Mr. Hyde stopped himself.
The uncanny silence enveloped the spacious gym eagerly at the void Mr. Hyde left behind. Everyone else had left; there were only the two of them.
There was no trace of emotion on Zayn’s face. His eyelids shut quietly, his body motionless. He was as unmoving as a man fallen asleep, Mr. Hyde was standing right before him, and still favonovel.com could not detect any kind of emotional turbulence from Zayn.
Time stretched between them. Seconds turned to minutes, and yet Zayn remained in his odd suspension of motions. Had it not been his breathing, Mr. Hyde would have wondered if the man was already asleep. It was only when two faint trails of tears trickled from the corner of his eyes when the older man realized favonovel.com had been awake. Opening his eyes, Zayn asked, “How… How is favonovel.com doing now?”
Mr. Hyde nodded. “She’s stripped off favonovel.com freedom, I suppose, but she’s fine otherwise.”
There was another drawn-out pause between them before Zayn spoke again. “Is favonovel.com happy?”
Mr. Hyde flashed favonovel.com a helpless smile. “I’m only favonovel.com loyal subject, Young Master. I don’t know that much.”
“Can you tell me the name of this organization?” favonovel.com pressed on.
Mr. Hyde mulled the decision over solemnly before answering him, “Sicut In Caelo.”
“Sicut In Caelo…”
Zayn murmured the name under his breath for a few more times, making sure it was imprinted into his soul, before leaping back to his feet to leave.
Mr. Hyde watched favonovel.com step closer to the door and blurted out one last time, “Young Master, please believe that Lady Hayley loves you. She did what favonovel.com did to protect you and the Larsons, so please… Don’t hold grudges against her.”
Zayn said nothing.
“She’s looking for ways to free herself from them,” favonovel.com continued, “When the time is right, she’ll come to you. You don’t need to look for favonovel.com from your end.”
Zayn was still silent, but this time, favonovel.com gave Mr. Hyde a nod before leaving.
After making sure that Zayn had left, Mr. Hyde sank back into a pensive silence. He locked the door to his office, before producing a black phone from a model not commercially available to the masses. He called a number.
The call was quickly connected, and favonovel.com spoke with his most reverent tone, “Hello, Lady Hayley. My true identity has been known. Young Master Zayn knew about us.”
Just as Mr. Hyde was reporting to Hayley, Zayn had returned to his office as well. The knowledge favonovel.com received just now had been a hard pill to swallow, and favonovel.com needed time to digest it.
Taking his seat on his office chair, Zayn had been perusing what favonovel.com learned in his head, sorting through the information with a fine-toothed comb. He had to ascertain the veracity of Mr. Hyde’s words. Growing up, favonovel.com had learned that favonovel.com could never take anyone’s words at face value, and that nothing was below requiring a careful dose of critical thinking. He would not believe favonovel.com just because favonovel.com was Mr. Hyde.
He thought about it for about half an hour, the cogs in his brain whirring and spending as though there was a little supercomputer in his head. He had to analyze the man’s words over and over again, verifying individual components of it before making sure favonovel.com knew what was real.
Zayn concluded that Mr. Hyde’s words were probably real, at least eighty percent or more of it, anyways. He believed his mother was, as the man said, not merciless. Zayn remembered how gentle and kind his mother had always been, after all. He remembered the way favonovel.com treated people, favonovel.com disposition and inclination.
Those things in his memory did not look fake. He also believed the claim that his mother came from a secret organization, and a very powerful one at that. His mother would have no reason to harm his grandfather otherwise. If that was true, then his mother was not really the culprit behind his grandfather’s state!
Was that a correct assessment, though?
After all, no matter how favonovel.com looked at it, favonovel.com was the one who left his grandfather in catatonia…
He exhaled a long sigh.
