The announcement cut shortly after, causing the hushed crowd to become instantly clamorous as the aristocrats moved from the stadium seats to the adjoining ballroom.
But in another location, filled with wires haphazardly connecting to a large screen of the arena, the chair in front of the device swiveled around slowly, revealing a tanned woman on the seat. The white of her flowy dress made her sun-kissed skin all the more apparent. However, unlike her warm skin tone, her gaze was icy— blank. Blinking slowly, she took a moment of silence for herself before glancing at her partner.
With dark underbags and closed, thin lips, a pale man on the couch looked as equally exhausted as her. When he noticed her gaze though, he softly smiled— as if his earlier grimace was a lie.
"Natalie, well done," his warm voice tickled her ears.
Her gaze, which was still frozen over, began to melt.
"But… that kid," her cherry lips parted slightly before closing wordlessly. Her gaze lowered to the wood floor. The silence seemed to stretch between them endlessly.
Then the silence broke when the man stood up from the couch. His dance shoes resounded with crisp clacks until they reached her—his wife.
Their clothes rustled as he pulled Natalie into a firm, standing hug. "Don't blame yourself please. If you have to blame someone…" the man bit his lower lip, "then blame me for putting you in this situation."
This comment seemed to revive the lady as she slipped her arms around his neck. "Don't say that, Spencer. You and I both know we are here because of the choices we made together. If there is a place for the damned, I will walk there together with you."
She felt her husband's firm arms tremble slightly at her last words, but it only lasted for a second. Natalie then planted a kiss on his somber face.
"Let's go greet the guests," she murmured close to his ear. A small smile of satisfaction bloomed on her face as she caught the faint hint of red along its edge. Truly, he was too cute…
If she had her way, she would rather drag him back to the couch and coax that reddish flush further down his neck with her trailing lips.
Then she recalled the brilliant flash of blood that spurt out of the young child's neck earlier. Her blood ran cold.
'I guess I've finally lost it… forgetting a life vanished today,' she mocked herself. No longer did her stomach twist and turn with each child's death. Now her emotions felt closer to emptiness— perhaps even indifference. 'But he is different,' she thought as she turned her gaze to Spencer, who remained fixated on her blank expression.
Always paling at the violent dismemberments and closing his eyes at each death, Spencer had never changed much in the past decade. While his voice always sounded cheerful or coldly disappointed, he never could control his facial expressions behind the microphone that mourned each child like they were his own.
'And that's why I fall for you every day,' she mused before softly smiling at his probing gaze. 'That same kindness saved me in the beginning. And if you hadn't taken in the infertile woman I was, I wish I could have given you a child you could protect with your own hands.'
Natalie then gently pushed him away with a playful smile now tugging on her lips. "Spencer, if you keep looking at me like that," she teased softly, "you're going to make me want to do more than simply kiss you."
The faint redness on his ear turned a brilliant red as his concerned gaze shifted— warming into something undeniably heated.
"Buuuut," she drawled lazily, already turning toward the door, "I think we've kept our dear guests waiting longer than they should have." With that, she sashayed toward the door, leaving the air behind her charged.
Though just before her figure entirely disappeared, her hand lingered on the doorway. Natalie glanced back over her shoulder with her face half-hidden, eyes sparkling with mischief. She wet her lips in a deliberately careless motion before letting out an amused chuckle and then— clearly pleased with herself— turned and disappeared down the hallway.
A long, deep sigh drifted out of the room she left, as though it wished to chase her.
…