Twenty-Three ◑ The Mirror

"Oh, no." Agnes looked like she wanted to disappear as Lucille wheeled around on her accusingly. "Just so we're clear, I didn't tell him—"

"Then why is he here?" Lucille hissed, fumbling around in panic. "Why did you invite him? A little heads up would've been nice!"

"Hello?" Cade called out in the distance.

Agnes groaned and started towards the door to get Cade, but she hesitated halfway and tried to tidy up Lucille instead. "He was so worried that he called, so I told him you had the flu. I mean, I can't exactly say that you've been shot by his stalker, right?"

"Agnes?" Cade's voice was getting louder, clearer. "Lucille? Anybody home?"

"Wait a moment!" Agnes called back shrilly, giving Lucille's hair one last brush and her nightgown one last tug before rushing out the door.

Meanwhile, Lucille's heart was a mere trembling organ with how fast it was beating. She hopped onto the bed and threw the covers over herself, unsure of how to behave, how to look, how to feel. She just stared at the door, her numb hands clenched on her lap.

Beyond this room was the man she'd mistakenly tried to screw over, the man who she'd punished on behalf of the bad guy.

God, why hadn’t she been knocked out for one more day?

The muffled voices of Agnes and Cade echoed from the hallway. Agnes seemed to be doing a good job lying this time, because Cade was being his usual polite, nice self. He wasn't yelling or panicking or anything, and when he peeked inside the room, he was smiling widely. This meant that he had no idea about Lucille’s side business.

Seeing the innocence in his eyes jolted her like a blast of cold water to the face. She sat up straighter and smiled back, but she could feel her cheeks shaking. For some reason, Mia's words were echoing in her head: You're not punishers, you're criminals. . . .

"Good morning, Lucille," Cade said timidly. In his hands was a gigantic bouquet of pale pink roses wrapped in golden paper, tied around which was a card with scribbled messages of varying handwritings. "How have you been?"

"I'm okay," she replied stupidly, shifting in her seat.

"I'll leave you two to talk," Agnes said with a subtle wink at Lucille. "Call me when you need me."

Without waiting for an answer, she exited the bedroom, leaving Cade standing by Lucille's bed. They both avert their gazes, looking around for something inanimate to stare at. But accidentally their eyes met, so they break into the stiffest grins in the history of stiff grins.

This was awkward.

"Take a seat," Lucille said at last. Her voice was in soprano for some reason.

Cade obeyed, taking Dimitri's abandoned chair. After a beat, he offered the flowers to her. "Just a little gift from your Paradigm family."

Family. Was he purposefully making her feel guiltier?

"Thanks." She accepted the bouquet and rested it against her lap. Now she felt like a beauty queen on her deathbed. "So, how was the office when I was gone? How's the preparation for the launch?"

He let out a hesitant laugh and fiddled with his thumbs. "About that." He cleared his throat. "I'm thinking of resigning, actually."

"What? Cade." Lucille tried to leap out of bed, but she remembered she was wearing only a sheer nightgown. "Cade. No way. You're kidding, right?"

"No, I'm not," he said in a neutral tone, but his sadness was apparent in his eyes. "You see, William told me that if I don't give him the best launch, I'm going to lose my job. The team and I proposed the ball to the finance people, and they only gave approved three quarters of the proposed budget. So yeah. No big launch. We've been restructuring the plan, and it's . . . tough."

Shit. Shit, this was all Lucille's fault.

And she had to fix this. No matter what.

Guilt was clawing at her throat, making it hard to breath. Her eyes were watering. The urge to apologize was slowly invading her, but she knew she shouldn't let it take over. It would mess everything up more.

"It's obviously not going to be a very big event given the money restrictions, so after the launch I'll be resigning," Cade continued, picking at his slacks. "I'll still try my best, though. I think if—

"I can help," she interjected. "I will help. Is money the only problem?"

"Lucille, if you're talking about your own money—"

"I'm not." She was about to, but maybe not. "Look, I really want to help. I want to make this work, and I know that it will work. All I'm asking from you is to stay."

Cade's jaw tightened. Lucille took his hand. "Will you, Cade? Will you stay?"

His face slowly lit up with a smile. "If you say so."

***
"Right this way, please."

Lucille and Cade followed Pam, who was the great-great-granddaughter of the late Robert Arkham Senior, Lucille's former client and the owner of the Arkham Manor. They were in the grand estate now, inspecting it for the launch happening next week.

The Manor was only one of the few other adjustments that the Paradigm team had to make in order to stretch the budget. And as with the other decisions, Lucille was the one who'd pulled some strings and taken the lead.

So far she'd pulled in favors from her connections from a classical music band, a famous gourmet restaurant with a catering service, an organization that specialized in formal events, and socialite groups with huge followings. She'd rounded all the people who owed her and maximized opportunities from the ball itself to its related publicity.

And she'd done all this to have their funds repurposed.

Cade and the others couldn't have been more pleased. In the course of a couple of weeks since her return to the office, she'd become their hero. Her influence had amped up the idea of the ball, and that resulted to everyone warming up to Cade.

That included her. The past weeks had made sure that she’d be brought closer to him, that she’d know just how good he’d been to everyone and how totally undeserving he was of her intended punishment.

And since then, she hadn’t been able to get him out of her head.

Even though he was in front of her, just walking right ahead of her in the spotless foyer, her mind was fixed on him.

The Arkham Manor was unbelievably massive, ten times a better venue than an ordinary hotel ballroom. Despite having been built in the mid-nineteenth century, the place was well-kempt, a perfect picture of grandeur perched atop a sloping hill in the of south Manhattan.

After all the years of renovations and additions, it was still a strong, three-story Palladian structure with white walls, towering columns, and big arched windows. The interior was a gleaming collage of polished wooden walls and antique carpets. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, casting a yellow glow on the glass figurines on the cabinets and the framed oil paintings on the walls. No smell of rot or mold wafted around the house. There was only the earthy smell of wood, the faint trace of the magnolia flowers outside the open windows.

Lucille had been here before, back when she helped Robert Arkham Senior take his children away from his crazy, abusive wife. She'd come back again when Robert Junior encountered a similar problem with his spouse. The Manor was breathtaking for sure, but these walls had been witnesses to generations of heartbreak and pain.

So was Lucille. She'd been the witness and the mediator of it all.

"You alright?" Cade pulled level with her. "You went pale."

Lucille forced a smile. "I'm alright."

"You sure you don't want anything, Miss Lucille?" Pam casted her worried look. "You know, we can stop by the kitchen and have some tea. You can look at the ballroom after."

"We're sort of in a hurry," Lucille said. "I think it's best if we go to the ballroom first."

Pam nodded. "As you wish."

Cade's eyes widened with amazement, as though he couldn't believe that the owner of the house was treating Lucille like royalty.

To be fair, he thought that all of her connections were built on friendship, not through some underground revenge service. He flashed Lucille an innocent grin as they swerved into a familiar lamplit hallway, and her heart just clenched. The tall double doors leading to the vast ballroom stood beyond like a finish line. She couldn't wait to get there and leave.

"Look," Cade said, tapping her shoulder and pointing at an old portrait. "I'm assuming that's Robert Arkham Senior and his wife."

His wife. That indeed was her, Lucille confirmed internally. The short red hair, the dark eyes. She stared at the face in the painting, smooth and pristine. So much unlike the bleeding, bruised version that Lucille had seen last, right after the torture.

"That's Robert Arkham Junior." Cade pointed at another portrait. "This one looks a little strange."

"His wife’s part has been erased," Pam put in, standing beside Cade and running a finger over the mottled gray background. "The original painter’s dead for a long time, so the coverup turned out a bit wonky."

They continued to talk about the paintings, about why the wife had to be erased. Lucille couldn't join. Something heavy was in her chest. Mia's words kept coming back to her.

Criminal. Homewrecker. She remembered the tortured screams of the Arkhams' wives, the screams Lucille had caused.

How many people had she actually helped? How many people had she freed? But how many people had she ended?

She didn't know, but she definitely wasn't proud.

Cade and Pam moved on from the portraits and walked along, this time inspecting the glass figurines that lined the hall. Lucille tried to follow, but she was dizzy. The floor was lurching. The walls stretched on endlessly.

"This looks like you," Cade suddenly said, showing her a porcelain figure of a red-clad ballerina. "So pretty. And this one kind of looks like. . . ."

The rest of his words were drowned. Lucille's attention was diverted towards a huge ornate mirror set on the opposite side of the hall.

Her own image stared back at her—impeccable red suit, flawless makeup, tumbling blonde hair. Everything looked vibrant in contrast to the pale brown wooden background, but her blue eyes were blank, empty. Dead.

She walked closer to the mirror, close enough for her to focus on her face alone. The colors began to blend as she touched the shiny surface. She watched her features melt and mold into different forms, into the faces of the ones she'd punished over the centuries.

Lucille was pressing her palm against the mirror now, like a moth to a flame, like it held all the answers to her questions. Slowly, the collage of different likenesses shifted into her face again, but she didn't want to see it.

And that was when the pain arrived.

It was a wrenching pang in her gut, a stab of pure agony, like the high-speed puncture of something long and wickedly sharp. She felt it exactly in her sternum, throbbing and intense. She could almost hear her insides getting ruptured, could almost hear the spurt of blood. It was reminded her of her dream with Dimitri, where he’d knelt before her with her own knife in his hand.

With the pain came a man's voice, soothing in contrast to the searing sensation. She couldn't make out the words, but for some reason it made her heart explode with hurt. Whatever it just said was more excruciating than a thousand stabs.

Darkness began to engulf her, slow and thick. She was midair, pulled by gravity, and she was falling down.

A sinking realization hit her. She was dead. She was gone. She was killed—

"Lucille?"

She gasped. Her entire body contracted. It was suddenly so cold. Her eyes were brimming with tears as she looked back at Cade, who was standing behind her with a worried look on his face. The pain in her abdomen was gone, but her heart throbbed with every beat.

But she was here. She was safe. She wasn't alone.

Lucille threw herself into Cade's arms. His body stiffened, but after a while he hugged her back with no hesitations, his cheek on her hair. Oh, he was warm. So warm that it felt like he could take back every bad thing that happened.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he whispered. "Tell me."

"No, I'm fine." She sniffed and pulled away. "I just had a bit of a shake there."

"Everything alright?" Pam was staring at them. "You need anything, Miss Lucille?"

"Excuse us for a while," Cade answered for her, leading her to the corner, away from the mirror. Once they were in a safe distance, he sighed. "I knew it. I've been overworking you."

Lucille shook her head. "It's not that. I just remembered something. . . ."

As soon as she'd said that, she felt that it was true. She had remembered something. For a second there she was so sure that she'd just had a flashback. About her husband.

The voice made no sense but it was so heavy, so unbearably familiar. But by God, there were still so many things she didn't know. Before she had no questions, even though she couldn't remember anything from her past. She'd been fine, better without knowing. Now she had millions of questions, all waking up from a deep slumber, all clamoring for an answer.

But as Lucille looked at Cade’s concerned face, a part of her hoped that these questions would remain unanswered.

Because perhaps by then, she wouldn’t feel so guilty about finding her safety in him.