Page 124 of Sin

“He can control them like that?” Jinx asked, horrified.

“Yes, he’s able to give them orders, and they have no choice but to follow them. They’re his own little puppets. He can even keep them frozen in the same state that they died too. But he has to have touched them once they were dead in order to reanimate them. It’s not like he can go to the cemetery and start raising the dead without touching the corpse first. But once he’s touched the deceased body, he can control it at any time. Even if he’s not around it.”

This was worse than we’d thought. I’d thought he needed to be arrested when he was just your average depressed and woe-is-me serial killer, but thinking back to the victim’s bodies? I recalled all the stab wounds, and felt sick knowing they’d not only died, but died twice.

“So I’m guessing you confronted Keith about what you saw?” I guessed.

He nodded. “Yes, I tried to attack him, but I was weakened after digging through Trixie’s mind. That, and with my heightened emotions, Keith managed to escape. And I’ve been looking for him ever since.”

“So you didn’t kill Jessica? Or her cousin?” Mare asked, almost sounding relieved. I wondered if the thought of her dad murdering the cousin, who had been innocent in all of this, had been gnawing at her.

“No,” he said quietly, his gaze shuttering. “I’m assuming that once he knew his game was over, he still needed to keep up his ruse with the teams looking into this case. Hence, why you continued to find more bodies seemingly killed in the same ways.”

Jinx’s eyebrows, well, the skin where his eyebrows should have been, drew together. “If you knew they were already dead, why did you continue to go to their homes? I get it was possible they’d been given some of your file to hide away or whatever, but it just seems like too much of a risk when you know people are looking for you.”

Lucas, if possible, looked even more ashamed of himself. “I went to the homes because Keith also left me some C9 at each one. Almost like he wanted to placate me. And I… I didn’t, don’t, know how to function without it.” His voice wobbled as he added, “This is the clearest my mind has been in years.”

“Why didn’t you ever look into Keith’s mind?” Because that was something I’d been wondering about awhile. Because how had he not seen that Keith was manipulating him? How had he not seen that he’d killed everyone and started this awful game?

“I know it doesn’t make sense, but after losing my memories, forgetting who I was and why I was even there in those labs, not understanding why I was being tortured and injected with drugs and having my brain operated on… I latched on to the first person to show me any kindness.”

“Keith,” I guessed.

He nodded. “Keith. He was the only one there who showed me any kindness or sympathy. I was so confused and scared and in so much pain. In some messed up way, I started to consider him a friend. So I never used my power on him because I didn’t want to. I had no reason or need to control him or look into his head. It was a line I never planned to cross with him.”

“Until you discovered what he’d done,” London said.

“Yes.” He shrugged. “Keith posed this plan to help me get revenge, but I think it was also for him. It was like he’d conjured some fantasy in his head of dealing out justice on them, romanticized the two of us killing.”

Lewis whistled, drawing Blade’s attention. He held up something for her and she snatched it up. Grinning, she moved to stand before Lucas. She extended a small, dark green bracelet. He cautiously grabbed it, but she didn’t let go. From her other hand, she lifted a pair of dampening cuffs, making him flinch. “I need you to promise you won’t use the suit against us. We’re risking a lot here by entrusting you with a Super suit. We need to know that the moment we’ve got Keith, you won’t fight us and will put on the dampening cuffs.”

Slowly, he nodded, still eyeing the cuffs with fear but resolution. “I promise.”

She studied his face some more before giving him a small, nearly imperceptible nod and letting him take both the bracelet and cuffs from her.

He set the cuffs on the couch and cocked his head at the bracelet before slipping it on. “What is it?”

“A friendship bracelet,” I quipped, making Blade roll her eyes and Mare snicker.

“It’s your suit,” Blade said.

Lucas frowned down at his wrist. “This is the suit?”

“Something wrong?” Blade asked, one of her brows quirking upward.

“Oh, uh, no. I just thought it would be… I don’t know, bigger? Maybe have a little more coverage, at the very least.” He bit the inside of his cheek and regarded Blade. “Is this because of your eye? Look, I’m really sorry about—”

Blade sighed. “You need to say, ‘Eye, eye, captain.’ ”

He stared at her. She stared back.

“Is this because of your eye?”

“Completely.”

Lucas’s cheeks flamed, but he said, “Eye, eye, captain.”

Instantly, the suit enveloped his body. His suit was a simpler design, reminding me of Mare’s. The main part of the suit was black, but the boots, gloves, and mask were all a toxic shade of purple. But where Mare’s breastplate and shoulder pads were black, his were white gold. Glinting from the center was a bright purple “L”.

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