Chapter Seventeen #2
“Are you two decent?” Diane’s voice called from the other side of the door.
The two boys shared a glance. Aiden pushed himself away as Brendan turned toward the door.
“Do you want us to be indecent?” he called.
The door flew open, and the hallway light streamed into the darkness.
“Someone grew a mouth while I was watching people kill each other." Diane smirked. She held her hand out and pulled each of them up from the ground.
Aiden’s numb legs almost collapsed underneath him. Did it really take that long? he wondered, shaking his legs awake. He looked over to Diane with clean hair, clean face, and clean clothes.
She crossed her arms. “Let’s go get your stepsiblings and get the hell out of here.”
“Wait.” Aiden grabbed her arm. “Are there any survivors?”
She afforded a glance. “Your stepmother. She escaped after they turned their guns on each other. Quite impressive really. She certainly knows how to survive if nothing else.”
The weight against his chest lifted into the air. “Anyone else?” Aiden pressed.
Diane sighed. “I suppose Chen is still alive right now, but he’ll bleed to death.”
“I’ll go help him.” He turned toward the meeting room.
“Why?”
He continued walking forward. “Because that’s what I want to do.”
“Wait.” Diane shoved Brendan back into the closet and closed the door. “You don’t want to see it, Prince Charming. There’s blood everywhere.” She followed after him.
The strong scent of iron curled in his nose before he even reached the door.
Hand steady, he slid the door open to a room of bodies.
Groans croaked from the ground, corpses laid flat with eyes wide open, and guns scattered in the crimson blood pooling on the floor.
Diane skipped around Aiden, and he watched her swiftly navigate with her heeled boots avoiding the splashes of red.
He followed her, staring at the ground with every step he took.
He could see the chandelier hanging on the ceiling reflected in its entirety of the blood that streamed from Mr. Yang—dead and riddled with bullets.
Aiden clenched his mouth. Mr. Yang’s eyes stared at the ceiling, and his mouth was agape not with his usual smirk, but with a scream.
His rigid shoulders and tangled legs looked to still want to run from where Mr. Yang died.
Mr. Chen wheezed on the ground in the corner of the room.
Blood fell from two bullet wounds and a slash in his shoulder.
Diane lowered to the ground and forced Mr. Chen’s hand to press against the smaller wound.
She ripped up the shirt of a fallen guard and tightly wrapped the remaining wounds.
“There. You’ll survive. How lucky you are. ”
Mr. Chen’s eyes shifted over to Aiden, and recognition filtered in through the haze of pain and desperation. “I didn’t mean to kill your mother.” The broken words dropped unevenly from Mr. Chen’s tongue.
Strangely, Aiden believed him. Mr. Chen reached for him with pleading eyes, and sympathy welled inside him. He reached to grab Mr. Chen’s hand.
“It was an accident. A misunderstanding.”
Aiden stopped reaching.
Mr. Chen’s voice oscillated in volume and pitch.
His legs pushed against the ground, but his body remained twisted in the corner of which he hid.
With a cry, he fell over, splashing into blood.
Diane quickly returned to Aiden’s side with a roll of her eyes, but Aiden froze, watching Mr. Chen’s continued struggles.
He tried to turn over, but he stayed frozen on his back, gazing upon Aiden upside down.
“You must believe me—it was a misunderstanding.”
“I do.” Aiden said, hiding his shaking hands.
“Then do not do this. Do not destroy Infinite. This isn’t just our legacy. It’s yours. It’s everyone’s. From the workers without education to those in the actual business. This is our community. Our home.”
Aiden wasn’t sure when he turned away from Mr. Chen’s pleading.
He remembered exhaustion growing the more excuses Mr. Chen shoved into his ears.
His body clenched when Mr. Chen claimed that murder was simply part of the business.
His brain groaned as the babbles continued, and finally, Aiden made his own way out of the bloody meeting room where the foundation of the organization collapsed upon itself with such little prodding on his behalf.
“You are holding onto nothing but a ghost,” he whispered to himself.
The future glimmered before his eyes when he opened the door to an anxious Brendan leaning against it. He laughed as the taller boy almost stumbled onto the ground, and he grabbed Brendan’s hand to help him regain his balance.
Brendan brushed his bangs past his eyes. “You ready?”
Aiden nodded. “Ready.”
He was confident in what he wanted to do.
The two arrived at one of the important locked doors. Their steps against the ground were not silenced, and the angle of the light seeped their shadows in from the bottom. Zhu Zhu’s not-yet fiancé will be ready. Aiden stepped to the side and kept Brendan behind him.
Diane unlocked the door and unceremoniously pulled it open.
She grabbed the gun out of the young man’s hand and slammed the handle into the back of his neck before Aiden could properly blink or process what they needed to do.
As the man fell to the ground, unconscious, Zhu Zhu screamed deeper within the room.
Aiden dashed in with open hands. “Zhu Zhu, it’s okay! I know you heard gunshots, and I know you have questions, but she’s not here to hurt you.”
Zhu Zhu stared back with unblinking eyes, a lamp grasped tightly in her hands.
Her hair stuck out from all angles. Her flower hairpins scattered in front of the door in obvious attempts to pick the lock.
Her jewelry was pulled off and strewn across the ground.
Aiden opened his mouth to comfort her more, but Zhu Zhu’s eyes filled with tears.
“Aiden!” The lamp dropped from her hands. She ran across the room and hugged him tightly before sinking to the ground sobbing. “I thought you were certainly dead. I thought Ma had killed you. I’m so happy to see that you’re okay.”
Tears poured down her face. She huddled onto the ground, squinted her eyes closed, and cried every bit of herself out. Aiden’s chest squeezed painfully as Zhu Zhu’s fear slammed into him. He pulled her close and rubbed her back.
As she continued to sniff against him, Aiden pulled back to look her in the eyes. “I need to confess something. Your mom didn’t make up the traitor.”
“Ma didn’t lie?” Zhu Zhu wiped her eyes.
Aiden nodded. A breath shuddered through him, but he squared his shoulders and continued. “There was a traitor. It was my brother.”
“Your brother?” Zhu Zhu blinked. “He’s dead though. Oh my god!” Her hand flew to her open mouth, and her eyes shot open even wider. “Did she kill him?” she wheezed.
Wincing, Aiden nodded.
“Oh my god. She’s a murderer. She always was a murderer indirectly, but she’s truly a murderer! That’s why things haven’t been working out in her own words—everything makes sense now!”
Diane stuck her head in the room. “Excuse me, but can we talk about this revelation while we’re walking? We’re not exactly made of time here.”
Screeching, Zhu Zhu dove for the lamp.
“No, no, no, Zhu Zhu it’s okay!” Aiden snatched the lamp from Zhu Zhu’s hands, whirling toward Diane. “Diane, please, just a few more minutes.”
“Fine.” Diane pulled her head back out.
Sighing, Aiden placed the lamp down. “The woman over there was my brother’s partner. She made sure everything he set up would go through properly tonight.” He stared into Zhu Zhu’s eyes. “Infinite is over after tonight. It will not exist anymore.”
“Where’s Ma?”
Despite all the problems that existed in their relationship, Aiden understood the pain Zhu Zhu faced. Her shoulders shook, and her hollow eyes stared of expectant doom.
“She ran off somewhere. She’s still alive,” he said gently, and the tension in her body flew away.
He tightened his grip around her hands. “But she’s not getting away with this.
She’ll face justice. That’s why I am here, Zhu Zhu.
Will you let me take care of you and your brother?
If you come with me, I will make sure that you and River will remain safe and happy.
” Heart suddenly thumping, he straightened his body and cleared his throat.
“I don’t want to leave you and your brother in this chaos. Will you accept me as your family?”
His breaths quickened as he waited for her answer, but he never averted his eyes. He expected minutes of silence, but, after only a few seconds, Zhu Zhu nodded. She nodded faster, and a pained smile soon reached her face. She continued to nod.
“Yes. Yes, let us be siblings for real this time. Without being separated by our respective families and parents. Let us actually be brother and sister. Please. I would love it so.” She flung her arms around his neck.
He broke into a smile. “Let’s go find He Bao.”
Zhu Zhu pulled away, but her eyes shone of hope. She stood up, noticed Brendan who respectfully watched from a distance, and ran over to introduce herself to him. On the other hand, she kept a careful distance away from Diane.
“What’s your role in this?” she asked Brendan.
Brendan scratched his head. “Actually, the only reason I came here is to accompany Aiden.”
Zhu Zhu pondered for a bit. “Oh!” she cried. “You are the friend that Aiden literally broke out of the house to go meet up with.”
Brendan turned his head in instant confusion at Aiden, and Aiden stood up in a panic.
“Details—details not worth getting into.” He waved his hands out and screamed at Zhu Zhu with his eyes to not give away the chain of events that happened.
Zhu Zhu backed off. She looked back and forth between the two of them and smiled coyly. Her hair bounced with every step she took, and she left the room with the first real smile that Aiden had ever seen. “We should hurry or He Bao might burn this house down to escape.”
“He broke out of the house?” Brendan persisted.
“She’s not going to tell you anything!” Aiden called in frustration.
“Young people.” Diane rolled her eyes, dragged the unconscious man into the room, and left him on the floor.
The scent of blood still tinted Aiden's nose, but the air breezed around him despite the suffocating walls.
His stepmother was still alive, and Mr. Chen survived.
He helped his brother accomplish what he died for, and now Aiden stepped toward the light to catch his dream inside his own hands with Zhu Zhu by his side—a family free from the curse of Infinite.