Chapter Twenty Six

It was hard to say whose work it was. Either by the way of God, or the Devil, Melkior Alvarsson had been in the basement at Lily Anne's when Secoiya's team had broken in. It was Alves who had recognised the man and ordered the brothers to contain him. Adriel's team had swept in only seconds after and a melody was playing in the man's head as he approached the basement where they were holding his father.

Danse macabre, to be exact. It was a brilliant symphony and it had been one of his mother's favourites to play on their Sundays together. Adriel's heart was cold as stone and thick as concrete as he stepped through the doorway. He ordered everyone to leave, with a nervous glance from Alves as the only call to reason to be heard. Melkior had been chained around the neck and had his hands tied at the back. Adriel took note at the lack of bindings about his legs and internally cursed whatever amateur had restrained the man.

Adriel hadn't known his father was trying to coerce his sister into having a child until hours ago. He had kidnapped her wife, tortured and beat the hostage, and tried to force Asia into producing a grandchild for him. He had no clue as to why, but to Adriel, it did not matter. Still, he walked with each step agonisingly slow and foreboding over to where his father sat restrained and upright, eyes locked on the boy.

When he was standing over Melkior, he swiftly pulled a knife from the sheath attached to his belt and stabbed it through the man's foot. Melkior groaned in agony against the piece of cloth in his mouth. Adriel found the sight to be so beautiful in its symmetry, in the exactness of its convenience. How ironic was it that the very tactics he'd use to kill his father would be the ones which the man had taught to him.

Adriel's mouth was wet as he smiled down on the man. He removed the gag from his mouth and gave him a few moments to splutter and squirm at the aching pain in his foot. Adriel had no real interest in what his father had to say, he was merely giving him the opportunity to explain himself as a final show of respect.

Melkior finished his fit and stared coldly at his son. He almost found it intriguing that his training of the boy had been this successful.

"You should've known Zayn was incapable of killing me."

Melkior scoffed, bored grey eyes rolling. The room was stuffy and thick with the smell of dried blood and cheap paint. How miserable of a prison.

"And yet I'm the one who had to be his undoing."

Adriel felt nothing of the matter and eyed Melkior with an undefinable emptiness. Neither of them had ever valued Zayn's life and in that way, they weren't really so different. The only thing that separated them was that Adriel was better at hiding it.

"You knew I'd come for you."

Melkior nodded, eyes still dull with boredom and stillness. He had always known.

"I knew."

Adriel tilted his head to the side, feigning curiosity.

"Then why try?"

Melkior hissed, finally his eyes glowing with liveliness as he lurched his chest forward towards the boy as if to strike him. The chains held him back roughly and eventually he fell slack against them. Adriel remained unmoving as he stared down at the venom in his father's eyes.

"The experiment had almost come to fruition! I was so, so very close and if your damned sister had only agreed to my wishes I could change the foundations of modern science forever! You're all pathetically dim little beings, you have no idea what is at stake here."

Adriel found a sadistic sort of enjoyment at his father's anger. He wanted the man to suffer and he knew physical pain wasn't the way to do it.

"And what's at stake?"

Melkior was too lost in his delusions to catch the taunting tone of his son's voice.

"If I can't perfect the serum to advance the genome and make sure it replicates in the offspring of the offspring… It was all for nothing, I did all of it for nothing."

Adriel only needed to push a little farther now, he could feel it. Melkior's otherwise steady voice had diluted into a babbling of incoherency and madness.

"All of what was for nothing?"

Melkior's face contorted to one of great remorse and guilt now as his eyes stung red with tears, voice faltering and wavering as a rasp climbed higher within it. He had never considered the possibility that he wouldn't be successful before.

"Irena-" his voice broke in racked sobs and his body shook, "my dear Irena."

Now Adriel's brows furrowed in confusion as he tried to decipher the incoherent babbling of the deranged man before him. Whatever did he mean by that?

"I ruined her- my dear sweet Irena. She's ruined- dead, and all for what!"

The gun clicked before either could process it, Pap-pap!

Melkior Alvarsson was no more.

____________________________________________________________