheated, I'm furious." She stormed further, her feet slapping the ground with thuds before she came over to me and snatched the key away from my hands.

"It's fine, baby."

"Don't baby me." She smacked his hand away.

We hadn't gone inside the room yet as we were waiting for Annabeth to finish with her cold shower that lasted for almost an hour.

I exchanged a look with Luciano and announced, "Bernard is visiting tomorrow evening." It was something important.

"That bastard." He shook his head and grunted. "What does he want now?"

"I don't know but Dillion told me he wanted all of us there tomorrow evening so whatever happens in this room cannot be bought up until Bernard is gone." I glanced at all the faces around me and told them clearly.

"Fine. Whatever." Anna rolled her eyes and shoved the key inside the lock. She twisted it and we heard a snap before the lock opened.

Ben dragged the chains that kept the door secured down and dropped them to the ground. I took in a heap of breath as the door creaked open and the strange scent spread all across the place.

I peeked in, clutching the thickness of the door.

Anna didn't give me a second to get comfortable before she pushed me in and got in as well.

"Really?" I asked through my clenched teeth.

"We don't have time to waste, Red." She whispered, rolling her eyes.

I ignored her remarks and instead focused on what we were doing here. Luciano placed his hand on my back, comforting me away from Anna's vicious behavior. I gave him a small smile and turned my attention back to the scent that sickened me to the stomach.

What was it?

The room was fairly large and dark with a few curtains hanging from the window. Spider webs, dirt and other sorts of insects were collected around on every edge of the room. A large wooden shelf was by the wall, slightly crooked from one side and it almost seemed like it was going to break with bearing the weight of the things on the shelf. Dirt skidded in the air and I swatted my hand around before a sneeze forced itself out of me.

"This is disgusting." Anna groaned, sliding her fingers across a dusty table in the center of the room. There was a casket placed just beside the table and it took me a while to understand what it was since it just looked like rotten wood from a distance.

Ben glanced at the casket, "Is this Dillion's secret?"

I spun around and faced the shelf. There was a small pram by the corner, filled with spiders as well and just beside the stroller, there were a few soft toys for kids—a bunny, a giraffe and a kangaroo. What was this all? Ben and Luciano worked on opening the casket and since it was an old one, it took a lot of struggle.

I picked up the dusty, brown bunny and turned it around to see the label on the back where children usually wrote their names, showing who it belonged too.

Meredith.

My heart jumped in my chest before my limbs froze. I shoved the bunny back on the shelf and walked forward to see the frames. Pick up one of the wooden frames, I wiped the thick dust off it and stared at the family picture.

My Mother stood by an old house, holding me in her arms and just beside her, there was Dillion. They both were smiling at the camera, hand in hand. I took shallow, scared breaths before grabbing another one of the frames and finding my Mother and Dillion together with me, in another location.

My hands began shaking and I stepped forward to glance at the rest frames that were almost the same in one way or another.

"Ew. Who's this old woman?" I heard Anna gag and choke when the scent of death filled up the room.

Turning around, my gaze fell on the body inside the casket. It was the same woman I had met a month or two ago. "That's our dead Mother."

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