Page 92 of The Mourning Throne
This one was my favorite back then.
He’d been fifteen.
Morgan was twenty.
Lex had snuck into Morgan’s room because—well—hecould. Because hewanted to.He’d gone through the drawers, the closet, notebooks. The little box Morgan kept under the bed.
An animal tooth from god knew what. Wrapped in gauze like it was a prized possession.
Lex had been halfway through trying to figure out what he wanted to take—add to his growing collection—when he heard the front door open.
Morgan, home early. Off schedule byhours.
Lex had barely slid under the bed in time, heart in his throat. He remembered the dust, the bite of a loose spring against his forehead.
Morgan had paced.
Then thrown something—a mug, maybe. It shattered against the wall, and Lex had flinched so hard he almost gave himself away.
But Morgan didn’t notice.
He was talking to himself.
Lex didn’t remember the words, but he remembered how they sounded. Fast and hushed. Then louder. Louder still.
Morgan stripped off his jacket—the sleeve landed an inch from Lex’s cheek. Stormed out again.
Lex followed. Not close. Not obvious. Enough to see.
Into the woods. Camera in hand. An old flip phone. Grainy as shit but heavy duty. Reliable.
He remembered Morgan stopping.
Turning around. Locking eyes with him like he’d been expecting it.
Lex had frozen. Half-step raised. Not hiding. Not running.
Caught.
He coughed when he took the picture.
“I—I’m meeting my friends,” Lex had blurted. “I was texting them.”
Morgan exhaled. One long puff of winter air. “In the woods.”
“Yeah—yeah! Why not? Isn’t that whyyoucome out here?”
It was the dumbest fucking question known to man, now that Lex thought about it as an adult. Obviously leading. Begging for information. Giving upway too much.
Morgan saw right through him. Shook his head. Walked off.
Lex had stood there long after, phone still clutched in his hand. He remembered the way the frost clung to his lashes.
And that moment?
That was the beginning.
Not of the obsession.Thathad started the year before—untouchable, even when he realized it wasn’t normal.
