7. Stuart

Finishing her flavourless meal, Violet turned to face Edward. Edward was still trying to break the stone-hard bread with his jaw, eyeing her with a sideways glance.

Her hair was a bit of a mess, falling over her eyebrows and brushing against her eyelashes. Though her nose and mouth perfectly complemented each other, it looked like she was deliberately keeping her hair unkempt to make herself look plain—either because she didn't know how to style it, or because she simply wanted to hide her appearance for now.

“Last night, you were at the bar too, right?” Violet asked.

“Y… yes!” Edward replied, finally swallowing a piece of the bread.

“What were you checking for back in the cell?” Violet continued, her gaze sharpening.

“Ahh… admiring your beauty?” Edward offered with a forced smile.

Violet mocked him with a dry laugh. “Sure. Admiring it for a single second and then moving on? You certainly are swift in your ways, Mr. Edward.”

Not liking the direction the conversation was heading, Edward answered with total honesty. “I was looking at everyone's backs for bullet holes.”

Violet's expression went entirely flat. “Did you find any?”

Edward shook his head and went back to breaking his bread.

After a brief pause, Violet asked, “Why do you think they made us unconscious?”

Hearing Violet use the word "us", Edward finally relaxed a little. It was a sign that he didn't have to worry quite as much about the revolver in her hands. With a breath of relief, he said,

“Tur. The bullets are dosed in it. As for how you ladies were knocked out back there, I think it has to do with whatever happened at the bar. Maybe they used Tur as a gas bomb, or who knows?”

“Tur…” Violet clenched her hand into a fist, tapping it against her chin as she pondered his words. After a few seconds, she pressed on. “How did you kill that guy?” She pointed toward the giant's corpse.

“Oh, that! Well... they're running out of supplies. His partner was afraid the giant would use real bullets and kill the workforce rashly, so he took the real ammo away, only leaving the giant with this revolver and three Tur rounds. Robert and I circled around him, and then...”

To illustrate, Edward traced an imaginary rope with his finger, circling his own neck while tilting his head, sticking his tongue out, and rolling his eyes upward.

Violet watched his exaggerated performance closely. She knew it was common for people to die in conflict, but killing someone a full head taller than yourself while completely unarmed was a different story…. One must definitely stay on guard against his kind, she thought.

With a stern face, she asked, “How can you kill so easily?”

Edward realized his graphic mime had agitated her. “Relax, it was do or die! And you're one to talk—you were going to shoot me if I hadn't proven I was a victim. Besides, I have an excuse. I was in the army; I was trained for this. What about you? How did you learn to handle a revolver? Are you a defector?”

“Army...” Violet repeated flatly, her face revealing absolutely nothing. “I refuse to answer.”

Edward gave her a forced smile, thinking... You can just do that? Oh, right, might is right. As he looked at revolver and shook his head in disbelief,

“Suit yourself.”

Edward choked down the last piece of rock-hard bread and moved toward the unopened crates to continue his search. Watching the slate-grey-haired man with shark grey strands go back to work, Violet let out a quiet sigh. Army, huh...

“Look! What I found!” Edward called out with a joyous shout, pulling a long unisex gown from the crate.

Violet, who had been inspecting the remaining bullet in the revolver's cylinder, clicked it shut. She watched Edward wave the gown around, and with a faint, unnoticeable smile, she stood up and walked over to him.

Seeing her approach, Edward coughed into his hand. “...Hey, can you give me the T-shirt back now? That way I'll have a complete set.”

She reached into the box, pulled out a second unisex gown, and gave him a sideways grin. “Why don’t you give me the pants? Then I would have the complete set.”

Edward's smile instantly turned upside down. He quickly pulled the unisex gown over his head and adjusted it on his shoulders. “I am not a thief, and I am certainly not a philanthropist.”

A genuine small smile broke across Violet's face as she donned her own gown, finally covering the rest of her bare skin. “Nice choice of words, Mr. Edward.”

Violet scanned the room. The crates were now entirely broken open and flattened. “What else did you find?”

Edward sighed. “A box of these gowns. Probably thirty in total. With the two on us, there are twenty-eight left.”

“What about the bread and water?”

“One box each. With us eating about four loaves altogether and drinking two pouches of water, we have twenty-two pieces of bread and eighteen pouches of water left.”

Violet looked at him in disbelief. “Only that much? What about all the other boxes?”

Edward shook his head. “Completely empty, all of them.”

With nothing left to search, they both sat down to think. After a few silent moments, Violet asked, “How much time do you think we have before the next guard comes down?”

“Maybe eight hours?” Edward replied, repeating the estimate he had given Robert.

“And how long do you think it will take for the rest of the captives to wake up?”

As if to answer her question, a shaky voice echoed from behind them. “Ahem!!! They... they should be getting up soon.”

Upon hearing the unfamiliar voice, both Edward and Violet bolted to their feet. Violet immediately drew the revolver, using a side glance to signal Edward to do the talking. Seeing that she already had the target covered, Edward relaxed slightly. The newcomer had emerged from the wooden door leading back to the cells.

Edward demanded in a firm voice,

“What’s your name?”

Seeing a woman with striking violet hair aiming a gun directly at his chest, the slender, naked man hoisted one of his hands high into the air and took several frantic steps backward. Terrified she would shoot, he stammered,

“Oh, don’t shoot... please! Don’t! I am Stuart Bills.”

Watching the naked slender man cower in fear as he remembers to hold an empty box near his private parts, Edward smiled to himself, thinking... So that's what it feels like to be on the opposite end of the barrel.

Satisfied the man wasn't a threat, Violet holstered the revolver at her hip, buckling the belt over her new gown.

Edward, watching her lower the weapon, reached into the box behind him, grabbed one of the spare gowns, and tossed it. “Catch!”

Stuart missed the catch, scrambled to pick it up off the floor, and threw it on in the blink of an eye. Once he was covered, Edward asked,

“Were you at the bar last night?”

“Yes!” Stuart replied quickly.

Edward nodded. “Hungry? Need water?”

“It would be my absolute pleasure if you could spare some.”

Edward nodded again, gesturing for Stuart to join them by the crates.

With a hesitant pause, Stuart walked toward the duo. The moment Edward offered him a piece of the stone-like bread and a water pouch, Stuart snatched them as if worried Edward might change his mind. He drank from the pouch greedily, gulping the water down as if his throat were a barren wasteland that hadn't seen a drop of rain in years. Then, he jammed the bread into his mouth, only to find it almost entirely unbreakable.

After several unsuccessful attempts to chew it, he pulled the loaf out, looking entirely defeated. Seeing the pitiful display, Edward offered a tip. “Let it soak in your saliva first, then try to break it.”

Stuart immediately followed the advice. A few seconds later, he found success. Crying tears of joy inwardly, he began to chew the softened pieces.

Crumble... crumble... crumble...

Taken aback by Stuart's sheer desperation, Violet leaned in close to Edward, her breath brushing his ear as she whispered, “Ask him how much time has passed since last night.”

Why me? am I the translator between you two? Lady, if you want to talk to him, use your own mouth... Edward grumbled inwardly. However, he chose to keep his mouth shut, worried that annoying her might ruin the fragile trust they had built over the last few hours.

Taking a deep breath, he looked at Stuart. “Stuart, how much time do you think has passed since last night?”

Stuart stopped mid-munch, looking at the duo with a chunk of bread still wedged in his jaw. “Si... since the night we got kidnapped?”

Edward nodded.

“Almost twenty-four hours, I think.”