Curse the Mainframe! 321 Territory

Blanche and Alec moved a few cities down, nearer to where Alec's group of three Main Characters were no doubt causing endless amounts of chaos, but not near enough that they would come across each other without arranging to meet up first.

They didn't do so because they had something to do first.

They'd discovered a little black booklet within Diane Ross' stash, as well as her diary. The information in there was enlightening to say the least.

Though there weren't any names in the little black book, there were rather apt descriptions, and it was more helpful than not.

There were so many people inside there that were implicated that it was more than a little disturbing.

There were also a few conspiracies that the woman herself had discovered and wrote into another separate diary that Alec had liberated from her care.

The woman was not dull; rather, she was intelligent.

It was only that the tragic loss of her child had set her down such a dark path when she saw the sheer joy that her sister had, while she herself despaired and mourned.

She had never been able to get over the loss of her yet-unnamed child. A loss that had been brought about from vile miscarriage-medicine that had been fed to her by her husband's then-lover.

Not only had she lost her child, she discovered that her husband had been cheating on her immediately after. The series of events that led her to discover that the result of her loss was not her own fault, but rather a plot from someone else sent her over the edge.

Diane tumbled into the darker, dirtier side of the Awerk continent, and she didn't see anything wrong with it.

Why should others be happy while she herself suffered?

Flipping through more pages, Alec took in the words that dripped with hatred for the happiness of her sister and her nephew, as well as the revenge that she had sought on her husband and his lover.

Talisha's discovery about her husband's unfaithfulness and subsequent revenge for her had left her bereft of a target for her hatred, as she had only just killed off her husband's lover.

That just sent her deeper down. Though Travis and Talisha were from a single-parent family, they were still happy while she had no one, and now she was left without anything to do.

Diane Ross had become a very twisted individual under the guise of her everyday life.

She could have spirited away Travis at any time when he was younger, selling him off to the already blossoming human trafficking business that she was a part of.

However, she did no such thing.

Instead, she wrote about how she wanted them at the heights of happiness before she brought it all crashing down.

She'd whispered various words into her nephew's ears that could be taken in an innocent way, planted the most unsavoury criminals near him without a second thought.

The people that had led him down a similarly twisted path of life to ensure that he left behind a trail that would be hard to deny and wipe clean.

All so that one day, Travis Ross deeds would be exposed to the world when he inevitably went 'missing' in an attempt to find him.

The trail that tracked back would cast him in the dirtiest light possible, and the clan would cast him off from their books, expelling him once and for all.

Not only would her nephew still be alive and suffering, her sister would also hit similar levels of despair that she had when she lost her own child.

Then, Diane Ross would whisper back the words that meant *nothing*. 'It's alright,' she would whisper to her distraught sister.

Without a conscience and without any more morals to speak of, Diane went down a path of no return.

Alec read on more and more, feeling disgusted.

It was truly a view into the human psyche where they lost something precious and irreplaceable to them, then have to compare their loss to the happiness of someone so close to them.

There was an almost clinical and methodical way that Diane Ross had planned this out for years.

Her patience was commendable, but that was all.

Everything else was despicable in the worst way.

There was an almost casual violence that bled off of the words Diane Ross wrote in her diary, as if she no longer cared about whether she herself lived or died. The way she spoke about what she wanted to see happen to those closest to her.

Diane Ross was a woman that had gave into despair and wanted to inflict similar levels of despair on those around her.

She was cold, bone-deep, and she had been for a very long time. She was just a consummate actor.

She acted as if she was concerned with her family, her friends, and she moved in a way that drew no attention to herself whatsoever.

All the while, she murmured words into the right ears, and she worked exclusively from the shadows.

People went missing both inside and outside the clan, but nothing ever came from it.

Even her plans had plans, and everyone who knew her described her as kind and gentle. But she trusted no one but herself.

Alec was honestly shocked at just how much vitriol someone could infuse into their words on paper.

Her plans had been written down in so much detail it was honestly disturbing.

And it had been working pretty much perfectly. Travis' personality had been shaped almost as much by her as he had been by his mother. However, Talisha obviously hadn't been able to counteract Diane's poison on her son.

It was like Diane didn't care that one day all the evidence she had could be used against her. She had completely lost herself, and she didn't care whether or not she lived or died once she'd achieved her goals.

If it hadn't been for Alec and Blanche breaking into her place to look for evidence against the slave traders, she'd likely not have been exposed at all, and continued to live normally.

It sickened Alec.

The worst part of it was that Alec couldn't stop reading her poisonous words because the descriptions about her meetings were thrown in as well, and sometimes they were so subtle that Alec had to read it seriously.

Her words dripped with so much malice and hatred that a lesser person would likely either have self-destructed reading her words or have been utterly put off altogether, giving up.

Alec actually had to take a break a few times from reading that diary because of how utterly disgusted he felt inside. The revulsion he felt was so strong that he had to blow off some steam by killing various monsters in a nearby forest.

He also sparred (and lost) against Blanche numerous times.

The taste of defeat was more relieving than it had ever been, knowing that he wasn't and would never be like Diane Ross. He did not inflict harm on his own people.

But still, there were a few similarities between the two of them that Alec could see, and he didn't like it. He didn't like thinking that he was in any way similar to one Diane Ross, who would do anything she could do reach her goals, no matter who got hurt in the process.

But there was one thing that calmed him.

He worked for the benefit of both himself and the people he held to himself instead of bringing them down like Diane Ross was doing.

Alec blinked his eyes, shutting the diary full of malice. He cross-referenced it with the little black book, but half of his mind was wandering.

Still, he could and would go through people if it meant that he'd be able to keep his territory safe.

Alec paused. Territory? Was this what he was treating those people close to him?

Suddenly, Alec wondered whether it was in a Sin's characteristics to be protective over their 'territory' which would spur a murderous rage once it was infringed on.

He thought about his Spectres, and Blanche, and couldn't quite make a connection just yet.

But it bore thinking about.

Anyway, Alec finished looking through the little black book.

He'd come to the conclusion that Diane Ross was relatively high up the slave-trade roster, and she had been careful enough to avoid implicating the people within it though she didn't care about her own details.

Alec narrowed his eyes.

Chapter end

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