CHAPTER FIVE // OWEN LUX WESLEY

[WORD COUNT: 2337]

[TOTAL: 17735]

• † •

“Welcome back,” I grinned to Bane as he entered my apartment. He held two luggages containing god knows what and radiated a aroma of numerous scents you only obtained when you traveled often. He dropped his luggage near the front door and collapsed on the living room couch, running a distressed hand through his hair.

“Hello Lux,” His voice was deeper than usual, slightly husky as well. “You were saying, on the phone that we had lots to discuss? What happened while I was gone?”

“Well,” I began, excitement pouring out of my eager tone as I sat next to him. “Besides a death every now and then, I decided to play a new game with five or so people. I started this Saturday. It mainly involves torture of people that bother me throughout the week, and their grand prize? Death.” I snickered. “And get this–one of the people that were in the massacre was this guy names Mason Dupont, who is the brother of a homicide detective named Lynn who was interrogating me yesterday.”

Bane frowned. “Interrogation? Does she suspect you?”

I shook my head. “Not even a little bit. If anything, she’s a bit attracted to me.” I grinned, remembering her adorable flustered face when I told her that I knew Mason was her brother.

“It sounds fun and all, but also reckless,” He pointed out. “You need to be careful with this. Something tells me that this is going to be the last time you’ll get away with the ‘perfect murders’ you’ve been doing these past few years. And I don’t doubt that this Lynn girl won’t go all the way to hell and back to make sure that you stay in jail.”

I pursed my lips and shoved him, feeling a bit of anger rise, as well as frustration. “You’re reading too much into this.”

Bane gave me a deathly look. “I know about killing and police officers more than you do, Lux. So don’t even think about hinting towards that you know more than me–the fact is that you don’t. I’ve been a trained killer ever since I was born and know these type of situations and what happens to rookies when they make a wrong step. What, you’ve been in this business since you were what, seventeen–eighteen?”

Before he could continue, I interrupted him. “Don’t you dare speak to me that way,” I said through gritted teeth and with a glare of my own. “You know that my skills are better than any of those ‘born to kill assassin's’ you recruit so don’t test me.” Like I said a million times before, Bane was extremely fortunate that he was one of the people I trusted the most. If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t hesitate to lodge a knife in his throat.

Bane didn’t say anything and focused his attention towards the turned off TV. He reached to grab the remote and turned it on, the nasally voice of the newswoman filling the tense air.

“According to officials which still haven’t released a statement regarding the bag that was sent to Decint County, but we have found out the names of the victims who died two days ago.” She recited the names and this time I didn’t hide the shivers of pleasure of their blood curling screams for mercy. “The autopsy on the victims reveal that they were heavily tortured for hours, until the culprit ended their lives and proceeded to send the heads of the victims to Decint County. Police officers haven’t released any leads whatsoever regarding who is responsible, causing many citizens to wonder what they are doing.” The screen flickered towards a man with his arm over his wife, having an angry expression on his weary face.

“I would suggest that you start looking into Lynn,” Bane suggested, slicing through the tension in the air with ease as I blocked out the man’s opinion on the matter.

I frowned. “She’s harmless.”

“You may think that she’s harmless, but she isn’t.” he said. “I’m just warning you Lux, I’d hate for this to be the end of everything we had to go through. Get rid of her before it gets out of hand.”

“Whatever,” I shrugged. “I’ll do it soon.” I driften my attention towards the news and listened to the woman for updates.

“... released a date to all of the families and friends who would like to give their condolences and say their last goodbyes to the victims that were sacrificed, tomorrow and Bridgewright Cemetery.”

“You hear that?” I grinned, and then shoved him when he gave me a look. “I’ll tune into Lynn don’t worry, I’m just going to start by attending this funeral tomorrow.”

• † •

I had attended the funeral just in time before Lynn was rushing on stage to speak. I was at a fair enough distance away, far enough that I could see her but far enough that she couldn’t see me. I could see that she looked terribly distraught and was close enough to cry.

“To the people who do not know me, I am Siara Dupont. All of us are here today to grieve the loss of these people that were brutally murdered by someone who is probably out there watching this with a smile, though he should be paying for his sins.” As if on cue, I grinned, knowing that I was in a safe spot to do what I please without someone watching me. “These people–Ashley Janson, Joshua Abran, Maria Destiny, Sheryl Larke, and Mason Dupont deserved something greater than death. They were amazing people and had amazing lives with people who cared for them deeply. Unfortunately it was ripped out of their grasp as soon as death wrapped itself around them and took them away from us.”

“They did deserve it though,” A simper made it’s way onto my face as I heard her speech.

“To the family of the victims, I want to personally tell you that I know what you are feeling. Mason Dupont, who was apart of the victims was my brother and I cared about him more than you can possibly imagine. I want justice for these people as much as you do, and I just want to promise you all something.” She took a pause. “I want to promise you all that I will find the culprit responsible for this and put him to jail.”

I half frowned, realizing that Bane was right and I was wrong. But I would never admit that to him, since I hated being wrong.

“I know that it’s a hard promise to make but I want to give you something to be hopeful for. I personally will place the person responsible in jail, wherever you are. I–I know that this speech is crap, so I’ll end this before it gets worse. I want to say I’m sorry to everybody who is grieving and I hope that together we can find ourselves out of this mess the culprit created.” She then proceeded to run off stage. I didn’t miss the tears cascading down her rosy cheeks as a plan formulated in my mind.

I escaped from my hiding position and stalked towards the direction Lynn ran in, hoping that none of her petty friends would follow since they thought she needed space. She ended up hiding near a huge tree, curled into a ball and crying. I hid my grin of satisfaction, knowing deep down that I enjoyed causing her pain, because it was personal. Whenever things turned personal the pain escalated to a whole new level and because of that my amnesic facade was turned on.

“Lynn?” I masked shock on my face as she sniffed loudly while her head snapped up. Her eyes were blotchy and stained with tears and her whole face was red and puffy.

“Lux!” She didn’t hide her shock or embarrassment as she immediately stood and wiped her tears away. “I didn’t know that you were attending the funeral.” She fixed her wrinkled skirt and squared her shoulders.

“Are you okay?” I faked concern into my tone and rested a hand on her shoulder, very well noticing how she tensed at my touch.

“I’m fine,” She insisted.

“It’s alright to cry,” I said softly, using my other hand to tilt her chin up so she could look into my eyes. I had to hide my smirk, because I was using my biggest weapon in the box. I was toying with her feelings and sense of right and wrong and she had absolutely no idea what train wreck was coming in her way. If only she knew, that the hand she was holding was the exact same hand used to kill her brother…

Lynn seemed torn between sinking into my comforted touch or leaning away for sake of embarrassment. She then surprisingly leaned into my chest and began to cry, full out wrecks of sobs and shouts of pain. I felt no regret or even guilt, for there were emotions that I am quite unfamiliar and unassociated with. I instead welcomed the feelings I was used to, excitement, satisfaction, and pure giddiness of my actions. I wrapped my arms around her waist and brought her even closer to me, hiding behind my true self with the amnesic facade—the facade that kept me susceptible to any of the supposed crimes I committed.

“It’s okay Lynn,” I said soothingly, rubbing circles on her back as I felt my sweater dampen. I wanted more than anything to shove her away from me and lodge one of these quite sharp tree branches firmly in her neck and watch with satisfaction as the blood pooled out of her porcelain skin and as death crept from under the grass and dragged her to Hell. It would be so easy, but that would be a cowards way of removing my problems.

At this moment Bane was collecting everything there was to know about Siara ‘Lynn’ Dupont, all the dirty gritty details and secrets no one ever knew about her. His words had gotten to me right in the corner of my twisted heart. I knew that he was right, Lynn was becoming increasingly suspicious and I had to do something about it. And for that I had to get her close to me and find out everything she tried to hide so that I would win this battle between us unscathed.

I was snapped out of my thoughts when I felt a sudden emptiness—the space where Lynn was just buried. She seemed flustered and certainly embarrassed as her face flushed red as her hair slightly covered her face.

“I’m really sorry,” She squeaked out, sounding like a child for a split second. “I shouldn’t have done that, oh god I even wet your sweater.” I grinned, obviously noticing that she had flushed deeper making her face twist into a shade of a beet.

“It’s fine, honestly,” I even let out a small laugh even though it bothered me. Now I had to go home with this huge wet patch in my sweater looking like a complete total idiot. “Everybody needs to cry once in a while. I know how you feel, I’ve been in the exact same position you were before.”

“How could you know?” She asked, her face still bright red.

I shifted, appearing the image of being uncomfortable. “From what the doctors told me, I was driving home to eat dinner with my parents and I ended up crashing, so I ended up with amnesia. Then when I woke up, they told me I had permanent amnesia and ever since my life has been going in a twisted direction. I always feel like I know someone and it sucks because I will never know if they were apart of my past.”

Lynn’s eyes widened, and her disgusting blush finally seemed to disappear as she straightened herself out. “Oh, I’m sorry Lux, I never should have asked you how you knew what I was going through. After hearing that I feel quite ridiculous for acting the way I was just right now.”

“You apologize too much,” I pointed out, begrudgingly letting out a laugh. “Again, it’s fine really. Though sometimes it’s tough to handle I guess I’m over it.”

Suddenly Lynn seemed uncomfortable. “I’m sor—I have to go,” She stumbled for words. “I–I should head back to the station and start looking for more c–clues.”

I raised my eyebrow, taking the chance as soon as I saw the door open. “Have you found any leads yet? Everyone is dying to know, have you seen the news?”

She seemed stressed and uncomfortable. “We will release the statement soon, just not now.” With that, she settled for a nod and hurried away without another whisper or lingering glance. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, since there was a huge possibility that she suspected me—the bad thing—or that she was gaining feelings, which was a good thing due to the fact that I was already a few steps ahead of her while she was still at the starting line.

I pulled out the new prepaid cell phone I bought just a few hours ago since the other one ran out of minutes, and dialed Bane’s number.

“What do we have, Bane?” I asked as he answered, taking off the sweater Lynn stained and tossing it in the trash. There was no way in hell I was going to wear that thing again after she dirtied it with her disgusting tears.

“I’ve got everything,” He said. “If you start heading back now I’ll be finished with the file containing everything there is to know about Siara ‘Lynn’ Dupont.”

“Perfect,” I grinned and made my way out of the cemetery, knowing that this was going to be one hell of a thrill screwing with Lynn since she was so oblivious and naive.

She had no idea what was coming towards her.

• † •

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