Chapter 19: Miss Clara, I’m Trembling with Excitement

Seeing them deep in conversation, Clara took the initiative. "Julian, Silas, I’ll go to the kitchen to brew some soup. Having something warm might help you both feel better."

Entering the kitchen, Clara turned on the stove and emptied the ingredients into the pot.

The metal dog tag felt hot against her palm; the cobra's fangs seemed to make her fingertips tingle with numbness.

Outside the kitchen window, the rain sliced diagonally through the searchlights, casting shadows on the tiles that looked like prison bars.

Staring at the bubbling milky-white broth in the clay pot, she caught a fleeting vision of that snowy night three years ago—the traitor's blood had steamed on the cobblestones just like this.

Clink—

The sharp sound of the porcelain spoon hitting the rim of the pot jolted her awake.

Clara hurriedly turned off the heat, but at that moment, the steam blew the lid open, and the scalding soup splashed onto the back of her hand.

The pain made her instinctively open her palm, and the metal tag fell to the floor with a sharp

clang

.

"Clara?"

Julian’s voice made her shudder violently.

Through the oil-stained blinds, she saw her brother’s tall silhouette. She quickly shoved the tag into her apron pocket, her scalded hand turning a vivid red under the cold running water.

"Why are you so distracted?" Julian reached out to check her temperature. "Did the incident earlier scare you?"

Clara lowered her gaze and stirred the soup, the goji berries swirling into a blood-red vortex at the tip of her spoon. "I just remembered the time I got burned by boiling water while making soup as a child."

She scooped up half a spoonful and blew on it gently, droplets of steam condensing on her lashes. "Julian, want to taste the seasoning?"

As Julian leaned in to sip from her hand, the metal tag pressed against her outer thigh through the cotton fabric.

The raised patterns felt like they were searing a new mark into her skin—one that matched the shape of the old scar on her wrist perfectly.

In the second-floor corridor, the sensor lights flickered on one by one with her footsteps. Clara stared at the swaying shadows of the soup on her tray.

Moonlight filtered through the stained-glass windows, staining her skirt a ghostly cobalt blue.

As she passed Silas Knight’s room, she heard Julian asking about ballistic trajectories; the components of a Beretta 92FS were glinting coldly on a velvet-covered table.

Alistair’s bedroom was filled with the scent of blood intertwined with bitter orange.

As Clara placed the tray on the nightstand, a bottle of medical alcohol was suddenly knocked over by the night wind.

The moment she reached out to steady it, she caught sight of a gun barrel protruding from beneath the pillow—the engraved grip of a Colt Python wrapped in red silk thread. It was the exact same one she had seen in the attic three years ago.

"Alistair?"

Her tentative whisper vanished into the white mist of the humidifier. Just as her fingertips touched his burning forehead, her wrist was suddenly clamped by a hand like a steel vice.

Alistair had opened his eyes at some unknown moment. The high fever left his pupils glazed like glass, yet he still accurately pinned the artery in her wrist.

"Little Swan." His raspy voice carried the echoes of gunfire. "Your feathers smell of rust."

Clara felt the dog tag burning in her pocket.

Leaning down under the guise of adjusting his pillow, she let her long hair fall as a natural screen. "It’s the old clay pot from the kitchen..."

Before she could finish, the man suddenly exerted force, yanking her toward his chest.

The blood-stained bandages grazed her lips, and the sound of his heartbeat thundered against her eardrums.

Alistair’s thumb pressed against the frantic pulse in her wrist, his feverish fingertips stroking the slightly raised scar—the old wound where a bullet had grazed her three years ago.

"When you lie," his breath fanned across her trembling lashes, "this part beats exceptionally fast."

A sudden roar of an engine came from the garage downstairs.

In her struggle, Clara knocked over the soup bowl. The broth dripped down the edge of the table, forming a small mirror on the carpet.

In the swaying reflection, Silas’s holster hung behind the door, and her right hand was only three inches away from the Colt Python beneath the pillow.

"Mr. Vance, the fever has made you delusional."

She suddenly curled her lips into a smile, her fingers—stained with soup—caressing the bandages at the side of his neck. "Do you need me to help you take your medicine?"

Alistair’s grip loosened for a split second.

Clara seized the chance to break free, but as she backed away, her heel stepped on the fallen alcohol bottle.

Amidst the sound of shattering glass, the metal tag slid out of her apron pocket. The cobra totem seemed to open its crimson electronic eyes under the moonlight.

The heart monitor by the bed suddenly emitted a piercing alarm.

Clara’s movement to retrieve the tag froze in mid-air. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alistair’s hand slowly reaching beneath the pillow.

Just as a thunderclap exploded outside the window, Julian’s hurried footsteps echoed in the corridor.

"Why is his blood pressure spiking?"

By the time the family doctor rushed in, Clara had already retreated into the shadows of the curtains.

She watched as the crowd surrounded the bed, her palm tightly clutching the metal serpent that had come to life.

As Clara spun on her tiptoes before the mirror, the morning light flowed along the gauze folds of her dance skirt.

Her pointe shoes tapped a chaotic rhythm against the floor. On her thirteenth pirouette, she crashed heavily against the barre, the pendant of the necklace at her throat shimmering through her lace collar with every breath.

Her phone vibrated on the piano bench. Julian’s voice came through with a crackle of static: "Want to go see Alistair?"

She stared at the bruised knees in the mirror, her nails carving fine scratches into the solid wood barre. "Sure."

At the Vance family rose garden, Alistair was having his dressings changed.

"He comes here whenever he’s in a bad mood. No idea what the roses did to offend him," Julian whispered into Clara’s ear.

In Clara’s mind, the image of a boy with a blood-stained face appeared—just like the roses in this garden, dangerous and decadent.

As Clara pushed open the wrought-iron gate, she saw Alistair sitting on a rattan chair, shirtless. The moment the gauze was unwound, dark red flesh clinging to the medical cotton was torn away.

He groaned around his cigar, the blue smoke drifting through the contours of his chest muscles. The sidelong glance he gave her was like a leopard staring at a dove that had wandered into its territory.

"Miss Clara looks like a pearl today."

He flicked his cigar ash, sparks landing near Clara’s feet. "A pity that beneath the layers of nacre, there is nothing but a piece of irritating grit."

As Julian frowned and went to grab the first-aid kit, Clara had already knelt beside the pile of bloodied gauze.

Her white gauze skirt spread across the cobblestones like a fallen gardenia.

As she looked up, her neck strained into a fragile arc. A disinfecting cotton ball lightly dabbed the jagged wound at his side. "Does it hurt?"

Alistair suddenly seized her wrist and pressed it hard against the wound.

Warm droplets of blood soaked into her lace gloves, snaking down her snowy forearm like crimson vines.

He leaned down until the tip of his nose almost brushed her trembling lashes. "This is what pain feels like."

Clara’s gasp was caught in her throat, but her gaze bypassed his bleeding bandages, pinning itself to the tattoo on the right side of his lower abdomen.

"Alistair, you’re crazy!"

When Julian rushed over to pull them apart, Clara took the momentum to collapse into the rose bushes.

Thorns tore through her stockings, and droplets of blood flowed down her calf into her pure white heels.

She curled into the posture of a dying swan, yet as Alistair approached, she bared the fresh wound on the side of her neck. "Do you want to... stain it a bit more red?"

The hand of the family doctor disinfecting the forceps shook, and the metal tray knocked over the bottle of iodine.

The ochre liquid flowed through the cracks in the bricks, soaking their reflections into a haunting oil painting.

Alistair’s thumb pressed against her bleeding wound, and he suddenly laughed, revealing stark white teeth. "Do you know how I identify prey?"

His blood-stained finger traced her frantically beating carotid artery. "A real little animal would be screaming right now. But a creature in sheep’s clothing..."

His fingertip dug sharply into the scarred tissue. "...will be trembling with excitement."