Chapter 14

"Swelling hearts rarely tell the truth, too heavy to tell the truth, so they let our soul mislead us."

His heart was pounding in his chest as he continued down the path, Adam was leaning heavily on him; the feeling of the earth moving beneath them and the endless stifling noises were making the hairs on the back of Cayenne's neck stand up. Something was unnerving about the way the trees arched overhead, how the murder of crows was observing them. The audible flutter of their wings. There was still some light, the sun was just barely beginning to set, they continued; the feeling of the last dredges of winter, clinging to the forest in barest touches of frost and the crunching of frozen grass under their feet.

Drip... drip...

The blood from Adam's wounds brought forth bright blooms of crimson on the frost. Cayenne noticed, but there was not much he could do. The feeling of helplessness grew in his heart, taking another look at his case partner. A bitter feeling arose in his throat as he cursed himself in his heart, gritting his teeth he hoisted Adam onto his back and started a jog. Ignoring the burning of his lungs, he continued down the main path. There must be someone along here at least?

Cayenne continued until he could taste something coppery in the back of his throat, his breath misting the air, the burning of his muscles and the dull ache of his wounds, there wasn't much he could do. If he were to stop, they would be wasting precious time for Adam to get help. With this harsh through in his mind, Cayenne continued running, no longer bothering to pace himself, the stitch in his side ached, still, he continued.

Soon enough, they did come across an inn, attached to a hotel, called Daisie's Bank. Stumbling through the entrance, startling the poor receptionist, who hurried over with a fellow waiter they helped the harassed pair through the door and started tending to Adam first, before dragging Cayenne away to get himself checked over.

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Crawling over to his table, Stanley struggled to get himself into a standing position, there was blood on the wall, deep scuff marks on the floor, and much of the rooms furniture was overturned. Things were broken and strewn messily, there were many things he had not considered, within the man's twisted mind, darkness was swirling, anger, bitterness and the most overpowering feeling of humiliation. Something he could not handle was being overpowered by anyone. He needed to show them. To show everyone that he was not to be messed with; he could practically hear the mocking laughter of his parents.

As he walked through the halls, a maid came upon him in his injured state, and she stumbled back with a startled scream cut short.

Her scream wasn't the only scream that was cut short that night.

Bloodshot eyes glint in the darkness, even the maid that was always enamoured by her master, was crawling away, the sound of her nails scraping the floor as she tried to feebly get away from the monster.

It was a brief moment before Stanley's hand was covered in quickly dying warmth and the body on the floor was still.

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'She's our wife. No wife should disrespect us like that? You ought to punish her.'

The thought was whispered time and time again in the back of his mind, like an unreachable itch, and it was irking Alexander, making him very irate as he wanted to give Emma her space, but no matter what he seemed to do she seemed immovable. He wanted her to come to him on her own, and go back to the way they were before; plagued with nightmares, and lack of sleep and energy, along with the incessant calls from Damond and the constant press that wanted to interview him about the recent falling out with his wife.

He knew that sooner or later it would get out, but through his connections alone, even they had no lead on who could have leaked this information when originally it was a private matter between the two and now, even the public is taking sides. One condemning him, the other condemning Emma. Some call him an abusive husband, the others call her a disloyal wife, even going as far as accusing her of having an affair.

Now he was looking at the morning newspaper and it was written that Stanley had got arrested for murdering all of his household staff. The man seemed to have fallen deep into his bout of insanity; his trial is to be heard in the next six to eight weeks, but with so much coverage of this case, it will not take the standard procedure time, it will be faster, but whether he would be allowed diminished responsibility or plea for loss of control, although the latter would be highly unlikely.

Looking across the table at Emma he spoke up, "Darling, I have a question. May I ask?"

"You already have," came the wry answer.

"So, Stanley has been arrested as he had killed all of his staff last night. They are reporting it as a bout of insanity; what do you think he would be charged for?"

"Voluntary manslaughter."

"Can you explain it a bit more to me? I understand that you have some understanding of the law."

There was a small pause, it made Alexander's heart race as he waited, a sigh of relief when Emma started talking.

"...If under the plea of insanity, then maybe he could use diminished responsibility only if he can prove it, so medical evidence is needed. For loss of control, there needs to be a qualifying trigger, either extreme fear or anger. For fear, the fear needs to come from being in possible serious harm to either himself or the people around him. For anger, it would have to be something that was a grave slight to his character that any," Emma made quotation marks with her hands here, "reasonable person would have done the same."

"So what is his best bet?"

"Plea of insanity, and provided he has the paperwork, diminished responsibility from murder to voluntary manslaughter."