Chapter 223: Avenge

Chapter 223 Avenge

Many years later, I still remember that scene like it was yesterday.

The night was pitch black, not a single glimmer of light.

I stepped cautiously inside, the strong, sweet metallic scent hitting my nose.

My heart started pounding wildly. Kurt's voice had been weak on the phone, and he hadn't answered any of my calls since.

The worst had already happened.

I kept praying, not out of fear or some other dread, but because I felt like a part of me was being ripped away.

I couldn't hold back the tears anymore, though I didn't know why.

I pressed hard against my chest, trying to calm my frantic heart, but the piercing pain wouldn't subside.

I opened my mouth, using all my strength to call out softly, "Zoey?"

Silence. 

A deathly silence.

It felt like a string inside me snapped, and my spirit crumbled like a collapsing building.

I screamed hysterically, "Zoey! Zoey, can you hear me? Zoey!"

"Ms. Johnson."

A familiar voice pulled me back from the brink. It was Zoey!

"Zoey, where are you? I'm coming to find you!"

Ignoring the darkness, I ran towards Zoey's voice. 

I tripped over something and instinctively reached out for support, accidentally hitting a switch.

The lights flickered on.

The studio was filled with the heavy scent of iron and the bitter smell of ink, a mix that assaulted my senses. 

I practically burst through the half-open door, my heart pounding in my chest, my vision darkening from the panic and the sprint.

"Zoey!"

My voice was hoarse and broken.

Then, I saw Zoey.

It wasn't the horrific scene I had imagined. No ropes, no fresh blood (at least not hers), no signs of struggle. 

My apprentice Zoey, always a bit timid yet incredibly resilient, was kneeling on the floor with her back to the door.

She was holding someone in her arms.

It was Byron.

The pale, brooding comic artist with eyes that hid an unmelting coldness. 

Now, he looked like a lifeless doll, his head resting limply in Zoey's arms. 

Zoey was clutching him tightly, almost as if trying to merge herself into him.

Her frail shoulders were shaking violently, her suppressed, broken sobs echoing like the cries of a wounded animal, reverberating in the silent space and striking my heart with a dull thud.

On the floor, a large, dark red stain of half-coagulated blood spread out like a brutal abstract painting. 

Scattered sketches lay in the blood, their black and white lines stained a glaring red.

Byron's hand hung limply, his fingertips seemingly still brushing the edge of a sketch.

I stood frozen at the door, feeling the blood rush to my head and then freeze in the next instant.

Kurt's dying words, the worst scenarios that had flashed through my mind as I ran, kidnapping, torture, death, all seemed to be confirmed, yet in a way that was emotionally overwhelming and incomprehensible.

Byron, dead? 

Zoey holding him? Why?

"Zoey." My voice was barely a whisper, trembling with disbelief. 

I took a step forward, my foot brushing a sketch, making a faint scraping sound.

Zoey jolted, as if waking from a trance.

She slowly, painfully turned her head. Her face, usually a bit chubby, was now smeared with tears, snot, and blood? 

No, that must be Byron's blood. Her eyes were swollen, empty, and desperate, filled with a deep, unfathomable sadness and a strange, shocked confusion.

"Ms. Johnson," her lips trembled, her voice shattered, "he's dead."

"What happened? What did he do to you?"

I rushed to her side, kneeling down, desperately wanting to pull her up and check her over, but my eyes were drawn to Byron's lifeless face. 

His complexion was ashen, his lips tinged blue, but there was a faint, almost imperceptible curve at the corner of his mouth, a sign of poisoning.

It wasn't the expression of a dying madman, but rather one of relief? A kind of peace after a heavy burden was lifted?

"No, he didn't hurt me." Zoey's voice was tearful but urgent, as if afraid I'd misunderstand, "He told me everything, Ms. Johnson."

Zoey's tears fell again, landing on Byron's cold forehead. "He said... he said he was the youngest of the eight... the subway robbery years ago... he wasn't involved... he was just... watching from a distance..." 

Zoey choked, her words coming out in broken fragments, each one forced out with blood. "He said... he knew the other seven wouldn't get away... they killed so many innocent people... they would pay... they would die..."

My breath caught.

Eight people? The youngest? Not involved in the subway case? Revenge? 

My mind raced, connecting Kurt's hints, the oppressive, revenge-filled comics in Byron's studio, and Zoey's words, the fishing village! The deliberately erased history! The covered-up massacre!

"He... he said... his only purpose for living... was revenge..." Zoey's body shook harder, "Not to kill their descendants... he said that kind of revenge was meaningless... it would only create new hatred... he wanted revenge in another way..."

Zoey's gaze fell on the blood-stained sketches. "He wanted to show what happened... everything about the fishing village... the truth... to the world!"

"He wanted everyone to know... how those people died... their grievances... their despair... he wanted those... those who covered up the truth... to be forever shamed... to avenge them this way..."

My heart sank. So that's it! 

Byron, the ghost walking alone in the dark, his twisted "revenge" was to reveal the truth? Using his only skill, his art? 

It was madness, yet there was a tragic nobility to it.

"Then how did he..." I looked at the large, dark red stain on Byron's chest, my voice dry.