Once we returned, we all met at Jasmine's house. Since she has no cops in the house, it made for less prying ears. Luka and I explained everything to them, including Niko, who was taken back with the information.
"You okay?" Luka asked him.
"No, not really, but I'll survive," he groaned.
"Niko, if you don't want to have any part of it, we understand," I said.
He looked at all of us, "What do you want me to do?"
We all looked at each other and decided to put our plan into action.
******
Niko sat on Damon's bed. He was lost. Everything he had known and trusted gone in a blink of an eye. He hated knowing what was coming but knew it needed doing. If you capture one, you draw out the other.
Damon sat down on his bed, "Niko, it's going to be alright. Luka and I have your back."
"Damon, you don't understand. There have been so many secrets and lies that it's just too much," he exclaimed as he got up and walked over to the wall. He stood there and started hitting his head against the wall.
"You know, you hitting your head isn't going to make you smarter."
Niko stopped and shot Damon a look, "I'm hoping maybe it will either knock me out or wake me up completely from this hideous nightmare. Oh, wait, this is fucking real."
Damon rolled his eyes. He knew Niko got like this when he forced to do something he didn't want to do. He picked it up when he hung out with Niko more and more.
He got up and walked over to him as Niko turned and leaned against the wall with his back.
"Damon, I don't want to do this," he whined. "I mean, hey, it's not like I have to do this or anything. I could back out and all that jazz," he rambled, and before he knew it, Damon's lips pressed against his shutting him up. Niko melted into the kiss as Damon touched his body into his demanding entrance with his tongue, and Niko allowed him.
After a few minutes, Niko pushed him away, "No, Damon."
"Niko, what the fuck?"
"I'm tired of you playing with me. You only want to be with me when it's convenient for you."
He looked at him.
"I'm not a 7-11, you know!"
"I know. Now shut up and kiss me," Damon said to him.
Niko gave him a look and shrugged as he pulled Damon into a kiss. They pulled back as Damon said, "You're such a fucking drama queen."
"Yeah, but you love that about me."
"Unfortunately," he groaned.
*****
Luka dropped me off and headed home. As soon as he walked through the door, and Maria greeted him.
"How was the trip?" She said to him.
"It was fine. Took Malia to meet some people."
"Oh really," she said with a surprised look.
"Yeah, we stopped by Abe Crenshaw's place."
"Oh. What's Mr. Crenshaw up to?"
"Nothing much. Just had some hot cocoa and caught up a bit then headed to the cottage. Look, I'd love to chat, but I'm beat, and I got school tomorrow," he said, walking past her.
"Night, Luka."
"Night."
A few minutes later, Niko came home.
"How was Damon's, honey?"
"That boy has no self-control. Woo wee," he said exuberantly.
Her eyes widened, "Oh, well, that's nice to hear. I think."
"But I do love his stamina," he grinned as he headed upstairs, leaving his mom to blush and go back into the kitchen. He snuck into Luka's bedroom.
"Laying it on pretty thick, aren't we?"
"Not really. Damon does have a lot of stamina," he shrugged.
Luka gave him a weird look, "I didn't need to know that, you freak."
"Oh, fine," he sighed. "Did you text the others?"
"Yeah. Everything is a go."
"Good. What about Joe and the others?"
"Malia doesn't want to say anything until we got the proof."
"Well, hopefully, it's sooner than later," he said as he left and went quickly to his room.
Our plan was falling into place. Now it was time to catch a killer. Well, two killers, that is.
******
At school, we acted casually like we normally do. Well, if you consider Damon and Niko bickering like an old married couple normal, then we were pretty much ourselves.
We needed the killer to take the bait. It was risky, I will admit but, we needed this to end once and for all, and Luka needed closure. We made sure we kept our eyes open to see if we saw anything suspicious, but nothing so far.
Maybe we were missing something.
*******
The killer walked up to a door and knocked on it, making sure their hood was down so no one could make out their face. The door opened, and they went inside the place. From there, the deadliest game of cat and mouse hatched, and my friends and I were number one on the hit parade.
The killer figured if we wanted to play a game, then they would play, their way with us, dead.
As they say, small towns carry big secrets. It was just a matter of time before we discover the biggest secret of all, who murdered Luka's mom and why.
When you take on a serial killer, things tend to go astray. In our case, they become askew.