Chapter 14: Missing

Chapter 14: Missing.

When Veronica had stepped out of the shop, she felt weird probably she was sad because she was unable to fulfil the old lady's desire. Going ahead she saw Ralph waiting for her.

"Are you done?" he asked her, for Veronica to hum softly. Together, they went back to the place where the carriage was left.

When they reached the carriage, Ralph stopped abruptly, it looked like he had forgotten something.

"lady Veronica please can you be patient for a while, I forgot to purchase one last important item."

"What is it?" Veronica asked him, as she already felt uncomfortable staying there.

"Binoculars" he said for Veronica to pause before nodding her head, "I will back jiffy." He dashed out of the place, floating to the place he wanted to buy the item from.

Veronica waited for a few seconds, before getting a little tired and uncomfortable, every seconds that passed brought an irk to her bones, and she wanted to leave there as soon as possible. Getting up from where she was staying, she stepped down from the carriage, she wanted to turn around, but then, she heard the coach man call her.

"Milady where are you going?"

"I'm just going to take a short look around the market, don't worry I would be back." She said to see the Coachman who had a look of disapproval in his face. Turning around, she left the place, going to the out sketch of the market, Veronica noticed how the coachman had skeleton hands, and it scared her at first when she had looked at his hands.

 As Veronica was passing by a well-organized shop, a gown caught her attention, it looked like it was brought up for advertising, going to the place to see the view of the cloth more clearly, she found out that it was not only her that the gown had caught its attention, but there was another lady who stood by her side, her mouth was wide agape as her eyes ranked the clothes from top to bottom, but Veronica, had also noticed the dirty clothes she had on, the looked like rags, and Veronica wondered whether she would ever get such expensive clothes.

As Veronica's mind was still far lost in the beauty of the cloth, she did not notice the two men that kept on pointing at her.

"Hey isn't that the lord's wife?" the first man asked for the other one to nod his head quickly.

"I've heard from various resources that she is the one who has a soul."

"A soul you say," he murmured to himself, stroking his chin slowly, before a wide smile formed on his face, "Gary, it looks like we have hit our jackpot." He said to the other who had his heard turned sideways, as he was confused of what the man had said. But after a few minutes of looking at him, it looked like the Gary had caught up with his idea, "Get the carriage for me while I take this lady to a beautiful dream world." He said picking up the stick by his side, while Gary dashed out to get the carriage. Veronica was already in a very lonely spot where only a few people passed that route.

As Veronica was busy glancing at the cloth, she felt someone hit an object on her head with full force bringing out a piercing pain and Veronica fell down to her knees. She turned around to see who it was but her eyes had already turned hazy making the person blurry, she groaned, placing her hand on her head to feel something wet on it, it was blood! Her eyes turned wide on this revelation as her environment started fading until she fell down unconscious.

The man who noticed the woman, who had fallen limp on the floor, going to her, he used his hand to tap her face to see whether she would wake up but she didn't and the man smiled brightly seeing his accomplishment.

"Mark I have brought the carriage." Gary said shaking Mark off his thoughts.

"Come on help me carry this Lady." And together, they held Veronica from either side of her body and carried her into the carriage. They closed the door of the carriage, before they came to straddle their horses and they rode away. 

At the other side, Ralph came back holding a small brown sack in his hands, when he stepped closer to the carriage, he noticed that Veronica wasn't inside it, going to the coachman he asked.

"Where is Lady Veronica?"

"Sir Ralph, milady told me that she was going for a brief walk around the out sketch of the market" he said noticing Ralph frown deeply, "I already didn't approve of it but she was so adamant on going, so I let her off. After all who I'm I before the lord's wife?"

"Even though she was so adamant you could have followed her!" he shouted at the coachman, he couldn't believe that he had left the Lady Veronica on her own in such a huge market, now where were they going to start from to look for her?

"And leave the carriage on its own?" the coachman said arching his brows slightly as Ralph signed softly, he knew that it was not entirely the coachman's fault as it was his fault as well, if only, he didn't bring Lady Veronica to this place, then she would have not been missing, in the first place, but he had always seen the little curiosity that floated in her eyes about this place, all he wanted to do was to fulfill her desires, who could have known that this would happen?

As Ralph was thinking of a way to look for Veronica, a lady with a haggard dressing ran towards them, she immediately stopped in front of Ralph and fell on her knees.

"Sir Ralph, Milady have b-been adopted, some men, t-they took her." The woman said in between gasps of air because of how fast she had run to look for help. She was the same woman that was admiring the dress, she had turned to see a woman who was looking at the same clothes she was admiring a few moments back, as she kept on looking at her critically she remembered her to be their lord's wife, finding that as an opportunity to talk to her, she took a few steps forward when she saw a man hit Veronica on her head with a huge stick making her to lose conscious, she immediately hid behind a pillar so that the man couldn't see her. She peeked from the pillar to see another man who came and he whispered something to the first man ear which made him smile, and together they carried Veronica and put her inside the carriage and they were off, she wanted to chase after them but she found out that it would be useless, so she turned to look for help.

The woman, explained the event that had taken place, given them a full and appropriate detailed description, each word she said brought a deep frown to Ralph's face and when she was done, he immediately said.

"Enter inside the carriage," he gave the woman a stern look, which made her shiver before she slowly nodded her head, entering the carriage, "You are going to say, these exact words that you told me to the lord, and if you dear ever lie to us, you do know the weight of your punishment." He finished off his voice as icy and cold as ever.

Soon the carriage was off to the palace, taking the same bumpy route it took before, when they were coming.

*****

Veronica's eyes fluttered opened, feeling pains all over her body, she turned her head to the side because of the bright light that was around the room. Her hands and legs were bounded with ropes and she was trying to remember what had happened, all she could remember was the piercing pain that shot from her head. She shifted her body slightly as she was made to lay on her back, she sat up and shifted her body to a wall, for it to rest there.

"Agh!" she groaned when she tried to move her head and then she heard footsteps echo, she managed to turn her head to the side to see a man walking towards her, and then she saw another man who was behind the first.

"Greetings to you, milady." He greeted when he had stepped closer to her, Veronica heard the slight sarcastic tone in his voice, she wanted to talk, she wanted to ask him who he was and what he wanted from her, to do this to her, but her mouth was covered tightly with a hacker chief and all she could do was to make incoherent noises.

"Mark should I remove the clothe from her mouth? It looks like she wants to say something to us." Gray asked for Mark to nod his head, and Gray immediately stepped closer to her before he loosed the hacker chief from mouth, she gasped in some air through her mouth before she said.

"Who are you? And what do you want from me?" her voice hovered for a moment before it stabilized, she looked down to see her hands were vibrating a lot and she couldn't stop it as she was scared after all.

"Milady don't be scared of us, we are only men seeking for power and you are the only one who can give us this power."

"P-power? Which p-power?" she asked stuttering more than usual.

"Milady we only want your soul," the man said pressing his fingers on the top of her chest, an evil smile spreading wide on her face, "Milady the only way we can get this power is through you, the moment the soul eater is going to take your soul, is the moment we would join the soul eaters and be part of them." He finished off before he laughed loudly, his voice echoing around the room.

"Soul eaters? Why?"

"Don't you know milady, if you get turned into a soul eater you would have more power and strength and that is what you can only use to get through such a cruel underworld" Mark said harshly, before he smiled evilly. He then turned before he said, "Gray, you take care of her. I would be taking my leave, now." And then he left.

When he left, Veronica turned to look at Gray, he looked innocent, she didn't know, why she felt that feeling but then why was he in cohorts with the other man.

"Why are you helping him? You look innocent and I feel it in my very bones?" she whispered her voice as low as ever but the man still heard her, he kept quiet but after a few moments of silence, Veronica turned to look at him and she was shocked at what she saw, he was gritting his teeth as huge amounts of tears fell from his eyes.

"My Brother he loves this life, always having power at our reach," he said wiping his tears that still kept on falling continually, "I don't want power because one must do bad things to gain it and my brother would always choose to do evil things, I don't want to see people get hurt milady, I can't stop him because he would call me a betrayal and he would always remind me of our childhood trauma and every time, I would have to agree. Milady forgive me please!" he pleaded his face fell to the ground and tears kept on falling down from his eyes, Veronica felt complete sympathy for him.

"You know you still have time…" she trailed when he raised his face from the floor to look at her, "You can still free me and I would help you and your brother gain power, through good steps that wouldn't either harm you or your brother." 

"But…"

"But what? There is still time make use of it." She said showing him her chained hands giving him an encouraging smile. Gray closed his eyes before he opened his eyes slowly, he began to move his shaky hands forward and after some few seconds the chains fell down from her hands making a clinging noise. She immediately used her freed hands to remove the chains around her legs.

She immediately thanked the man, and without much time she dashed out of the room, looking for an open door, but all she found was an open window, steadying herself she wanted to jump out the window, she knew that the distance of the window to the floor was very huge, and she was really going to get severely hurt, but what could she do? this was her only choice, and before she could jump out of the window, she felt a strong hand drag her and she fell backwards. 

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Oh my I feel a little bit scared and worried for Veronica, who was the person who dragged her"? had Ashton finally found her?🤧