Lucky and the Killer ✔

Go!

Helix left Lucky standing outside in the ice. She sat down, despite the burning chill, and watched the water move beneath the white. She sure was a long way from the coffee shop. She was a long ways from Zee and everyone else, and for the first time since she'd been at her apartment on Earth, she felt alone again.

Helix said King would be coming for her soon, and all she could do was twist King's ring around her thumb. He said that he was going to kill her—for real this time.

"King...," Lucky whispered, "are you really...just a killer, after all? Is this how it all ends?"

No one answered her. She stared down at the water until life caught her eyes. Snakes swam, like eels, through the ocean below. They twisted around like black spirals and collided with the current like rocks. She'd killed people, too. Was she any better than he was? He had Creston's power She had it, too.

She closed her eyes and got quiet. In the hum of the air, she could hear a thousand tiny heart-beats beneath her own feet: the heart beats of the snakes. They beat so fast. It was the only noise in the place. Deraindium was a veritable wasteland, even if it was beautiful. The snakes lavished in the water, oblivious, as it churned against their onyx scales.

Lucky clenched her fist and watched with silver eyes as a few snakes went limp. It was still too wide. She still needed to control it. She tried harder to focus, but she kept killing too many. She couldn't get just one to die. She couldn't get it focused enough to do more damage.

"I can't do it," she whispered. "C'mon, how do I do this? I can't...kill King. There's got to be another way."

She twisted her sandy, blonde locks in between her fingers and watched her own breath swirl around in front of her. She had to get to the root of it.

"The root of it," she whispered.

At the root of it, no matter what was said or done, she couldn't get over King. She never would, because you just couldn't help loving someone. It was his good side she loved. It was the strong shoulders, witty personality, and charm she liked. There was so much more to him than...that. She would never be able to kill him, because at the root of it, she still loved him—even if it seemed Creston had taken all of that away.

"The root of it," she whispered again.

She let her eye lids fall heavy in the empty air around her. One, two, three: the beats sounded off in their constant drumming. What right did she have to kill even the snakes? She didn't, but was how life went. Bad guys weren't all bad. Good girls weren't all good. Good or bad, they were all one whole person. She wasn't two different Lucky's. She was just...Lucky. And, she didn't need to suck a shadow's soul for energy. She was one.

"Sorry, snakes," she whispered. She gave her fist one last close and listened as one of the hearts dropped away. She'd done it. She'd killed only one. "I...did it. I controlled it. All I had to do was calm down."

"So, you finally got it under control, huh?" King's voice came from behind her. "Good for you."

"King," Lucky whispered. "It's really you. Here."

Lucky stretched out the blue ring to him. She could remember the first time she gave it to him. That King felt so far away—so different. He'd smiled and put it on his hand right away. She'd always liked the way it matched his eyes, and he said it reminded him of home. She guessed, that would have been Deraindium. It was the ring she noticed missing that night outside the coffee shop. She hadn't remembered King then.

King swatted the ring out of her hand, and it stung. She watched as the ring rolled across the glassy, flat ice until it clattered to a stop. She stared at the rim until it fell dead and unmoving.