Lucky and the Killer ✔

I Hate People

King walked beside them on the dusty streets. It was just as he'd remembered them, and he knew that the little road was going to lead back into the graveyard that no one ever wanted to visit. He always found himself beside the dead in one way or another. That, he decided, was his mother's fault.

"Are you planning to dig up a grave?" he winced.

"Of course not," Valerie said quietly.

"Then what proof do you have?"

"I have a book," she said, "and besides, maybe I just wanted to get you out here alone."

The rats scurried around the trash-piled alleys as they went further out, and King couldn't help but notice Gray was keeping his distance. He lagged behind as they walked the path side-by-side.

"Alone, huh?" King asked.

"You remind me so much of him," Valerie sighed. "You know, you're probably the only one who even comes close to the way he handled a gun."

King didn't reply. He was nothing like her former lover. King actually had a bit of discretion when it came to killing, and he did not. Still, it wasn't the time or place to pick a fight with someone like her. He would see her so-called proof, if she even had any, and then leave.

"King," Valerie said as she wrapped an arm around his, "can't I just have you?"

"I'm not him," King said, but he let her cling to his arm as they walked.

"I know you're not," Valerie said, "but I'm just so...tired of waking up to silent rooms. You've got to be, too."

"I hate people," King shrugged. "Silent rooms don't bother me."

"Oh," Valerie groaned as she pulled away from him, "I bet those rooms would be so much better with Lucky's voice in them, though."

"Lucky isn't coming back to me," King said.

Valerie opened her mouth to speak but stopped. They reached the edge of the quiet woods together. Gray caught up. He parted the trees and walked out first. The other two let him. It was always hard, but Gray was still too raw to see the dirt.

He stared out past the waving trees and sat down on the ground. It stretched out for miles: the brown graves. He made it a point to never walk past row three.

"Hey, Liz," he said into the wind.

Valerie and King exchanged looks and stepped in past the trees to join him. Valerie's eyes went to the left. King's eyes went to the right.

"Was it worth it?" Gray asked, but no one answered him. They just sat on the ground, back-to-back, looking out over what used to be Gray's family farm.

Valerie sniffed tears up her nose and rubbed them from her face. King watched the ants wade around in tiny rows beneath them. It wasn't any different than Earth at all. Liz was burried beneath their feet. She lay in the dark, cold dirt there, because The Kingdom was her home. He thought about Liz's smooth face—how her eye brows arched, quiet and bold, just like her mother's. Liz was a good girl. Lucky wouldn't have hurt her.

"She didn't put them here," King said at last.

"Here," Valerie said. She tossed a brown bag to the side and plucked a journal from it. "Read."

King read. He flipped the book open on his lap and let the wind rustle the pages here and there as Gray stared out across his old home. It was Lucky's hand-writing. He'd seen her write so often, but it was always on scattered pages—never in a bound book. She didn't seem the sort to be so permanent. Still, the swirls and loops danced across the page in a particular way that he hadn't seen in years. It'd been so long since she'd written a letter to him. The words crossed in and out of his mind, and he heard them in her voice.

"I can't let this happen. I need to save them."

"She was talking about her family," King sighed, "and since when does saying 'I need to save them' condemn anyone?"

"Yeah, her family," Valerie scoffed, "which means she was on their side."

King laughed, "of course she was. That doesn't mean she killed anyone. This is the proof you had?"

"You know the ceremony is coming up," Valerie said instead.

King got quiet. He knew. Their home was like Earth in many ways and unlike it in many ways, too. On Earth, a leader could be chosen, elected, and sat into power by will alone. It took a bit of blood in The Kingdom. As the heir, Zee would have to take a family member's life in order to claim the throne. As the heir, he also had a blessing of immortality until the passing of the moons completed and a new emperor was chosen. It made for a volatile process in general, but it didn't happen often at least.

"He won't hurt her," King said to himself. Lucky would be safe for the time-being, because Zee would need her alive until the night of the ceremony. He should have left her on Earth, but Zee would have shown up like he did regardless.

"Of course not!" Valerie said. "That's why we have to. His father is dead. The only blood he has left to use is Lucky's. If we get rid of the blood line, he won't be able to take control of the people. Don't you get it? Everyone here will have won."

"No," King said and stood himself back up on the swampy ground. "If you kill her to stop him, you're no different than the people who cut off Luxor's head.."

Valerie dug her nails into the ground and pushed herself up to face him. Her tiny red lips were pierced by her teeth, and tears made their stand like warriors in her eyes.

"How could you...," she said through blurry eyes and a sneer. "You're the most selfish person I know, King. You only want her alive for yourself. You don't care about anything or anyone else!"

"If you can't handle the truth, don't seek it out," King said and turned his back.

"If you go," she started, "I'll kill you, too. I won't spare anyone on that side. I'll take you down like they took him down, and I won't stop until you're sharing a grave with Liz."

"I believe you," King said, and he started to walk away from the two. The trees watched form above as he went. Their leaves covered over them all as if they were hiding them from the sun.

He didn't have time to waste on them. The dead were dead, and they weren't coming back. If the ceremony wasn't stopped someway, Valerie would be right, though. Zee would take over the throne, at Lucky's expense, just to rule The Kingdom as the specter of his father before him. Zee was someone he could see killing many people; Lucky was not. He wasn't sure if he'd ever really believed she killed them. Maybe, he brought her there to protect her. Either way, it'd all back-fired, and Lucky was by herself in the castle—waiting to be sacrificed and clueless as ever.

He just had to find a way to stop it all without killing her. That's all there was to it. If he didn't, the right to rule would pass and the markings on all of the people would brand them as cattle for Zee's new reign. Beyond that, there was no way he was putting Lucky in the dirt with Liz after reading her journal.

"Bella...," he whispered into the wind as he walked.