3 What makes it not ordinary?

He was dying and it was because of her. That was the only correspondent sentence in her head. It felt as if hours had passed the moment she threw away her gun when she shot Target C. Her limbs worked on emergency mode; skipping stairs, raggard breathing and her hands clasped tightly on the railings as she jumped off to the ground running towards the second building in the passageway that interconnected the two buildings.

'Please don't let it come true... Please, please, please...' She begged throughout the way. Hallways, and stairs, it seemed to never end until she saw the bleeding shoulder of her brother. The tears she'd been holding back let loose as they trickle down her cheeks to her chin. There was a good chance he could never operate on a person again... And it had always been his dream, now possibly crushed because of her.

She blamed herself as she ripped a part of her shirt, tying it tightly around the injury, releasing a loud groan from him. Her eyes swiftly went around the office until they landed on a first-aid kit lying under a desk.

In the moment she was saving him, she missed the trail of blood her target left as soon as she shot him. Only Carlos knew that their target escaped when his shock made him rooted on the spot as Alice had ran for Edward.

--- --- --- --- *** --- --- --- ---

"Why didn't you fight back?" Carlos diverted his eyes from Alice's sleeping figure to Edward who sat on the other side of her bed. The Clean-Up Crew arrived and cleaned up the mess along with Carlos who designed a fake videotape of the whole night to explain the broken glass wall in their company building.

"I would have... If it was an ordinary ambush, indeed I could have easily won..." He whispered, his hand caressing his sister's cheek that was stained with dry tears.

"What makes it not ordinary then?"

Edward clearly showed his agitation as he clenched the white sheets. "The case is faux. There is no assassins running to kill a government official. The assassins we fought back there... I'm a hundred percent sure they were Father's men."

"Father's?" Carlos frowned, his thin delicate brows knitted together as his sea-blue eyes showed light to the fact he was thinking. "Why would he---"

"Alice must've slipped up."

Dead silence took over the whole room. If Alice had slipped up... There was a chance that their father would either be amused for being fooled for a long time with a trivial matter such as sex or... The man would kill her for her apparent disloyalty to the rules of being honest... And if you don't follow the rules, you may as well be treated as a traitor, as a member who committed treason and worthy of death.

--- --- --- --- *** --- --- --- ---

"What happened to your shoulder dear?" Not good morning to her daughter. Alicia sighed, taking a spot that was the farthest from her mother but closest to her father. Her other siblings glared at how shameless she could just sit down with their father, the patriarch of the family.

"Mhmm..." Edward hummed, slightly raising a brow to her behavior before taking the seat across. It was a given that the eldest men was to sit beside their father, and the eldest women around her mother and the mistresses. While Alvah, or Alice in that matter wasn't the exactly the eldest nor the third eldest as Edward was the second, she was the most favored. "Someone got into a fight. I just so happen to be mixed up with it."

Their father gave his second eldest a glare, "Stupid of you to get into a fight... Weak of you to get hurt while stopping it. Pathetic." The silence was noticeable as the scrapping of stainless spoons and forks to the plates gradually quieted down until almost the chewing was louder. "Disgrace... Being a doctor? What use is saving if we all die in the end."

The spoon on Edward's hand tightened as he turned to his father with a forced and cold smile, "Father... Even though congested population is a problem, some of the known inventors, scientists, and warriors around the world has found solutions from the cause of a physical and emotional tragedy. Imagine our world if we had just let them die... We would not be here."

Breakfast became shorter after the exchange.

"Edward!" Alice chased the furious male as he put on his shoes and ID. "What are you going to tell---"

"I'll handle it..." He gave a sigh as if his anger could easily be quenched from it, Alice knew better it doesn't. "Just concentrate on your job... At least I can be myself in the public. But you, in and out of the camera, you still act." He turned to her, somewhat reluctant, as his clear green orbs met her blue-green. "You should prepare to make fake abs with your make-up kits... You never know, you might do shirtless modeling"

"Edward!" She huffed, his words ruining the sibling moment as he gave a chuckle, ruffling her hair before leaving.

Little did the young Alice know that the peaceful moment was the calm before the storm.