Chapter 35

"She has DID..." Altair immediately said the word that was on the tip of my tongue. This is more devastating than I thought. But thinking that the violent persona wants revenge, questions roam around my mind.

"If she's called out to seek revenge, why does she obey you?" I ask, with a smirk. Then he smiled. Thinking that he could smile in this situation makes my blood boil.

"Being the reason why she existed, she's very grateful." He smiled mischievously as he turned to face us. I could sense everyone's tensed bodies.

"You've been able to call her out within two days. How much drug did she intake in that short span of time?" Altair asked with irritation in his voice. Vilea's already clenching her fists. Almost everyone's presence is full of rage.

"I guess it took 7 doses to get her other persona to come out." With his answer, Chris is already having trouble to keep his cool. He's never been so angry. Clenching his fists and his shoulders stiff as ever.

"You just had to do that, don't you?" Chris suddenly storms his way towards Dave. Almost landing a punch on Dave's face, a hand saves him. Chris looks up and sees Cherry with the violent vibe. He knew this is not the Cherry he learned to love. She protected our enemy, but it doesn't make her an enemy either. She's manipulated by him. Cherry pushes Chris towards us and protects Dave. We help him stand back up, I quickly spoke.

"Get back on your bed if you don't want this to end violently" I say, slowly walking towards them. I gesture Dave to stop her and he calls her a different name.

"Charmaine" Dave said with a stern voice. She turns to him with a look of confusion. She turns her eyes back and forth from us to Dave. She's trembling. "Stop this. Let's stop."

"Boss... what are you talking about..?" She asks with a sad voice. She's forcing a smile despite her shaking legs. She put her hands on Dave's shoulder and they look into each other's eyes. She laughs sarcastically. "W-What happened to 'everyone will become happy once and for all'..? Was that all a lie..? Or they did something to you. That's right. You would never give up on something you want. I'll just—"

"Charmaine!" Dave's voice echoes through the room. She stops.

"Let's just stop." He just gave her a short answer, looks away right after. She's in complete disbelief of what she heard. She suddenly clenched her hands on his shoulders, gritting her teeth and trembling with anger.

"No! No! NO! Are you out of your mind?! You're not even thinking with that brain of yours and you call yourself a genius?! So now what?! You gonna to get rid of me?! Just like that?! Tell me!! TELL ME!!" She shouts, filling the whole room with her voice filled with anger as she shakes him tremendously.

"Let go of me, Charmaine." Dave says calmly. With no other choice but to obey him, she stops and lets go of him with her shaking hands. She backs one step away from him.

"You're going to get rid of me, aren't you..? You're siding with them now... I can't believe it..." She bursts into a sarcastic laugh. "Why do you even want to have that useless sprout back?! She's so stupid and weak!! I'm definitely a million times stronger and more useful than her!! All she can do is rely on others and can't even distinguish true love from a fake one!! Thanks to her idiotic nature, she got herself into this trouble!"

Thinking back from her statements, I quickly realized what we were still missing. How Cherry ended up there. I think of possible causes but nothing seems to fit into this situation. But I guess we'll find out sooner or later. If we let something slip from Cherry. I mean... Charmaine.

"Cherry.." Vilea says softly, slowly walking towards her. The moment she heard her name, she held her head and groaned. Her legs trembling and she ends up sitting on the bed.

"Ugh don't call me that filthy name!!" She shouts as she shakes endlessly. Vilea raises her hand to let her know that she won't hurt her but Cherry's expression is full of doubt. "Stay away! Don't come any closer!!"

"Please... Let me help you..." Vilea begs. Just a few steps left to reach her, she Cherry shouts again. "Don't you fucking take another step!!" Vilea stops and Cherry takes something from her pocket and points it at her. Everyone turns frightened and back one step away from them. My heart is almost going to drop.

"Vilea!!" Altair shouts as he sees her pointing a gun at his wife. Vilea, wide-eyed, she doesn't know what to do but she continues to shake. Everyone turns tensed as they don't know what will happen next.

"Charmaine!! Drop that gun right now!!" Dave tells her but she's just still. She's hesitant and shaking also. "Charmaine!!"

As he calls her one last time, she shakes as she drops the gun. Everyone sighs in relief and careful tries to help her lay down on the bed. She's becomes calmer now. It gives me a sense of relief.

"Can you guys untie me? It's not like I'm a psychopath or anything, but I'm still in the right mind." Dave says. We all look at each other and come to an agreement. Vilea walks towards Dave and unties him. As Dave stands, he stretches and walks towards Altair. Dave offers a hand but Altair suddenly grabbed his collar roughly.

"Who are you to fucking harm my one and only wife huh?!" He's raging also, and Vilea immediately stops him. She gestures to her husband and mouths 'not now' to him.

"Geez. This polo of mine is even a branded one." Dave says as he fixes his collar. Altair glares at him as he crosses him arms. "Anyway, let me help in treating Cherry. This is a major case and I doubt a psychiatrist will be enough in taking care of her."

"No! Why would you even do that?" Chris suddenly interrupted. "You're the reason why she's like this, and you think we trust you to change that easily?"

"You're risking the oppurtunity for her to get treated" Dave implies. Chris hesitates a while but then takes back what he said.

"Fine" He answers confidently. "But I won't stand still if something happens to her again because of you." He glares at him but returned by a smile from Dave. This just is an optimist, I can see it. Despite what's happened, he doesn't forget to smile. It somehow gives me shivers.

Cherry, already lying down, she looks at our direction. She locks eyes with Dave. Her eyes are slowly covering up with tears, she looks away. I can also see that he's pitying her right now.

In my peripheral vision, I see another figure moving. I turn to see Anette already waking, she's still half-asleep as she opened her eyes. I rush to her and kneel beside her as I immediately hold her hand. She seems to recognize her surroundings but also felt my hand on hers. As she takes a glance to me, she suddenly took her hand back as if she's scared. Suprised, my eyes opened wide.

"Who are you?"