5 Roux's Past

Mr Smith's house location was not far from the Holly Oak lane where the antique shop was situated at.

As soon as they arrived at his house, both of them bolted inside and Mr.Smith hurriedly locked the main door.

"what are we going to do now?" Roux began to ask for Mr.Smith's full plan.

"We are going away from this place. I have few friends who would help us to get out of London. Don't worry. I had it all ready" he gave her his reassuring smile.

Roux shrugged her shoulder. "Good to know that you had it all plan"

Not long after that, a loud knocking on the door surprised Roux that was settling down beside the for place.

"Who is that?"

"That's my friend. Hold on, I will open the door"

The face of two rough looking men appeared on the doorway as soon as the door was opened by Mr.Smith.

Both of them appeared to be looking like the type of thugs who roamed on the street and always wrecking havoc because they think they are so powerful.

"Where��s the doll?!" one of the men began to prowl into the small living room. His face broke into a hideous grin when he saw Roux.

"Ahhh….pretty little doll" his remark made Roux felt like throwing up. Why does the clean Mr.Smith befriending a beastly looking man like this.

"Tucker! We talked about this before right?" Mr Smith was seen gripping Tucker's hand when the other man was about to approach Roux. His glare managed to halt Tucker from approaching the mannequin.

"When are we going to move" the other man began to look impatient.

"Very soon. Very soon" Mr Smith tried to assure the man.

"None of you are going anywhere tonight" the sound of a woman's voice interrupted the interaction between the men in the house.

To their astonishment, Mademoiselle Johanne was standing right by the door that has not been closed just now. She still had a loose bandage around her forehead to cover the head wound.

Some of the blood seemed to tainted her gown and she was holding her feather hat.

"Who is this woman?!" Tucker barked at Mr.Smith.

"She is the owner of the antique shop" Mr. Smith was practically seething when he saw the mademoiselle appeared at his door.

"Ah….Mr.Smith I thought you were a gentleman when I first met you. But I was wrong. You do not even hesitated to pull a punch at a lady"

"Gentleman? This thug right here?" Tucker was pointed at Mr.Smith. "Ahahahha!! you must be kidding me! He is nastiest man I've ever been working with!"

Roux turned her attention toward the Mr.Smith who had his head lower at the ground. He was suspiciously quite during the entire ruckus.

"I don't care whether you are thug or not, but you had wounded me, tainted my gown and stole my worker. I need reparation for all the trouble you have caused me tonight" the mademoiselle sauntered into the living room. She casually ignored Tucker and his friends and went straight to Roux.

She grabbed Roux's hand and forced her to stand up.

"We're leaving now Roux. Said good bye to your man now" she casually instructed .

"Do you really think I'm going to let you go just like that?" Mr.Smith who was still looking at the ground suddenly mumbled under his breath.

"I'm sorry what was that?" The mademoiselle replied with hint of sarcasm and amusement in her voice. These filthy men dared to stop her?

Mr.Smith lifted his face and shown his contorted facial expression filled with malicious intent.

"I went through so much trouble to get the doll! I won't let you take it back just like that!" he shouted at the mademoiselle.

Roux's heart was shattered. He had never mentioned her as doll before. Even though it was not a slur , but it sounds almost derogatory coming out of his friends' mouth. And now he was calling her with the same name.

"Why should I give my worker to you? "

"Because she was valuable! We are going to sell this living doll in the black market. She would be sold to the highest bidding and I���m sure there are some wicked Lord out there who wanted a living doll in their possession!" he slowly began to reveal his true intention.

It appeared that the three men must be antique robbers who were active in robbing antiques to be sold illegally in the black market.

While the confession shocked Roux, but the mademoiselle stay composed as if she knew it all along. Well , she is a clairvoyant after all. Nothing could rattled her mundane daily life.

"Roux. Remember this. If you want to seduce any man, make sure he does not have ill intention toward you" The mademoiselle nonchalantly advising the mannequin.

This time it was Roux's time to stayed quite with her head lowered to the ground.

"Let's go!" Mademoiselle Johanne was about to take on step ahead before the three men went to block her path.

"Move" she said monotonously. If anything, the mademoiselle show no fear toward the three bulky men that would not think twice to snap her neck into two!

"Do you think you can leave this place easily. I know all your tricks now! I see that you did not bring any of your weapon with you, you are practically defenseless. Tucker! Don! Hold this woman. I will deal with the doll"

In matter of seconds, the mademoiselle found herself trapped between two bulky man with hideous face. Both of them grabbed both her hand tightly in their fist. The mademoiselle rolled her eyes seeing such a boring an predictable move from both of them.

Meanwhile , Mr.Smith began to approach Roux who had been standing still since the revelation about his true intention whisking her away from the antique shop.

"My dear, come with me. Let us escaped this place together this night" he extended his hand toward her.

He was delighted when Roux reciprocated by putting her hand on top of his. However, his happiness did not stayed long as his body was suddenly lifted to air before being slammed on the cold, hard ground.

"Why…why did you attack me…Roux?"

"Heh! If you wanted to steal things, make sure you studied about them first. Do you know that Roux was quite famous in the underworld as the derange killing machine. You don't want to rile her up if you love your life" the mademoiselle commented while still being held by both Tucker and Don..

By this time, Roux was already going after Don and Tucker. She stomped Tucker's stomach a few times till he spit blood out of his mouth. Afterward, she slammed Don's head to the wall repeatedly.

Mademoiselle Johanne was leaning against the door acting as if it was a usual occurrence to her.

She began to reminisce the day she encountered Roux many years ago. Even though Roux was already in mannequin form when they first met, Johanne could not forget about the tragic story of Roux and her family, told by the previous mademoiselle.

More than 60 years ago, Roux was a mentally unstable teenagers who was burdened with the task of taking care of her younger siblings since she was young.

Years of bottling up dissatisfaction and resentment resulted with Roux developing her second persona who was much more darker and cruel.

She ended up murdering all her younger sisters by setting up each incident as unfortunate accident. However she was caught red handed when she failed to kill her last sister. She ran away from her house and contemplated to kill herself before being discovered by a witch.

The witch offered her a new life by transferring her soul into a mannequin. That evening, the villagers found Roux lifeless body and assume that she had committed suicide. Little did they knew that Roux's soul had been trapped into a mannequin and she was forced to do dirty deed by the witch.

That was how she was came to known as the Derange Killing Machine by the Underworld Associate. She procured the nickname as she would wept uncontrollably seeing splashed of blood after mercilessly violating her victims.

The truth was, the killing machine was actually consist of a soul with two personality. The genuine and kind Roux could never stand seeing blood and violence while the other much violent Roux could not stand the real goodies- two- shoes Roux.

Therefore she lived a very tormented life under the watch of the evil witch before being rescued by the previous owner of The Morpheus. Since then, she became the permanent face of the antique shop.

Up until now, Roux would still frequently switching between her innocent and violent personality. Her violent personality would always up to try to seduce the men who passing through the street while her innocent personality always thought that she was cruelly put in the shop and need to be rescued.

In a twisted turn of event, the innocent Roux had always had her memory of the evil witch overlapped with the mademoiselles of The Morpheus. It was actually the recipe of disaster for Mademoiselle Johanne who already had handful things in her hands already.

"Roux, that's enough. You are going to kill them" she reprimanded the mannequin.

Roux stopped hitting Mr.Smith's face and began licking the blood on her knuckles.

"Ouhh…come on mademoiselle…. I still had not gotten to the best part yet" she pleaded.

"No. We are not going to kill anyone tonight nor are we going to kill anyone ever. Come on let's go"

The mademoiselle blew forgetfulness drug to the three of them before leaving the house.

"Mademoiselle, who do you think they are actually"

"Well, they said that they were antique robbers"

"Ordinary antique robbers should not know about my existence. It seemed like this street thugs know about the Underworld Associate….eikkkk…what is this blood!!!" the innocent Roux seemed to be appeared again as she was freaking out about the blood on her body.

Ignoring Roux's scream, Mademoiselle began to ponder about the street thugs. She had already gave them forgetfulness drugs so that they would forget about the entire fiasco including about the underworld's existence.

The three of them seems to be just ordinary antique robbers. How did they get the information about the underworld and the antiques shop. There must be someone who had been using these thugs to create chaos in her shop. She need to increase the security around the shop before they get into more trouble.

"MADEMOISELLE!!! THERE'S BLODD ON MY HANDS!!!" Roux was practically yelling at her ear while tugging on her sleeve.

"Shhh…slow down Roux, you are going to wake up the entire street" she scolded the mannequin.

It seems like she needed a new staff to look after the shop now. She could no longer depend on Roux alone!