Page 123 of Sin

“For the first time, I allowed myself to become the monster. I wanted to torture him. But after the second day, I didn’t like how I felt. I’d see how he saw me in his mind, and it… It was too inhuman, too cruel. Too much like him.” Lucas tucked his chin between his legs and still avoided looking at any of us. “I ended his life after that.”

Lucas remained quiet for a while then, reliving those moments. He licked his chapped lips before he spoke again. “Keith didn’t understand when I told him I was done with the plan. He was angry because he’d taken a lot of risks to help me. And there I was, telling him it was all for nothing.”

“That sounds a whole lot like he was trying to manipulate you,” Jinx pointed out.

“Well, it worked,” Lucas said, watching as Jinx chugged an entire 2 liter in one go. “I don’t mean to sound rude, but how are you not throwing up right now?”

Jinx burped, and Blade gave him a high five. He grinned at Lucas as he leaned back on his hands. “I’m always burning through calories super fast. It’s an unfortunate part of my powers. It makes it hard to gain weight.”

Lucas eyed his cut form with a raised eyebrow. “I can think of worse side effects.”

“So what changed? What made you come after Keith?” Mare asked, glancing between her dad and Jinx with a scrunched nose.

Lucas pursed his lips, and an ominous tension filled the room. “I discovered what he’d done.”

“What did he do?” I asked, holding my breath.

“After I’d agreed to the plan again, Keith left me for a week. I thought he just wanted some space after our fight.” Lucas inhaled deeply. “But I discovered recently that during that week he was gone, Keith traveled to every single lab worker’s house and killed them all.”

Every single one of us startled in shock and disbelief. Because we’d seen the reports, stared at those mangled bodies, had discovered Jessica’s corpse rotting in her garage.

“That’s not possible,” London finally said. “We’ve seen the autopsy reports. It would have been very obvious if they’d all died at the same time. All the deaths were fairly fresh when the bodies were discovered.”

I just stared at Lucas, trying to figure out whether he was wrong or if we were missing something.

Lucas rubbed his knees, and I spotted a slight tremor in his hands. “Not if they were reanimated.”

Silence. Absolute, fucking silence.

“Hold the fucking phone,” Jinx started, ignoring Blade’s, “How old are you?”

“You’re saying that Keith… is a necromancer?” London’s gaze drifted, probably thinking back to our encounter with the engineer. “But… How? We got files on everyone who worked at the labs, even Keith, though he was just an engineer. Their files stated whether they had powers or not, and his didn’t claim he did.”

“That’s because his powers didn’t show up until later on in life.” We all waited, reeling with this revelation as Lucas continued. “Do you know about Micah?”

“Uh, sorta?” Mare said, sounding confused why we were changing topics. “He was your friend from trials. He passed away.”

“Yeah. He reminded me a lot of you,” he said, smiling sadly.

“Because their names both start with “M”?” I asked with an agreeing nod.

He startled and narrowed his eyes on me. “No, because he was a dreamer. He was the type of person that when they talked, people listened. He used to tell me of all the goals he had for his life. He wanted to climb a skyscraper, learn six languages, fly to the moon. Really, he wanted to do it all.” Lucas looked down, avoiding our eyes. “They gave him the wrong amount.” Lucas’s gaze turned hazy, and his lips curved in a snarl. “They didn’t double check his dosage during the second round of injections and gave him too much. That’s why he died.”

Mare placed her hand on his shoulder, and he covered it with his own, holding it there as the room filled with somber silence.

“I was there when he passed away, stuck strapped to a fucking examination table and unable to do anything when his body started shutting down,” Lucas continued after getting his emotions in check. “Keith was there too, having been left alone to lock up after the other workers had left early that day. He panicked when Micah’s body started shutting down, probably scared the others would blame him for Micah’s death. He tried chest compressions, the Heimlich. Nothing helped. Long after Micah’s heart stopped beating, Keith continued trying to bring him back. Then one moment, Micah was lying dead on the table, and the next, he was screaming.” Lucas swallowed hard, eyes lost to the horrific memory. “Micah only lived for a couple minutes, and he screamed the entire time. Keith didn’t understand what he’d done. Had vomited all over the floor.”

“So you were the only one who knew?” I asked.

“Yes. It was, I think, in part, why Keith latched on to me. I was the only one who knew he felt like he could confide in.” Lucas sighed. “He was already an outcast, and you know how society views necromancers.”

While I hadn’t ever met one before, I did know people tended to shy away from them. There was something about being so closely involved with death that made people wary.

“How did you figure out that he’d killed the lab workers?” Lewis asked, packing up his bag with his tools. “Why would he even go through all the trouble to make you think they were still alive?”

Lucas pondered his questions. “I think he was scared that if I didn’t have a reason to stay with him, I’d leave. And I already told you that he was lonely and had formed an unhealthy attachment to me. I’m sure it was just icing on the cake knowing he got to exact his own revenge as well. As for how I knew he’d killed them? I saw it.

“Keith used to supply me with C9, and I’d have to ration it. But my power was getting more and more uncontrollable. So I wanted to see if taking a larger dose would help. It did. I didn’t tell Keith what I’d done because I knew he’d be upset. So when we went to Trixie’s house, Keith had no idea that I was so in control. Keith knew I refused to look into their minds, especially since I struggled to control my power enough to sort through their memories and find the ones I wanted. But with my power intact, I decided to risk looking into Trixie’s mind. It was… wrong. That’s the only way I can explain it. The memories were grainy and faded. Rotted. That’s when I saw the memory, her last living memory, of Keith showing up at her safe house weeks before, saying he needed to update the wards. In the memory, Trixie was sitting on the couch while Keith worked and didn’t notice Keith come up behind her. He injected her with something and choked her out. The memory went black after that. In the next memory, it was all distorted, but it showed Keith giving her some pieces from my files to hide in her home.”

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