Chapter 56 — The Two Faces of Vienna

My senses began to sharpen, and whispers tingled my ears. My eyes fluttered open only to shut back from a blinding light. A groan left my mouth as my head felt heavy like it was made of concrete. I lifted my hand up, but nothing happened. I tried again yet it didn't budge from behind me.

What was going on? Ignoring the shooting ache in my head and body, I frantically surveyed my circumambient, my vision blurry. From the look of it, I was bound to a chair in the same room I fainted, this time a bulb above me illuminated my surroundings better. Patches of blood stains occupied the roof and the walls, and a sharp metallic stench hit my nose causing a bile to rise. I didn't even wanna think about what happened here before.

Wait..."Caleb!"

"E-Ember, a-are you ok?"

My head whipped to the direction, at the far dark corner. "Caleb! Oh God… Are you alright? What's going on? What was Bella doing here, and why did she kidnap you?"

"Th-They wanted information on Kings Corp's confidential matters."

My eyes widened.

"N-No, I didn't." He breathed heavy. "I didn't leak any."

My eyes closed in relief. But then something else came into my mind. "Wh-Why did you call her Vienna?

"B-Because she—”

"Awake already, princessa?" a female voice all too familiar snapped our eyes to the door. There stood the girl responsible for my state, the betrayer I once considered my friend but no longer recognized. Two guards accompanied her. At the nod of her head, they approached Caleb and untied him.

"What're you doing? Don't hurt him!" Panic filled me once again as they began dragging his weak body away. "Caleb! No! Where're you taking him? Let him go! Please!"

"Shhh." Putting a finger to her lips, Bella shushed me, or whoever she was.

"What're you gonna do to him?" I yelled.

"Oh, typical Ember, always thinking about others before herself. Is that how you bewitched my Hunty?"

I surveyed her carefully as she came into the light. She was Bella by the looks, but her hazel eyes screamed otherwise. She must've used blue lenses to fool everyone before. Or she was wearing lenses now because how could two different persons with different facial features be one? Besides, Vienna was in a coma, right?

"Who are you? Bella? Or Vienna?"

A corner of her lips quirked into a smirk as she rotated the revolver around her finger. "Oh I see you know me already."

"So you are Vienna." I couldn't believe my tongue. "You have been lying about being in a coma using a façade all this time." My eyes widened as something dawned upon me. "Is-Is Christian involved too?"

She gave a roll of her winged eyes. "Haven't you noticed yet?"

Frowning, I looked down, my heart burned as a wave of grievance went through my veins.

He lied to me.

But why? I turned my heated gaze the other way, not wanting to look at the traitor present in the room when my eyes fell on a portrait hanging high from the wall. It was the exact portrait of Jane King, Hunter's real mother, I saw in the King's Mansion behind the blue door.

My frown deepened in confusion, but eyes broadened in horror as I observed the slashes and crosses from something sharp that messed the picture as if someone let all their anger out on it.

"Wh-What is it doing here? Who did this? Why?" I turned my questioning eyes at Vienna.

"Well, that's not my story to tell, darling."

I clenched my jaw. "Then tell your story. How did you do it? How did you change your face?"

She laughed like my struggle was a fact of amusement to her, and it boiled my blood. Above that, all the confusion intensified the pain in my head, and I let out an agitated groan. "Just speak already what the heck is going on here."

She stopped laughing and set her lips in a thin line, eyes displaying immense distaste. "They say one should keep a dying person's last request. So, I'll keep yours no matter how bad I wanna just blow out your brains already," venom dripped from her voice.

I gulped. Dying person? She was planning on killing me. Oh God. I hadn't even told Hunter before I left.

Hunter...Where are you? Please, help me. I had been such a fool to not listen to you.

Coming beside me she leaned down and ran the tip of the gun across my face. "Well, you see, after my break-up with Hunty I married that scumbag, Christian. We were going well until we both got tired of each other. I wanted my baby Hunty back."

Every time she referred to Hunter as hers, I felt the urge to smash her two faces into four, but since I was the one at the receiving end of a gun I kept my mouth shut, and also because I didn't quite have a free hand to practice punching right then.

"I was going to get him back, but that accident. That bloody accident that night ruined my beautiful face," she touched her cheek, her expression distressed. "And I was stuck with this fragile, innocent puppy face from the stupid plastic surgery." A scowl made its way into her lips until her expression lightened up again. "But then I thought, what better way is there to be near my Hunty. So I became a maid at the house and tried to get near him, but that rascal almost strangled me to death," she grumbled.

Oh, so that's how she became a holder of two identities, and that maid who Hunter strangled for spilling coffee on him was her. Even though I wasn't in quite the situation to laugh I couldn't control the tiny bit of cackle that left my mouth.

Her face reddened as she launched towards me wrapping her fingers around my throat. "Bitch! It's all your fault. You came and ruined all my plans."

"Dirty plans..." I gritted out as I felt my windpipe constricting. "How could you have hurt Doser? Th-That was you, wasn't it? E-Even at that party in Paris...that was you in my disguise, that was you who threatened me."

"Yes, I did. I wanted to fucking kill you."

"If you really wanted him then why did you attack the plane and try to kill Hunter?" I tried one last time as dots began appearing in my vision from the lack of oxygen in my lungs.

"No!" She let go instantly as I began coughing. "I never tried to kill him. It was—”

"Playing with your prey, are you, darling? I'm afraid you'll have to stop," a sinister male voice cut her off, and I froze.

As she turned around I caught a glimpse of Christian with two bulky looking guards behind him, and my heart shattered all over again. I considered him a friend. How could he betray me like this?

Before I could get out the list of swear-praises I prepared for him, he glanced at me and disappointingly shook his head.

The heck! I wanted to claw out his disgusting face.

He drove his eyes at Vienna. "Come on. We've to go. You know what to do."

"Yes, babe." She turned to me with a smirk on her lips as she pulled out her gun.

I watched them with fright. Were they talking about killing me? Was it my end finally?

She lifted the weapon just as she did last night and brought it down on my head hard, my body going limp.

Not again...