"Wh-What are you talking about, sweetie? Didn't you say that you didn't remember anything from the crash much?"
My mother spoke with a pale face, her gaze trying to regain its calm as she lightly patted my head. Receiving it, I turned to look at her, our eyes meeting, as I spoke.
"I don't remember much about the crash, but I do have glimpses of flashes in my memory about Dad being in a phone call and the crash happening just after it."
This dialogue from Lex only made Serena paler, her eyes losing a bit of their focus as she asked.
"Then why didn't you say anything about this sooner?"
"I only recently started to have these flashes. I thought these were just some small lapses, but now I am sure these are firm memories of mine. Plus, I am not sure if the phone call itself was important."
My words brought a quiet atmosphere to Serena, her mind working as she spoke.
"You don't have to worry about it; we had already talked about the phone call, and it had gone to Kaelum. It was some business call."
"Oh...."
All Lex spoke as he took his eyes off his mother and just leaned into her chest, his face revealing nothing, for he already knew the details about the call were thoroughly looked after by his family, and seeing that it was to Kaelum, it was quickly concluded as a business talk, as Kaelum himself had affirmed it.
But that wasn't the full truth. The full truth being the fact that the call from Kaelum was informing his father about the death of Tracy's mother, a call telling how Serena had killed his father's lover using the pretence of an accident.
It was such an action that led to the accident, which caused the death of Lex's father, a sin that his mother has to carry, one that is breaking her mind slowly but perfectly.
And Serena knows better than anyone in the world who killed her husband, and it being her, even an indirect one, still makes her go crazy at times.
And it is on this link that Lex will be using to get his mother, whose mind isn't very well right now. After his father's demise, her mind hasn't been well at all, but for him and his sisters, his mother lives on.
Yet piece by piece, she is breaking. She needs her anchor, the one to hold down her obsession, and above all, she needs to accept the guilt, anger, and shame eating her up, and one way to do that is to get the forgiveness of either him or his sisters.
But in Serena's mind, it would seem that it will never happen, leading her to develop her outbursts at times to get her craziness out of her, the outbursts giving her a refreshing cleanse that gives her sanity a boost to keep going.
'But I don't want that.'
Lex wants his mother's mental stability to fall into peak despair, and it's then that he shall strike. After all, in the most devastating of situations, everybody will make small mistakes, and it's that mistake Lex is hanging on to help him out.
When Lex had awakened his powers in the 'past,' it wasn't useful to survive in the world that was full of chaos, yet he just didn't survive that hell; he thrived in it to become something huge. And he did it by controlling and manipulating all the people around him.
Lex's ability {Absolute Mind And Memory Reading} made it possible to know and understand a person much better than anyone else, and to use it to its max capability. Lex learned about psychology, and he started to know and understand everything there is to know about the mind.
Social cues, the subconscious actions, the slow, steady actions of the mind, and more, with everything, he became a master, even from a young age. Lex had the innate quality of understanding and deciphering a person, an ability to subtly understand a person better than the person themselves.
And when he learned upon it and combined it with his natural talent and ability, there wasn't anyone within the multiversal level that Lex couldn't play around with; heck, in the end, even the primordials that watch over the right of balance fell under his schemes.
And that's why Lex, who has lived a very, very long time, knows better than anyone the perfect understanding of how to subtly control and play with the mind, and in this case, his mother, Serena, will be the first one to feel a good blend of his abilities.
'And it shall start with me filling her mind with suspicions all around.'
The light question from him now has rattled his mother, bringing in the memories she so dearly wishes to bury deep within her mind, this adding along with the fact that her outburst time is coming, will make her mind a bit more unstable.
But that will just be the beginning of his plans; he didn't spend all these days fully immersed in his mother's happiness without a plan. First, by now, he has placed his mother's happiness and attachment value to him at the highest point.
And now he shall slowly start to chip away the stability built so hard by his mother, and with his help, for Lex had made sure to become a very powerful pillar of Serena's stability.
'And now the subtle attacks.'
"Um...but I still want to look into it."
Lex 'absentmindedly' muttered out as he still sat in his mother's lap, her hands pausing her patting for a moment, and Lex didn't need to turn around to look at his mother to know that a look of fear must have passed through her.
The 2nd part of his plan involves slowly building up the constant suspicion and pressure within Serena's mind. Lex knows that his mother knows she did a very good job of hiding her tracks on how things went down.
She also did the perfect job of shutting Kaelum down, holding his family the perfect hostage to keep his mouth shut about the fact of the accident, which is another thing that led to Kaelum supporting Tracy with all his heart, else he in a million years he would have never thought about betraying Lex's family, for he to his ancestors owes his family too much.
'Guess I have that to deal with too.'
As Lex mused to himself, his mother spoke along with her pat.
"Son, if you get more visions about the accident, speak to me, okay?"
The sudden loss in Serena's every present confident voice wasn't gone unnoticed by Lex as he responded with his trustful voice.
"Of course."
And with this, the other part of the constant tension of the condition 'if' might start, the if that Lex might uncover more, the if that his memories might give him a powerful hint, or the if that his recovering accident memory shall show him the truth, or the if that his father must have told him something.
All of this 'if' shall keep feeding his mother until Lex starts to move all the pieces around the block, hence he slowly went into a good, deep sleep with his mother's light patting, making sure to leave his mother a very slurpy mess of thoughts.
…..
"So my mother must have come to see you, yes?"
Lex asked in a light tone as Kaelum stood in front of him, his eyes widening in shock for a moment as he tried to hide it.
"I don't know what you are talking about, young master."
Kaelum replied in a calm tone, displaying his expertise as his acting was impeccable. Lex smiled subtly at it, enjoying his play for a moment as he dropped the bomb.
"I know where your family is being held."
These sudden words from me fully dropped the act from Kaelum.
"You-Young master, wh-"
Lex stopped his words with his hands as he spoke.
"They are safe and happy for now, and I shall get them back to you in a few weeks."
This declaration from Lex brought tears to the hardened man; he didn't question Lex on how and why, after everything Lex had shown to Kaelum, he had to come just underneath and follow Lex's words to the T, and seeing the moved expression of Kaelum, Lex kept a sly smile on his face.
'Good with this, I will have his full loyalty.'
Lex, as mentioned before, is impeccable in reading humans and understanding their natures, and in all of essence, Kaelum is a powerful and loyal man to his death, and one that keeps his words, plus he is immensely talented and isn't some naïve person.
After all, Kaleum was his father's shadow that dealt with the darkness his father commanded on, and every step Lex took until now was to get this man on his side, and getting Kaelum's family back to him will be the last straw that shall complete his plans.
After all, Kaelum's family consists of his wife and his lovely daughter, who is currently 12 years old and shall be the future best friend of Tracy, a powerful character that will be of good use to Lex.