Time of the Blind Beast - Chapter 87

Beeeep, a long ringing pierced her ears. The tinnitus that dug deep into her eardrums shook her head. It was as if she had been pierced by a needle.

Lisanne gasped for breath.

It was the only wish she had. Even if she was here, the hope that her family would at least be safe had helped her endure the grueling life in the detention center. She had often overlaid the faces of the older inmates with her parents’ and had felt relief that at least she was going through this alone.

But… they turned themselves in.

They requested to take on their child’s crimes.

Lisanne clutched her throat with both hands. The hard lump clogging her throat refused to let any air through.

She had told them not to mingle with others so many times…

She had feared they wouldn’t let her go if she said she’d shoulder the blame for all three of them. And she couldn’t bear the thought of sending her parents to a detention center, so after much deliberation and planning, she had finally persuaded them to live in seclusion in a remote village.

“I told my parents that I’d gotten a live-in tutor position thanks to the principal’s recommendation. I said it’s a small town, so communication might be difficult for a while, but that also makes it safer. I gave them all kinds of excuses, but honestly, I’m not sure how much they believed me. Still, they’ll at least hide carefully for a few months.”

Now she knew. Her parents hadn’t trusted her desperate pleas. Maybe they’d tried to hide for a bit, but then blended back into society, heard the rumor that the ‘criminal’ Ezekiel Valdemaira had arrested was taken to the detention center….

And had come running in shock.

Lisanne stared blankly at Ezekiel. She wanted desperately to cling to a shred of hope, but the shadow cast over his face was so cold it chilled her.

Lisanne moved her now bloodless, cold lips.

Where… where…

She had no strength to form a long sentence. Long, complicated words wouldn’t be understood anyway. She repeated the simple word until Ezekiel caught on.

His gaze followed the movements of her silently forming lips.

“Where?”

At last, he understood. Lisanne frantically nodded.

“You want to know where your parents are?”

Her heart pounded. Lisanne nodded again and glanced at the other rooms.

Had there been any new inmates recently?

There were so many rooms that it was hard to know every new arrival. Still, if the parents of the woman who had tried to harm Ezekiel Valdemaira had been caught and brought in, word would’ve gotten around.

“Were you expecting a family reunion at the detention center or something?”

Ezekiel let out a dry laugh.

That unfamiliar expression on his face sliced somewhere beneath her sternum. Ever since being dragged to the detention center, Lisanne had faced an Ezekiel who always seemed like a stranger. For the first time, she felt how literal the expression ‘his gaze alone could suffocate’ could be. To him, she was a woman worthy of hatred.

Lisanne lowered her eyes and tried to regain her composure. She didn’t have the courage to meet that icy gaze for long. What’s more, he had seen right through her heart. If her whole family was arrested, she would at least want to be in the same center. That way, she could confirm with her eyes that they were enduring.

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

But that hope was quickly extinguished.

“Your parents were sent to the north. You think I’d imprison them in the same facility as you, knowing what you might plot together?”

The world shook beneath her.

“Well, at least it’s not a northern facility. I heard snow falls all the time up there. They say every other day there’s a snowstorm, and people’s limbs freeze blue with frostbite, and many freeze to death each night.”

“I heard people there actually prefer a life sentence to forced labor. Life in the facility is harder than labor.”

She tried to stand, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t gather strength in her legs. Lisanne crawled through the other inmates on her knees and collapsed by the bars, grabbing them as she knelt and burst into tears. If it could soften Ezekiel’s vengeance, begging and pleading were nothing at all to her.

I was wrong, I was wrong…

Ezekiel kept his eyes on Lisanne’s lips as she repeated the same words over and over.

Even if I’m executed, it’s fine. Please, just save my parents.

Afraid he might not understand her, she desperately repeated each syllable. When Ezekiel didn’t respond, her thin, emaciated arm slipped through the wide iron bars and grasped the hem of his uniform. Her hands, swollen and chapped from cold and labor, were mottled with purple.

Just tell me if they’re alright, please…

“Why are you asking me that?”

Ezekiel coldly brushed off the woman’s hand clinging to his uniform like it was her last lifeline.

“Didn’t I already tell you where they are? What, now I have to go check on them personally for your sake?”

At those words, all color drained from her face. Fear slowly overtook anxiety, and despair replaced fear. Ezekiel watched her face change without blinking.

There’s no way this woman could be Rose.

She mustn’t be.

Letting someone else get to him like this had made him drink laudanum and hallucinate such nonsense. That was why she had to disappear.

At first, he hadn’t planned to leave her alone this long, but when she drank the poison herself and began suffering quietly, he had just let things drag on until now.

“You’re probably sick of me, but I’m absolutely fed up with you too. It’s about time we put an end to this twisted bond between us.”

That was what he came to say.

Because of the nature of her crimes, Ezekiel had received an official request from the judge asking for his opinion on her sentencing. While it was formally a request for his input, in truth, it was asking for a final decision. The judge, cautious of the Valdemaira family’s standing, would hand down whatever sentence Ezekiel decided.

At first, he’d considered postponing it until Akenaus was dealt with and questioning her further. But after the hallucination incident, he firmly resolved to dispose of her as quickly as possible.

He hadn’t even needed to intervene—she had brought most of the punishment upon herself. She’d lost the child in her womb, lost her voice, and soon she’d be parted from her family as well. At this point, she’d suffered more than enough for what she’d done.

“The child who went first is probably waiting. You won’t be lonely. If you wait just a little longer, you’ll see him soon. I’ll do my best to send him to your side quickly.”

The woman no longer cried. She didn’t even try to communicate. She simply froze in place, dazed. Her vacant gaze looked like someone who had lost their soul.

Ezekiel averted his eyes and strode out of the detention center.

“What, she’s not moving?”

A guard approached when Lisanne didn’t budge, still leaning heavily against the bars even after the visit ended. He saw her limp hand hanging outside the bars and kicked it aside with his boot.

“Sorry, she doesn’t really know any better…”

One of the women apologized in her place and hurriedly pulled Lisanne back by the hand.

Not even noticing the pain from the kick, Lisanne let herself be dragged. She didn’t have the strength to sit up, and with nowhere to lean on, she collapsed to the floor.

“Hey, you’re not just staring off while fainted with your eyes open, right? Come on, snap out of it. She’s breathing, right?”

Someone roughly shook her.

Lisanne blankly stared at her hand, discarded like a useless object. She felt like she had just shattered into pieces, yet somehow her limbs were still intact. She could have sworn something inside her had broken with a loud crack, thought she had turned to shards—

What was it?

She didn’t know.

Some time later, the sentence was handed down.

A third of the inmates were given a stay of execution. Another third were sentenced to life of hard labor. The remaining third, whose crimes were the most severe, were sentenced to death.

The execution date was set for midnight on the first day of the new year. Most of the condemned received a firing squad, considered the most honorable death for a criminal, but Lisanne alone was sentenced to the most degrading form—hanging.