To His Hell and Back-Chapter 127: Unmasking A Liar-II

"The basement isn’t too far," Ariel said as they slowly approached the door and opened it. Leading the path was Ariel while Bella and Cassius had walked beside each other, following her behind in two steps distance. "It’s rather a terrible unkept place. But how do you know about the basement, Bella?"

"Cassius told me, it seems that all brothels have them," said Arabella without a single thought behind her words.

"Oh?" Ariel smirked and turned to Cassius, "So you frequent this kind of place."

"Not really," Cassius answered, lowering his eyes to look at his birdie rather than Ariel and being unbothered by the words said by Ariel who had meant to jab him on the side. He responded with ease and confident, "Not everyone has to go to a certain location to know what’s normal in that place. With a little research, it’s easy to find this sort of information."

"Oh dear so are you telling me that you haven’t ever bought a prostitute?"

Cassius quirked a smile as he could see Arabella’s curious eyes wandered towards him. He nodded, "Never. I am someone who would only sleep with a wife and I haven’t ever have a wife."

Arabella who was walking beside him, eyed him for a very long time. She lowered her voice, whispering, "Are you lying?"

He looked at her, offended with a hand over his heart like it had been just stabbed, "How would I ever lie? I was kicked to wars at sixteen," he reminded her in a whisper, "I told you, I was trying to survive. If I have time to buy women or sleep with one, I would rather spend it finding a way to kill my enemies the fastest."

That’s.. very unexpected.

But Bella could also tell with his confident smirk that he wasn’t lying. As the next one in line for the throne, Cassius was always put in danger and that wasn’t only by his step mother, Morgana but the King too. It made sense that he was busy all the time but other than that perhaps it’s because of his unhealed wounds.

Though Cassius spoke as though he doesn’t care about the past she could tell that he still hold a grudge over how his father had taken another wife despite declaring that he had loved his mother to death. Cassius wouldn’t say it but perhaps deep down he despised the idea or marriage, love and things that follows with it as desires for another woman was what made his father abandoning his mother.

"You still don’t trust me?" Cassius sang, leaning beside her.

She could hear his voice right beside her ears and muttered, "I do."

And seeing how her green eyes turned to him with emotions of trust somehow made Cassius’s smile to pause. He didn’t drop his smile instead he pulled it wider. He never cared to being trusted by someone else but to see his birdie trusting him and for her to say it aloud made him rather delighted.

He grinned but his eyes turned toward Ariel who had turned her face back, staring at Arabella with her deadpanned facial expression. But it was brief as she turned away to showing them the way to the basement again though for some reason her feet had moved slowly.

Arabella who was unaware of this continued walking into the staircase that lead to the basement. She slowly eyed her sister’s back, wondering alone whether this person is really her sister or someone else. At times, Ariel felt like how she had always been in the past but there is a mismatch that Cassius had pointed which now she could see it stood out like a sore thumb.

She slowly walked forward and spoke up, "Ariel do you remember?"

Ariel turned her head to her, smiling when her eyes met hers, "What is it?"

Her sister would usually answer her the same. The same word, the same tone, the same smile.

She continued, "Not long ago I had this dream," she whispered, "It’s an odd dream but I think it had happened before and I wonder whether you remember it ever happening before."

Ariel hummed, "What was the dream?"

"Well, it’s a little odd but do you remember ever stepping into a white marbled castle before? With me and mother," she said and for a moment Bella’s green eyes caught how Ariel’s fingers that was holding the staircase flinched. She added, "We met someone and then I drowned, maybe I stepped into the pond? Or maybe I was pushed there, I don’t remember but mother was angry and immediately pulled me into the surface. Have you ever remembered that happening before?"

Ariel clenched her fists and answered her with a shake of a head, "How could we ever enter a castle? You were always scared of the pond or a lake but that isn’t because you have drowned there before. Remember? Once I tried to help a drowning cat and accidentally had drowned. If it wasn’t for your help or the adults back then, I would have died and that must have scared you a lot."

"That happened?" Bella furrowed her eyebrows, "I did remember you falling from a tree to save a cat but not drowning."

"Both happened," said Ariel, smiling with a look that was certain with what she had said while Bella wondered with a faint frown between her eyebrows. Her sister... she’s lying.

Ariel wasn’t telling the truth and she could feel it. Whenever Ariel had lied, she would usually look away from her eyes, staring at the ground, a bad habit of hers. But this time, her sister had stared straight to her eyes yet she could still sense that her sister was lying and that she had never drowned before.

She could just feel this sense of oddness from her sister’s words and was still trying to figure out why her sister had lied to her when she heard Ariel continuing the fading conversation, "By the way Bella, have you ever felt something odd these days with your body?"

Arabella turned to look at Cassius first, seeing how the birthmark in his neck seemed to be glowing faster as if feeling the shift in the air while preparing for the battle before turning back to Ariel.

"Odd how?"

"Odd such as," Ariel pulled her hand, whispering closer, "Have you ever suddenly woke up with a feeling like you despise vampires so deeply that you feel as though you need to destroy them?"