The sound was somewhat piercing, enough to make anyone think they had encountered some wickedness in broad daylight, making them quickly flee this haunted place.
However, Lucy's house, apparently, had decent sound insulation, and the noises were confined to her room alone.
It was a while before the noises settled down.
Lucy dared not look back, her entire body almost turned away, using only her back, with her right hand remaining firm, not changing position, firmly clutching the cross she had bought from the church, placed between the two of them.
Time passed, and the room maintained a deathly silence.
At this point, Lucy perhaps steadied the myriad fears in her heart and quietly looked back.
The white-dressed woman who had terrified her had disappeared, replaced by familiar objects.
Realizing this, Lucy's body went limp, she hugged the cross in her right hand and collapsed, her still-damp face showing an expression on the verge of tears.
She didn't know if she was abandoned by the world to end up in this state.
So, she had to seek revenge.
This thought suddenly surged in her mind, and Lucy's eyes filled with hatred as she stepped out of her earlier emotions, transforming completely.
If anyone had been present, they would have found Lucy's change somewhat frightening.
"I will definitely take action, I definitely will," Lucy murmured to herself as if speaking to the vanished woman in white, then slowly walked into the living room.
The environment changed instantly.
Unlike a normal living room, Lucy's was plastered with newspaper after newspaper.
The visible side of each paper featured a family portrait, labeled with the phrase "butterfly stroke genius."
This was what York had seen in a report about a butterfly stroke champion.
"I will definitely take action."
Lucy stood in the middle of the living room, surrounded by newspapers plastered over the windows.
She stared fixedly at a newspaper with a section circled in red ink.
Upon closer inspection, it was an address.
Her eyes reddened as she stared at this address.
She then left the spot and walked back to her room, stopping at a table laden with mechanical parts and bullets that glinted menacingly.
If York had been present, he would have recognized the parts and the main body as a very classic side-by-side shotgun, also known as a double-barreled shotgun, with horizontally aligned barrels.
This was among the earliest hunting shotguns, originally developed as riot guns. This weapon used a break-action loading mechanism, allowing only two shells to be loaded at a time.
From the shotgun shells laid out on the table, these were twelve-gauge shells, each capable of being fatally effective.
Lucy began assembling the shotgun, and when she picked it up, it was the very classic "boomstick."
"I will definitely take action," she repeated, practicing the reloading motions tirelessly.
Her loading and unloading were swift, ready for any sudden incident.
Clearly, Lucy had been preparing for this for a long time.
The dim room echoed with her murmurs and the sounds from the shotgun.
......
Ashby Abbey.
A church with only a few faithful, Erin quietly entered a room.
"Bishop, Lucy Rios has rented a car and left the apartment she was renting."
Erin reported, then looked towards the bishop standing by the window, hands clasped behind his back.
"Previously, through her friend Annagia's help, she bought a double-barreled shotgun from a farm owner."
"From the direction she headed, it is confirmed that this child is seeking revenge."
"Perhaps from that newspaper's family photo, she identified the people who had mistreated her..."
Listening to the report, York turned to look at Erin.
"What about the third party? What's their status?"
He didn't care about others' vengeance nor wanted to intervene, but he hoped that this girl tormented by fate could succeed in her revenge.
Indeed, if he wasn't wrong, this family's background harbored abyss-like dark crimes.
Upon hearing this, Erin calmly said, "According to the message from Brother Willo, those who have been lurking in the shadows and following Lucy seem to know all her moves."
York raised an eyebrow, sensing the bait was about to be taken.
"Tell Brother Willo and the others, without my command, they are not to take any action to avoid alarming the enemy. Let them spread out from Lucy or that family's address as the center. Anyone heading towards Lucy should be considered a suspect; I want to know, besides the usual surveillance, who else shows up..."
"Yes."
Erin nodded slightly, understanding the order.
York glanced at the blue sky outside the window as he passed by Erin.
"Such beautiful weather, what a pity..."
With these words from York, Erin also looked outside, seeing the blue sky and bright sunshine.
After viewing this, she pursed her lips and silently followed her bishop.
......
In a secluded small town, a peaceful suburb, a detached house
was filled with playful noises.
"Give it back to me! Give it back to me!"
"Damn!"
"Your girlfriend's love letters are terrible."
This was the playful banter of siblings.
A kind-faced father walked past the siblings wrestling on the floor, wearing pajamas and holding a steaming cup of coffee, leaving behind a simple admonition.
"Stop playing around."
He walked through to the living room window, enjoying the warmth of the sunlight and the aroma of the coffee, while calling out to a woman busy unclogging a drain outside,
"Darling, what would you like to eat?"
The woman, while hammering a pipe to secure it, turned and smiled back.
"Whatever you make, I love."
The man smiled and turned to the kitchen connected to the living room, beginning to prepare breakfast amidst the children's playful shouts.
Meanwhile, the woman looked in a certain direction after burying a protruding hand back into the earth and then climbing out of the pit using a ladder.
This seemed like a typical, warm family of four.
They laughed and gathered around the dining table in the morning.
In this warm atmosphere, the son about to enter college shared his future plans.
The father, appearing to be a good parent, said gently,
"You know, I always respect your choices. Studying medicine would certainly be beneficial for your future."
The most lively-looking daughter glanced at her mother, who smiled warmly.
The girl shrugged indifferently.
"He just wants to be with his girlfriend."
There's always a sister to make one feel vexed, and the boy glared at her.
Unafraid, the sister made a face at her brother.
"Baaah!!!"
This caused both parents to exchange smiles.
The scene seemed utterly normal, filled with a warm atmosphere.
At this moment, the sudden ringing of the doorbell broke the warm atmosphere.
The atmosphere immediately tensed; the butterfly stroke champion daughter paused her bread-crushing motion and looked towards the front door, her shoulders twitching.
"Who the hell is ringing the bell?"
The parents exchanged glances, and the father set down his food and stood up, passing by the daughter as he headed towards the relentlessly ringing front door.
"Mind your language, Mary."
The girl appeared indifferent. "Today's Sunday, which means it's everyone's day off."
The father casually replied while walking to the door.
"Is that so? No work on Sundays?"
"Of course," the girl replied.
This conversation ended as the father reached the front door.
"Ok, ok, stop ringing. I'm coming."
As he said this, the doorbell ceased, and the father shook his head, twisted the doorknob, and opened the door.
But as he did, he was stunned.
In front of him was a girl, shorter by a head, wearing a hat and a hoodie, very ordinary-looking.
However, what terrified him was the double-barreled shotgun in the hands of this unfamiliar visitor.
At this moment, the gun was pointed at him.
"Who are you?" the man said, perhaps realizing he only had time for this one sentence.
Bang!
Lucy, who had just arrived from the car, didn't respond. She looked at the man she would never forget and pulled the trigger.
Without giving the man any chance, she was resolute to the extreme.
The gun discharged a cloud of smoke.
The burst from the twelve-gauge shell hit the man directly in the bulging stomach.
Blood mist burst forth, and the impact of the shotgun blast sent the man flying back inside.
This explosive gunshot startled the three still at the dining table. The two children froze in confusion, while the wife ran to where she kept her gun.
But Lucy had already stepped inside and aimed at the wife rushing towards her, pulling the trigger.
She had prepared for a long time to ensure accuracy.
Bang!
Before the wife could react, just at the moment of meeting, she felt severe pain in her back, and her consciousness plunged into darkness.
From Lucy's perspective, the woman was also blown away by the shot.
Lucy did not care whether the woman was dead or alive; she pressed the shotgun in her hands, ejecting the spent shells with a clack. She quickly pulled out two more shells from her pocket and loaded them.
The process was seamless, without any hesitation, her practice showing its effectiveness.
As the two children at the dining table began to scream and attempted to flee, Lucy had already stepped in front of them.
"Don't move."
At Lucy's command, the two froze in place, not daring to move.
"Sit down."
Lucy pointed to the chairs at the dining table.
The girl named Mary, trembling all over, obediently sat down, tears of fear streaking her face.
Her brother did the same.
In front of the gun, they had no chance to resist.
Looking at the two, Lucy took a deep breath, a pained expression crossing her face as she turned the gun towards the boy.
"How old are you?"
The boy's voice trembled as he replied, "Eighteen."
Upon hearing this, Lucy hesitated, her initially steady gun beginning to wobble.
"Do you know the things your parents have done?"
Tears welled in the boy's eyes, but he didn't dare make any sudden moves, obediently responding.
"I don't know."
At that moment, Lucy's gun steadied once more.
She clenched her teeth, then shifted the gun to point at Mary, who was trembling uncontrollably.
"And you, do you know what your parents have done?"
The girl instinctively glanced at her brother before answering with a tremble.
"I don't know,"
After this response, she quickly pleaded, "Please don't kill me, I don't know anything—"
But before she could finish, a gunshot cut her off. Lucy had pulled the trigger.
Bang!
Blood mist erupted from Mary's chest as the impact sent her flying back into the kitchen.
"NO!"
The boy shouted, grabbing a knife and fork from the table and leaping up.
But Lucy was quicker, swinging the gun towards him and pulling the trigger once again.
Bang!
The gunshot blasted the boy's chest open, the explosive force sending his body crashing into the rear glass door.
Silence returned to the room.
Only the blood-stained floor and motionless bodies, along with the smoke wafting from Lucy's shotgun, bore witness to the events that had just unfolded.
Lucy's body began to shake, but her eyes were fixed on the bodies of the boy and girl.
In her memory, memories she would never forget, the boy had once tortured animals in front of her and had cut her with a knife, ignoring her cries of pain.
The most vivid memory she had was of the boy, the same age as her, laughing maniacally as he cut her body with a scalpel.
The girl had been there too.
Lucy had hesitated about sparing them, but when both had claimed ignorance, she decided their fate.
And that was death.
Yet, for some reason, Lucy still felt immense pain after resolving everything, a pain that seemed to intensify.
"Damn!"
Lucy staggered to the woman's body, knelt down, and aimed the now empty shotgun at the lifeless corpse, her face contorted with a breakdown.
"Why did you do that to me? Why did you treat me that way, who am I really?
Where did you kidnap me from?"
Unfortunately, the dead could not answer her questions. Lucy's face was wracked with pain as she hugged the shotgun, curling into a ball, crying silently.
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Lucy's mouth gaped open, wanting to scream out the tumultuous emotions in her heart, but in the end, she couldn't utter a sound.
Her throat felt as if it was sealed with plastic film, unable to even breathe properly.
The crying without sound, that pushed one to the edge of pain, made even the vocal cords feel helpless at this moment.
It was unclear how long this lasted, perhaps after venting the hatred that had unsettled her heart for over a decade, Lucy finally managed to compose herself. Her face, stained with a mix of sweat and tears, surprisingly settled into calmness.
She glanced at the woman's body on the ground, then at the man's body behind her, and at the other two bodies in the living room and kitchen.
Then, an idea struck her; she picked up the right hand of the woman's body and began dragging it toward an interior room.
After dumping it on the bed, she returned to drag the man's body and the other two bodies, piling them all together.
Next, she went to the main door and closed it.
Before coming here, she had carefully checked the surroundings.
Perhaps due to its isolation, ideal for abuse or killing, the location of this house was quite secluded.
There were woods nearby suitable for hunting.
Therefore, the four shotgun blasts from the double-barreled shotgun likely didn't attract attention, as nearby residents might assume the familiar gunshots came from hunting in the woods.
After securing the door, Lucy paused by the doorway to seriously look at the four piled-up bodies on the bed, watching the blood drip onto the floor, then turned to pick up her phone and dialed a number.
Her entire operation had been facilitated by the help of her only friend, Annagia.
The phone was answered almost immediately, as if the person on the other end had been waiting for this call.
"It was indeed them." Lucy's face took on a weepy expression again.
"I recognized them, Annagia."
The other end of the conversation featured Annagia, sitting in a car, an Asian woman whose expression now turned anxious.
"I just came from your house and didn't find you,"
Thinking something over, she added,
"Wait, you saw them?"
"Yes, their appearances have changed, but I'm certain." Lucy replied.
Annagia took a deep breath, recalling Lucy's preparation; she could guess what Lucy might have already done.
"Lucy, that was 15 years ago, and newspaper photos aren't reliable."
Lucy collapsed to the floor, "I say it counts. If I say it's them, then it's them."
Annagia gritted her teeth, "You haven't acted yet, have you? We can still call the police, Lucy, please…"
"No need." Lucy said, "I've already done what I needed to do."
"Fk! You acted without first conducting surveillance, without a plan?" Annagia was exasperated.
"You said it, you wanted to find evidence."
"I'm sure it's them. There's definitely evidence in their house, Annagia, sorry, I have to shoulder this alone," Lucy declared.
"I love you."
With those words, Lucy hung up the phone, regardless of Annagia's response, and silently got up.
She intended to find evidence herself, confident that she hadn't misidentified them.
Annagia sat in the car, staring at the disconnected phone, a rage bubbling up within her. She threw the phone aside and hastily burst out of the car, running toward Lucy's place, seeking the address of her enemies.
Meanwhile, Lucy was already on her way to find evidence, smashing furniture and entering every room, finding nothing suspicious nor any traces of a basement.
But she didn't give up. Observing the layout of the house and following her memory, she reached the living room.
Finally, she turned to look at the wooden cabinet on the kitchen wall, which held various ornaments.
However, due to the impact from the girl earlier, a small window in it had broken.
Curiously, this small window did not reveal the color of the wall but showed a small black hole instead.
This all seemed very suspicious.
So, Lucy picked up her shotgun and walked over, firing a shot at the cabinet.
Bang!
The cabinet shattered, revealing a small square hole.
For some reason, staring into the dark square hole filled Lucy with fear.
She was reminded of past abuses.
Then, perhaps it was an illusion, but she seemed to see a scar-covered woman in white, contorted like a spider, crawling out from within.
But looking at this white-dressed woman now, Lucy did not feel the fear she had before.
Instead, feeling empowered by her successful revenge, she was quite composed.
"I'm serious, I've already acted."
Watching the disheveled white-dressed woman slowly approach, Lucy clenched her jaw, pulling out a cross from her pocket to confront the white-dressed woman who had haunted her sleep for many years.
"I said, I've already acted!"
However, the woman in white suddenly lifted her face, revealing bloodstained, flesh-mangled features with her mouth sewn shut. Lucy gasped, her breath halting as she instinctively took a step back.
At that moment, the horrifically disfigured woman suddenly lunged at Lucy with her mouth wide open.
Lucy instinctively closed her eyes, but the next second, she only felt a breeze brush against her cheek.
A few seconds later, when she opened her eyes, the woman in white had disappeared, leaving only the curtains by the French windows fluttering in the wind.
Lucy's emotions became complex, a mix of everything, but her resolve was strong. She looked at the small square hole and slowly stepped inside.
What appeared before her was a basement, emitting a familiar odor.
It was a stench deeply embedded in her memory from the abuse.
That familiar smell alone triggered flashbacks of abuse in her mind: being slapped, having nails pulled, teeth yanked, being drilled into with sharp instruments, and cut with surgical knives.
Looking down into the abyss-like darkness of the basement, Lucy tightly gripped the cross, seemingly drawing courage from it, dropped the shotgun, and pulled out her phone for light as she descended the steps.
Reaching the bottom, she shone her light on the walls, finding a switch similar to a light switch and pressed it.
One by one, lights flickered on, illuminating the entire basement.
What Lucy saw was a long corridor that had been scraped clean, suggesting the basement was even larger than the house above.
Lucy was momentarily stunned but continued forward, drawn to the desks and notebooks beside the corridor.
Photographs hanging on the corridor walls caught her attention.
Each was a horrifying image of abused girls, without exception.
The first showed a girl, her body sewn up, her eyes lacking any focus.
The next was a girl with her throat cut.
Another showed a girl with her limbs severed, laid out beside her.
Another was disemboweled...
One after another, Lucy gazed transfixed, touching the photographs, her grip on the cross tightening as if seeking courage, and even began to envision the face of the priest.
"Damn it." Lucy cursed under her breath, unable to hold back the tears that now freely flowed.
Just then, she heard a noise and quickly followed the sound to the next room. The sound came from below—it was another level of the basement, but the door was locked.
Lucy searched for the keys, eventually finding a set on the wall. She tried them one by one until the door opened.
Peering inside, she then grabbed a flashlight from a table nearby.
Presumably, the couple always took the flashlight down with them and left it on the table when they came up.
Lucy envisioned this scenario as she turned on the flashlight and descended.
What she saw was utter darkness.
It might have been Lucy's imagination, but the flashlight's beam seemed suppressed by the darkness, unable to reach further as if the deepest part of the basement had no limit.
A chill air made her shiver.
But the depths of the darkness intrigued her more.
In such an environment, every sound seemed amplified.
She heard heavy, fearful breathing.
Following the sound, the flashlight beam first illuminated a chain.
This brought back terrible memories for Lucy, who had also been chained by her limbs.
Gritting her teeth, Lucy followed the chain upward with her flashlight until she saw a woman, emaciated to the bone, with no intact skin, cowering in a corner, trembling continuously.
Her head was fixed in a metal frame, her eyes hollowed out, and her lower parts nailed to a metal frame, revealing the extent of the torture she had endured.
Perhaps sensing someone's presence, the woman's trembling intensified.
Lucy quickly approached her,
"It's okay, it's okay, I'll get you out of here."
As Lucy spoke, the woman instinctively lifted her head, uncertainly stretching out her hand, which Lucy met with a look of compassion, placing her hand in front of the woman's.
Their hands touched, and the woman's trembling slowly ceased, her grip tightening on Lucy's hand.
She had been so abused that even this simple touch and warmth indicated to her who was there.
Seeing the woman in this state, an indescribable emotion surged through Lucy. She leaned down and embraced the skeletal woman, murmuring,
"It's okay, it's okay."
Not long after, Lucy managed to rescue the woman and took her to the bathroom to clean her wounds, trying to pry the lock on her head, but the nails were driven deep into the bone, beyond her ability to remove.
Thinking for a moment, Lucy stepped out of the bathroom, took out her phone, and dialed 911.
"Hello, what do you need help with?"
"At 125 Elm Town, there's been a shooting , people are dead," Lucy reported.
"There are injured people."
"A shooting? How extensive is it? Are you injured? Can you provide more information?" the dispatcher began to ask.
As the dispatcher continued to inquire, Lucy already hung up the phone.
She knew the routine; the police would already have her location from the call. Whether or not she answered their questions, the police were likely already on their way.
Although Elm Town was small, it was still within police jurisdiction, and with the mention of a shooting, the police response would be unexpectedly swift.
Thinking this, Lucy felt a sense of despair, suddenly finding herself lost in a blur of aimlessness, slumping onto a blood-stained sofa.
Having achieved her revenge, she suddenly found herself without a purpose in life.
Abruptly, she remembered Annagia.
...
Unbeknownst to her, Annagia had already obtained the address and was hurrying towards her location.
Meanwhile, not far away, a man responsible for surveillance slid into one of the three cars parked nearby.
Soon, the three seemingly ordinary but luxuriously outfitted cars began moving towards Lucy's location.
Lucy, her hand stained with blood, looked on with a vacant stare, waiting for the police, unaware that cameras with flashing red lights were positioned throughout the living room, kitchen, and hallways.
As the three cars made their move, in a hidden location, two more ordinary-looking cars also stirred, slowly following behind the trio of vehicles.
Inside these two cars sat none other than John Wick.
Sitting in the passenger seat, he was fitting a silencer to his favorite pistol, a Viper.
As a top-tier assassin, he never engaged in a fight unprepared.
At that moment, a monk in the back received a phone call and reported:
"The target has called the police, and a police squad is on its way here."
"By order of the bishop, no one else is to interfere with this matter," John Wick said calmly.
"Understood, I will make them turn back."
With that, the monk in the back nodded and began to manipulate his phone.
As the police received orders from their superiors on the other end, Lucy, still sitting on the sofa, heard something and instinctively turned around.
The woman who had been unconscious in the bathroom was now feeling along the wall, coming out.
"Wait, wait a minute."
It seemed the woman wanted to run. Lucy quickly stood and approached her.
"I've already called the police, I reported it!"
Unexpectedly, the woman screamed, rejecting Lucy's support for reasons unknown.
"It's going to be okay."
Lucy continued forward, trying to support the woman with a gentle voice, soothing her as she calmed the woman's struggles.
"It's going to be okay. The police are almost here, and I mentioned you were injured, there might be an ambulance on the way."
As someone who had also suffered from a harsh, unjust world, Lucy's inherent kindness still lingered.
Perhaps, if it hadn't been for this incident, she would have been a gentle girl.
Maybe Lucy's gentleness had an effect because the woman stopped struggling and let Lucy support her. She just stared ahead, seemingly at Lucy, her lips parting.
"Hurry…"
The woman's voice was too soft; Lucy couldn't hear her clearly and leaned closer.
"What? What do you want to tell me?"
The woman lifted her head, her breathing heavy. In a very soft voice, she said:
"…run…"
Lucy's eyes widened.
Just then, a loud bang resounded, shaking the sky.
It was a gunshot!
Before Lucy's shocked eyes, the woman's face exploded, blood and gore splashing onto Lucy's face.
___________________
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