At the height of a searing afternoon, no soul dared to step outdoors unless compelled by matters of grave importance.
The outskirts laid bare, devoid of human shadows.
A nondescript, grey car ambled to a halt.
Selena disengaged from the driver's seat, unlocking the rear door, a semblance of a smile on her face: "We're here."
Calling it a 'smile' may be too generous. A 'smirk' was more fitting.
The cheer didn't quite reach her eyes, rendering her countenance all the more artificial and severe.
Her piercing gaze settled on the little boy seated in the car.
"Kid, you're pretty smart. I suppose you understand the situation, right? No matter how skilled you are, you're still just a child. No matter how strongly you encrypt your emails, you can't erase all traces.
I have the resources, the influence. If I want to track, I'll track."
She reached out, her crimson nails lightly grazing the boy's tender skin, inducing goosebumps: "Your appearance... truly resembles him..."
Until now, she'd always assumed that Matthew cared for Flora and her child because this little boy bore an uncanny resemblance to him.
The likeness was striking, right from the facial features, the eyes, the manner of speech... If she didn't know Matthew better, she would've thought this was his biological son.
A pity, indeed!
"It's a pity you're nothing more than a bastard.
Your whore of a mother wanted to use a bastard to tie Matthew down. Just the thought makes me nauseous! Tell me, once you're dead, will your mother regret it? Will Matthew be in pain?" She paused deliberately for a few seconds, her hand tightening on the boy's face, leaving a bright red handprint: "I bet not.
Because he still has a child growing inside me... his real child."
The greatest deceit is when you're "fooling yourself" while "lying to others".
Before fooling others, Selena had to convince herself that the child inside her was indeed Matthew's.
The boy's eyes widened, glaring at the twisted expression on Selena's face.
He could only express his thoughts through his gaze, as his limbs were tightly bound, and his mouth sealed shut, rendering him unable to call for help.
Even if he could, in this vast, deserted field, there was nobody to come to his rescue.
Selena suddenly burst into laughter, a guttural sound stuck in her throat, before she descended into hysterical laughter.
Her eyes, sharp as knives, bored into the boy strapped in the car: "I've yet to harm you because I don't want to deal with the trouble, but if you wish for death, I'm not averse to lending a hand..."
Even the physical evidence and alibis were thoroughly prepared.
"If you die in an accident, no one's to blame, right?" She tilted her head: "It would be an unfortunate incident... Once you're dead, the child inside me will undoubtedly be his heir."
"No! Stop!" Flora jerked awake from her nightmare, bolting upright in the temporary holding room.
Her back was drenched in sweat, soaking her shirt.
Little Mimi was also startled, turning to ask anxiously: "Miss, what's wrong?"
"Miss..." Flora hesitated, unsure if she should share: "I just had a terrifying dream..." Her frail hands clenched the musty, thin blanket on the bed. After a moment's hesitation, she said: "... I dreamt... Charlie... the little one... was harmed by someone... his whole body... covered in blood..."
"Do not fret excessively, it might simply have been a dream, perhaps brought on by overwhelming stress." they suggested.
Naturally, Flora wished dearly that the whole ordeal was merely a dream. Yet, Selena's ominous words from the previous day lingered in her ears, a haunting reminder that her son Charlie could possibly be in her clutches.
As a mother, she couldn't stomach the thought of any danger looming over her child.
"Do we have a means to escape this place?" Flora asked, her lips pursed, her voice wavering with uncertainty: "At the very least, I want to ascertain the current state of my boy."
What she'd experienced might not simply be a dream, but a foreboding omen, a sort of psychic connection between mother and son.
Or it could merely be a routine dream, as Mimi had suggested.
But regardless of its nature, until she could lay eyes on her son and confirm his safety, she wouldn't be able to put her mind at ease.
Mimi cast her eyes around.
Their makeshift prison was secure, its bars iron, its locks sturdy, which meant the guards were sparse.
With Mimi's nimble skills, there was a chance they could make their escape.
"Do you truly wish to leave this place?" the girl asked, seeking confirmation.
Receiving a resolute affirmation from Flora, she nodded determinedly: "Alright, I will get us out of this prison."
Brought up in the shadows of the underworld, Mimi had picked up her fair share of tricks. One of them was lock picking.
Producing a tiny hairpin seemingly out of nowhere, she inserted it into the lock and twisted it a few times.
With a satisfying 'click', the lock gave way, and Mimi casually swung open the prison door.
The noise immediately attracted the attention of a few guards engrossed in a nearby conversation.
"What's happening? What do you think you're doing?" Without waiting for orders, they dashed towards the prison cell.
Assuming their colleague had negligently left the cell unlocked, they were oblivious to the fact that a fifteen-year-old girl had actually picked the lock.
Flora watched anxiously as Mimi darted out, taking the guards by surprise and engaging them in a one-against-four combat.
These guards might have had a basic knowledge of martial arts, but their skills paled in comparison to someone who'd grown up in a world of blood and blades like Mimi.
In a few swift moves, the teenager incapacitated all four men.
After ensuring there were no others in sight, Mimi returned to the cell, grabbed Flora by the hand and sprinted outside: "Hurry, we have no time to waste!"
Flora never thought she'd end up in a temporary detention center, let alone use force to escape from it.
Without a moment's hesitation, she followed Mimi out of the police station's detention area.
After putting a significant distance between themselves and the police station, Mimi paused to assess the situation.
"I doubt anyone followed us. Now what do we do?" Clearly, the girl's impromptu action was a spur-of-the-moment decision, and she was looking to Flora for the next steps.
Flora exhaled deeply: "We need to go to Matthew's place. I need to meet his people and discuss something."
The doorbell rang incessantly, waking one of Matthew's closest men. The sight of Flora standing outside left him astonished.
"Mrs. Flora, aren't you supposed to be in detention?" Matthew wasn't around, and the White family's power still loomed large. How had Flora miraculously escaped her cell?
Maybe the world truly held something known as 'psychic connections' between a mother and her child.
Reminded of her dream just an hour ago, Flora found herself faced with the terrified expression of the man standing in front of her.
He gazed solemnly at her beautiful face, marred by visible fatigue, and sighed: "I initially intended to keep this from you, but alas..."
"What happened to the boy?" Flora furrowed her brows, secretly grateful.
Grateful that she had chosen to trust the fleeting instinct that had appeared in her dream. Otherwise, she would still be locked behind bars, unaware of her son's predicament.
"Young Mistress White, Selena, she... she bound the boy's hands and feet, gagged him, and discarded him in the deserted outskirts where people rarely pass by..."
"That deranged woman!" Mimi's face paled, and she cursed involuntarily.
No one reproached her for her outburst, for her words echoed what everyone else wanted to say.
Flora's face went ashen, she clutched her clothes tightly, and asked the man before her: "The boy... where is he now?"
Judging by his demeanor, she could guess that the situation was not too severe.
As expected, he pointed into the house: "It's dangerous outside right now, so I've taken him in temporarily." He added: "Our young master is very clever, he even managed to set up a tracking device on himself."
"Thanks to that, I was able to detect his distress signal and locate him in time."
Flora and Matthew's son, always a cut above the rest.
Even when on the brink, he did not succumb to fear.
More accurately, before even falling into danger, he had already formulated a response plan.
His sharp intelligence, his decisive action, earned him the admiration of those who had fought side by side with Matthew for many years.
Matthew's man spoke as he led the way into the house.
His home was not spacious, scantily furnished, clearly seldom lived in.
The three climbed to the second floor, arriving before a closed, silent room.
Matthew's man knocked a few times on the door as if signaling.
A neutral voice quickly responded from inside: "Come in."
The boy was sitting on the bed, an IV line in his hand, connected to a drip hanging from a stand, his head bandaged.
Seeing his mother, a trace of confusion flitted through his eyes, before he quickly regained his composed demeanor.
"What are you staring at, mom? Can't recognize your own son just because of a bandage around his head?" He raised his free hand to touch the white bandage on his forehead, seemingly at ease: "I look pretty cool, don't I?"
Flora was taken aback, tears welling up, but she swallowed them back.
Before she could express her anguish or utter heartbreaking words, the tense, mournful atmosphere had been dispelled by her son's jests.
Her lips tightened slightly, she sat down next to the bed, lightly touching the stray strands of hair on his forehead: "What happened? Selena..."
"She didn't manage to harm me." He interrupted: "I had a plan in place." This wasn't the worst scenario he had imagined.
"But you got hurt... Are you in a lot of pain?" Her voice betrayed her worry.
She then turned to the host: "Have you taken him to the hospital for a check-up?"
He shook his head and then nodded: "Not to the hospital, but Dr. Andrey came over to examine him. There are no serious injuries, only minor ones."
Under the current circumstances, it was best not to go to the hospital.
It wasn't that he didn't trust, but hospitals, with their mix of people, were too easy for ill-intentioned individuals to infiltrate.
Flora stroked her son's hair, then suddenly hugged his small frame tightly.
The boy was fine, but the fact that Selena intended to harm him was undeniable.
She would, she must, make her pay.
After maintaining the embrace for a few minutes, the young man commanded the room to clear.
Perhaps noticing the weariness etched into his mother's complexion, the little tyke could not bear to let her stay and entertain him.
Exiting the boy's room, Flora finally let out a sigh of relief.
Her son's successful excursion around the demon gates and his subsequent safe return were indeed a blessing.