Try Begging - Chapter 139.2
The noble cause and the thick comradeship were all illusions… The world she had lived in all her life, the only world she knew, was all an illusion.
The bird opened its eyes.
As it faced the world made of lies and hypocrisy, all the overlooked contradictions started to become clear.
It was a fracture.
“Huh…”
Amidst the dragging steps, the occasional sobs gradually lengthened into cries of pain. The birth was accompanied by pain and destruction. The bird must destroy its own egg to emerge.
“To hell with everything!”
The woman, resolved to break down her world with her own hands to be reborn, tore through the night’s silence with her cry.
The morning before Christmas, the temporary operations base in Chesterfield was much calmer than the night before. The phone still rang with inquiries about the woman’s whereabouts, but the frequency had decreased due to the narrowed search area.
However, the tense atmosphere remained.
Campbell, organizing reports to send to the Western Command, glanced at his superior standing by the window. The captain had his jacket off, and sleeves rolled up as if ready to torture someone.
A list of people he’d likely want to hang upside down ran through Campbell’s mind, but the one truly being tortured at the moment was probably the captain himself.
He looked both intimidating and unstable.
The captain behaved as if he wouldn’t eat or sleep until he found her, guarding the office all night. He must have briefly visited the hotel in the morning for a shower, a shave, and a change of clothes…
Campbell curiously observed the captain’s shirt collar with puzzled eyes.
He must have changed his clothes, but the skewed necktie knot remained the same.
Given the captain’s almost compulsiveness in his attire, it was unlikely he tied his tie that way again. This meant he only loosened the tie by pulling the loop when taking it off and then putting it back on as if putting a noose around his neck, tightening the knot again.
Could it be her doing?
Campbell furrowed his brows.
Escaping after setting a noose… what a terrible woman.
Dozens of privates, briefed with her description, were stationed across eight platforms.
Despite deploying people, Leon couldn’t leave the window offering a view of all platforms. The train she took, the local trains heading towards where Jonathan Riddle lived, including transfer and terminal stations, were all meticulously checked, confirming his speculation.
A conductor testified seeing the woman on the train. The station master of a rural station nearest to the Redhill farm also confirmed seeing a pregnant woman in an oversized coat disembarking from the last train the previous night.
However, there was no sign of her returning to the station; despite hourly checks since train operations resumed, the answer was always that she hadn’t been seen.
Was it too late to restart close surveillance on Jonathan Riddle? The monitors reported no trace of the woman at his place or in his whereabouts.
Instructions were given to increase personnel and search the area, keeping a 24-hour watch on Riddle’s movements without making direct contact yet.
‘And then, on the day she’s smuggled elsewhere….’
The distant sound of a bell indicating an approaching train crossing the railway junction and heading to the station made Leon press the bridge of his nose with his fingertips. It was the eighteenth sound he had heard, meaning he had faced disappointment seventeen times.
“Ah…”
It was foolish. He knew the train schedules.
That woman must have gone to her brother, knowing well that going there would risk capture by him. Yet, the need to go there meant that she had business with him. It wasn’t difficult to guess her purpose.
And with that thought, last night, he reached a conclusion…
…She would return here.
However, the time she could have returned on the first train had long passed.
Seconds felt like minutes, minutes like hours.
How much longer must he wait? Or rather, he hoped she would appear before the last train of the day departed.
As he opened his eyes after a brief closure, he saw a train slowly entering Platform 8. As the train came to a complete stop and its numerous doors began to open, the soldiers spaced along the platform started scanning the disembarking passengers.
Leon’s gaze, moving from the nearest carriage, stopped at a second-class car. Familiar attire, followed by a familiar face emerging from the third compartment, made his heart start pounding.
She had returned.
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