SPTM 44

Chapter 44

‘I’m right here. Please look at me. Please.’

Expectations that are never rewarded are only hollow. She never looks back.

My existence means nothing to her. She has always gazed at me with those empty eyes, without a single shred of emotion. As though I were a worthless doll, or a stray little animal wandering around the house.

Whenever our eyes meet—those empty, vacant eyes—I feel as if I can’t breathe.

Even when I speak, no answer comes back. She’s like a dead person. Even when I wrote letters, I never received so much as a short reply. Her stiff lips never opened in any way.

Would it have been easier if resentment and hatred had piled up instead?

Everything has faded away with the passing years, and all that remains to me is the prison and the mansion I inherited from my father.

Nothing else is left.

But the moment I met Veronica, all of my past came back to life like a nightmare.

The air was so tightly sealed it couldn’t reach my lungs; it caught in my throat. I couldn’t draw a breath or lift my small body.

A flashing gaze bore down on me. My mother’s two hands were wrapped around Kyle’s neck.

“You… you’re just like your father…!”

“Kh… Mother…”

“You’re trying to lock me up just like that man did!”

That woman called “mother” was choking her young son with all her strength, and in his struggle his feet knocked over a vase on the nightstand. The crash of that wretched relationship brought the man running.

Seeing Kyle dying at his own mother’s hands, the man pried his wife’s arms away from their son. The soft flesh crushed in her grip was left mottled with red marks like wounds.

With a demon’s snarl twisting her face, the mother grew even more hysterical when she saw her husband.

The small boy clutched his hoarse throat and moved his lips soundlessly.

‘Father… I’m all right. Don’t be angry at Mother.’

But his voice wouldn’t come out, drowned beneath his parents’ shouting.

“What are you doing? Were you trying to kill your own son?”

“You two disgust me! I should never have listened to you, the warden of a prison. If I’d known I’d be locked away forever like this… I’d rather have died a prisoner!”

Her scream stabbed into his eardrums like an awl. Kyle crumpled in silence.

“You think locking me up like this will make me love you? Will make me love that little brat? Even if a lifetime passes, even if I die, that will never happen!”

Just like his mother said—choking for lack of air, unable to live—Kyle felt his own mouth and nose sealed off, even though there were no hands around his throat now.

This was a nightmare, no different from a curse.

The hidden wife of the former warden of Fortress Prison—his own mother—had laid this curse upon him. Just as she had sworn, she never loved him until the day she died.

This was his hidden past.

From that day on he had thought he would never again crave love. He had resolved to sever the chain of twisted love with himself.

But it had only been a frantic struggle to look away from the past.

Kyle bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to escape the dream.

And when his mother’s cold eyes turned back toward him—

“—!”

Kyle shuddered and woke up. His clenched fists were still tight with tension.

He gasped for breath as though being chased and looked around. Only when he realized he was in his own bedroom inside Fortress Prison did his composure return.

His mother’s last image had been of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman—just like Veronica.

Was that why? Was that why she caught his eye at first sight?

“Veronica…”

With eyes as dark and deep as the room itself, he whispered her name—the one person who could pull him out of this nightmare and free him from his mother’s curse.

The fated partner who had surely appeared before him for his sake—he needed her more desperately than ever. So desperately he couldn’t bear not to go to her right now.

There was no reason to restrain himself. She was locked up in the underground prison.

Kyle stepped out from under the covers and grabbed his ring of keys. He descended the stairs endlessly, passed three floors, and at last arrived at Veronica’s cell.

Rustle. Rustle.

Each time Veronica breathed under her blanket on the wooden cot, it rose and fell faintly. Kyle gazed quietly at her face, sunk in a deep sleep like a child.

It was frustrating, having the bars between them so he couldn’t reach out a hand.

“Mm…”

When Veronica rolled onto her side, the blanket slipped down from her shoulder. The chill of the underground prison made her brows draw together slightly.

A loose strand of hair tickled her nose. Watching her nose wrinkle, Kyle hesitated. Should he unlock the door, go in, brush her hair aside and pull the blanket back up?

She hadn’t given permission, but he could do it. In his hand he held the very key to open these bars.

Kyle laid his hand against the iron door.

But if Veronica woke up, she would surely recoil and lash out with thorns in her words…

His hand only twitched. For a long time he could not bring himself to leave the underground cell, watching her sleeping face. Unaware that behind him Richard was keeping watch.

Lately, Richard had been poring over maps all day. I whispered to him:

“Have you thought of anything yet?”

I had hoped some good idea might have come to him in the meantime, but nothing had changed. I hadn’t told Richard yet, but in my own mind my thoughts were steadily moving toward using Kyle to escape.

Ever since hearing about his past from the head of the guards, the picture had been taking clearer shape.

“Not yet. Did you sleep well last night?”

“We really need to make a plan soon… it’s worrying me.”

I shook my head and pulled off the blanket, stepping out of the wooden cot. There was no time, but so many things to take care of.

I folded up the newspaper I’d been reading the night before. If we were going to have breakfast, I had to clear the table and shake out the blankets.

Then my eyes fell on Richard’s blanket, already neatly folded. He seemed to have been up for quite a while. Could he have spent the whole night thinking about escape?

Noticing where my eyes went, Richard spoke first.

“I woke up a little early today. Once I woke at dawn, I couldn’t fall back asleep.”

“Did you?”

“But on your way back from court, nothing unusual happened with the warden, did it?”

The question slipped out as though he hesitated. Plenty of unusual things had happened, but I hadn’t told him every detail.

He might have heard about the carriage accident from someone, but his eyes weren’t steady.

I stepped up to the bars, looked him straight in the eye, and asked:

“You’re suspicious right now, aren’t you? You don’t trust me?”

Flustered, Richard immediately denied it.

“I do trust you. It’s not Veronica I don’t believe…”

He meant he couldn’t trust Kyle. I didn’t need to hear the rest to know. But to me, it felt like the same thing. I looked at him with a sulky gaze, and he lowered his head, looking sheepish.

“We have to trust each other. Not just because we’re lovers, but because we’re prison-break partners, and we’ve promised to stay together even after we get out.”

And he knew I was a liar and a swindler.

So he had to trust me. Even if it seemed like I might be tricking him again, he couldn’t doubt me. If he did, everything would fall apart.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine if you’re a little cute about being jealous. But not trusting me is a problem. Try a little harder to have faith in me.”

Even as I said it, I felt a bit shameless, my eyes rolling. But Richard, sincere as ever toward a woman who had thrown away her conscience, swore:

“Yes, I promise.”

A promise? I hadn’t thought of it that way, but that was a good idea.

The Richard I knew would try to keep his word even in a moment when he couldn’t trust me. In that case, I should get more promises from him.

“Do you always keep your promises?”

“Yes.”

“Then will you also promise to keep loving me?”

“That…”