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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The sudden escalation of events took a toll, as it usually takes a human brain at least two to three seconds to react in such intense situations.
Just as one might freeze when unexpectedly confronted by a dump truck—similar to York's previous life experiences which caused his brain to momentarily blank out, leaving him frozen in place, uncertain of what to do.
Of course, there are those with extraordinary talents or who have undergone extensive training, who might instinctively react even when their minds go blank.
But Lucy was not one of those individuals. Her mind went completely blank, and she stood frozen, staring as the woman with half her head blown off fell straight down.
The body hit the floor with a thud! Blood quickly began to pool, spreading swiftly to Lucy's feet.
In that brief moment, Lucy finally snapped back to reality, her mind racing with the woman's recent warning and her sudden, odd behavior.
She realized something.
The woman, having lost her eyesight and endured prolonged torture, had her senses of touch and smell intensely attuned to her abuser.
Putting it all together, it seemed the woman had sensed the presence of her abuser.
Much like how Lucy, regardless of how her enemies had altered their appearances, had immediately recognized them from a blurred photo in the newspaper.
With this realization, Lucy's only thought was to run or to grab her gun for self-defense.
But as Lucy took her first steps to act, she heard footsteps. Before she could turn around, her hair was violently yanked back.
A familiar pain shot through her scalp as Lucy, with fierce eyes, turned and bit down hard on the large hand gripping her hair.
At that moment, she felt a slight relief that her friend Annagia hadn't come and that she hadn't shared the address.
The taste of blood filled her mouth as Lucy stared intently at the man whose hair she was biting, who seemed unfazed by the attack.
Like a defiant little beast.
"Should we knock her out?"
The man, towering at least two heads taller than Lucy, turned to look at a middle-aged woman who had just entered the house.
Behind the woman, several other figures entered, all bulky men exuding a severe demeanor, resembling the elite as commonly described.
"No need."
After a total of five people entered, the middle-aged woman looked towards the door, then shut it. She handed her shotgun to another man and then approached Lucy.
At this moment, Lucy was still biting fiercely into the man's hand and flailing, but the man pulling her hair, though bleeding from his right hand, remained unmoved.
"Lucy Juwa?" the middle-aged woman in a business suit asked as she observed Lucy.
Lucy's eyes shifted upwards to meet the woman's gaze but didn't respond.
As she remained silent, the woman nodded, and the man swiftly swung Lucy around, letting a chunk of his hand get torn off by Lucy's teeth, then slapped her hard across the face.
A crisp slap echoed, and Lucy was left disheveled and dazed.
"What's your name?" the woman continued to inquire.
Lucy remained silent.
Another heavy slap followed.
His bloodied right hand still grasped Lucy's hair.
After two powerful slaps from the large man, Lucy's lips and nose began to bleed.
The woman, with an ordinary yet stern face, asked again, "What's your name?"
She motioned towards the room where the trail of blood led, likely to where the bodies of the Banna family lay.
As a man from behind the woman nodded and walked past the group toward the room, she pressed, "Answer my question."
As if Lucy's cooperation might prompt the woman to persist indefinitely.
From this, it was clear she had her methods of coercion.
Yet, Lucy, seizing a moment to gather some strength, looked up defiantly.
Her hair was still grasped tightly, fixing her in place despite her weakening body.
She remained silent.
The woman stared down at Lucy, her face expressionless, a sight she had seen far too often.
No matter how resilient, continuous torture would wear anyone down.
Another crisp slap echoed as the man struck Lucy again, knocking her down so she could only remain upright by his grip on her hair, her face now barely visible.
"All our surveillance operatives are off-grid."
The woman was about to press further when a voice from behind interrupted.
A man from the group handed her a tablet.
The woman glanced at Lucy, now somewhat dazed, then at the tablet, her brow furrowing slightly.
Their people had been monitoring Lucy and her friend Annagia.
But now, it wasn't just a loss of contact; even their trackers had gone offline.
Everything seemed inexplicably wrong.
The woman sensed something amiss but wasn't overly concerned.
It seemed she knew the terrifying reach of her organization.
After reviewing the tablet briefly, she handed it back to her subordinate, then looked forward.
The man who had checked the situation appeared in the hallway, nodding at the middle-aged woman.
"They're all dead," he stated, as he arrived at the junction of the living room and hallway.
"There were signs of a phone call being made from here. This woman called the police."
The middle-aged woman shook her head, "Something's off today. We can't use this base anymore. Also, inform the leader that there's trouble here; we need to move to the second base."
As she spoke, the middle-aged woman glanced once more at Lucy, who had regained some focus but was still glaring defiantly at her, and said calmly,
"Welcome back, Lucy Juwa. Yes, all of this—it was our arrangement."
At these words, Lucy realized why the chains that had bound her hands and feet had been mysteriously unlocked that night.
A surge of despair enveloped her. She glared at the middle-aged woman, mustering all her remaining strength to launch herself at her captor.
But her effort was futile. Held back by the strong grip in her hair, she couldn't even get close to the middle-aged woman.
"Knock her out and take her away," the woman commanded calmly.
The man holding Lucy nodded and raised his hand to deliver a knockout blow. This slap, he did not hold back, knowing his strength was more than sufficient to render a young woman unconscious.
Just as his hand was about to connect with Lucy's face, in a critical moment, his hand exploded in a burst of blood.
The sudden turn of events only caused a momentary pause before everyone sprang into action.
"There's someone else here!"
But before they could react further, another soft sound was heard.
The man who had been holding Lucy, now with a bloody hole in his forehead, his eyes wide with shock at the unexpected turn, fell down dead.
The previously dominant figures began scrambling for cover.
"Find cover!"
The nearest middle-aged woman was no longer composed, her sense of control shattered. As she prepared to move, her lower leg erupted in a burst of blood from a gunshot.
She fell forward, turning sharply to look toward the French windows.
A robust figure stood there, the smoking barrel of a gun in his hand.
"Damn it!"
The first thing the middle-aged woman did was reach inside her jacket for her pistol to return fire.
But as she moved, her arm was also shot, the bullet tearing through her flesh, causing a burst of pain and rendering her arm useless. The speed and accuracy of the attacker were astonishing; his aim was lethal and precise.
"Who are these people?"
The woman was helpless, her arms and legs losing strength as she bled, immobilized.
At that moment, another soft gunshot sounded.
Ahead, another of her men fell, a clear bullet hole in his forehead.
Screams and shouts filled the air.
She leaned against the floor, turning back to see.
The defense line behind her had been breached without her notice.
The four muscular men had been no match for a mysterious man wielding a knight's sword, who had stormed in. The four men, despite being armed, were effortlessly dispatched by the intruder.
One against four, even with firearms, they were no match for the mysterious swordsman.
Her gaze involuntarily drifted downwards to three severed arms lying on the floor, still clutching shotguns and pistols.
She pieced together the scene: as soon as she had given the order and had been shot in the leg, a mysterious man had breached the front door and decimated her four subordinates in a blink.
"They all work for the same organization?" The woman watched as one man after another entered through the front door, still puzzled by the swift unfolding of events.
The battle had been overwhelmingly fast, from the first hand exploding to the present, likely less than a minute had passed.
Such a staggering disparity in power was rare to see within her organization, which was filled with money, power, and operatives drawn from military and combat-hardened elites.
Yet, the defensive setup outside had been compromised without any warning or alert, indicating that the outside guards had been subdued instantly.
These intruders all wore similar clothing, each with an ancient knight's sword at their waist.
Realizing something, the woman's eyes widened in a mix of fear and understanding.
"This woman must be of some significance," John Wick remarked as he holstered his Viper pistol and approached the trembling middle-aged woman on the ground.
"We might get some information out of her."
Looking at Willo the Monk, who was sheathing his sword, John expressed a hint of surprise. In the fight, he had witnessed a real monk's prowess.
A flash of light had allowed the monk to sever the arms of multiple enemies from several meters away—indeed, a gun was unnecessary.
"Is this the close-combat technique the Bishop mentioned?"
Thinking to himself, John heard Willo speak.
"Yes, hand her over to the tribunal, and they'll get whatever we need to know out of her." Willo, his lips framed by a beard, exuded a calm and unyielding presence typical of an elite cleric stationed by Bishop York.
Willo glanced at the struggling middle-aged woman on the ground and continued indifferently, "But it seems we may not need to interrogate her much. We've already latched onto a bigger fish that's surfaced, and we're currently tracking it."
He noted the despair in the woman's eyes as he spoke, his tone remaining neutral, "It appears that everyone who has shown themselves is already under our watch. By tonight, we should fulfill the orders Bishop York issued."
The church's latent power was unmistakably on display in this moment.
"Are you church monks?" The woman, resigned to her fate, her face pale from blood loss, finally asked.
Willo ignored her question, his hand resting confidently on the hilt of his knight's sword, and turned to John Wick.
"Brother John, I have other matters to attend to; the target is now your responsibility. Please ensure she is brought before Bishop York."
John Wick nodded in response as Willo spoke, acknowledging the gravity of his duty.
"Understood," he said, watching Willo and the remaining monks prepare to depart.
"Knock her out and take her back for judgment," Willo ordered, and one of the monks, ignoring the woman's futile resistance, rendered her unconscious with a swift strike. He lifted her with one hand and nodded to John Wick before following Willo.
John Wick returned the nod, watching this formidable group of colleagues leave, then turned his attention back to Lucy.
Lucy, noticing his gaze, instinctively shrank back, her head bowed, avoiding eye contact.
In truth, she had seen this man before. At the Ashby Abbey, she had encountered him alongside the priest, and had seen him participating in the church's charitable activities like food drives and fundraisers.
John Wick, realizing her discomfort, crouched down to her level, his voice calm.
"You know me, don't you?"
Lucy pursed her swollen lips but did not reply.
"Don't be afraid," John continued. "The Father is aware of what you've been through, which is why today's events were set in motion. We're here to protect you and to dismantle the organization that caused you harm…"
Hearing this, Lucy took a deep breath, gathering a bit of courage from the thought of the priest. She nodded slightly, her voice low.
"I know you."
"That's good," John Wick said, relieved. If Lucy had not responded, he would have been unsure how to proceed.
"Come on, let's get you out of here."
With that, he gently extended his hands, preparing to lift Lucy.
Fortunately, she did not resist, allowing him to pick her up easily.
John Wick then carefully carried Lucy away from the scene, leaving behind the chaos and the evidence of a swift and fierce intervention by the church's forces.
As they moved, Lucy, despite her confusion and injuries, felt a glimmer of hope. Surrounded by these protectors, perhaps she could finally find some peace and safety after the long, brutal ordeal she had endured.
___________________
(Support with power stones, comments or reviews)
If you guys enjoy this story, In support me on Patreon and get access to +200 advance Chapters
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