Chapter 6.5: When Guilt Speaks
1216 Words
No one breathed.
Lucien giggled — a sharp, broken hiccup of a laugh that didn’t match anything.
“Yeah… I did the deed. With my own… my own hands. I killed her. ”
Christy took half a step back.
Lucien’s hand didn’t stop her.
He just tilted his head.
Still smirking.
“Her ?,” Christy whispered. “You mean… Rae?”
Lucien’s smile widened slightly — not joyful. Just... open.
“Y–yeah. her. You know how ?” he said, almost conversational.
“I… I choked her. With both hands. Tight. She clawed at me. I saw her eyes roll back.”
Anthony’s mouth fell open, but no words came out.
Lucien kept going.
“Then I slammed her... against the desk. Hard. Might’ve... cracked the side of her skull — I dunno. There was... blood. Not a lot. Just enough to know it was real.”
He paused.
The smirk faltered for a second — replaced by something blank. Cold.
“Then I... I ravaged her. Left her there. In that room. Alone. Dark. Like she deserved.”
Christy’s breath hitched. Anthony instinctively stepped forward like a shield, but Lucien’s hands were already gone — withdrawn to his sides.
Lucien looked at them both.
Not pleading.
Not scared.
Just... watching.
“Now,” he whispered. “Why are you backing away?”
He chuckled again.
“I’m not lying.”
Silence clamped down like a coffin lid.
Their eyes were locked on him — not with fear of what he might do.
But fear of what he already had.
They didn’t speak.
Didn’t shout.
Didn’t ask if he was serious.
They just moved.
A subtle shuffle of feet.
A twitch in Christy’s elbow.
Anthony grabbed her hand.
Both about to bolt.
But Lucien’s hand snapped out — fast — fingers clamping tight around Christy’s wrist.
She yelped, stumbled, and dropped to her knees as her footing gave out.
Anthony stopped mid-step, eyes wide.
Christy looked up — fear blooming raw in her pupils.
Lucien’s voice cracked through the tense air like glass under pressure:
“Hey! You wanted the truth—you asked for it—and now what? You’re pulling away? Not even asking why I did it?"
(Or If I did it)
His voice cracked slightly, more hurt than angry.
“You just... heard what you wanted and stopped listening.”
His chest heaved once.
Twice.
“SAY SOMETHING!” he roared, louder now, teeth bared.
His grip tightened just for a second — not hard enough to break, but enough to warn.
Anthony stepped forward instinctively.
“Let her go.”
Lucien didn’t even glance at him.
He stared down at Christy, like trying to look through her.
“You heard what I said. I’m not joking. I’m not crazy. I’m telling you.”
His voice was spiraling now — not screaming, but trembling with something worse.
Desperation.
Panic.
The edge between breakdown and explosion.
“Don’t look at me like I’m a freak. You two wanted truth, didn’t you?”
Christy whimpered, her voice barely there:
“Lucien… this isn’t you…”
The words hit him like a punch.
His grip tightened fiercely—unrelenting, like a vise.
He didn’t let go.
Instead, his wild eyes darted around desperately.
Then Anthony spotted it.
A jagged shard of glass lay just beneath the broken window near Room 12B, barely within reach.
Without hesitation, Anthony lunged and grabbed it.
Lucien’s grip on Christy remained locked, his breath ragged, eyes burning with panic.
Suddenly, Anthony thrust the glass shard into Lucien’s hand.
A sickening crunch of glass and flesh.
Lucien gasped sharply, fingers trembling in shock and pain.
Only then—his hand loosening painfully—did he release Christy’s wrist.
He stumbled back, clutching the bleeding wound, eyes wild but now flickering with something fragile, something breaking.
“DAMN YOU, ANTHONY!”
Blood dripped down his knuckles, splashing onto the corridor tiles.
“I TRUSTED YOU TWO! I TREATED YOU LIKE FAMILY — THE ONLY TRUE FAMILY I HAD!”
Christy scrambled to her feet, gasping, eyes wide with shock.
Anthony stood protectively in front of her.......
“Whoever you are… you’re not Lucien,” he said, voice steady despite the shaking. “You’re a demon.”
Lucien stared at the wound in disbelief, rage trembling in every inch of him.
“f**k YOU! BOTH OF YOU! MY HAND—”
His voice cracked, not with pain, but betrayal.
Lucien stared down at the shard embedded in his hand — blood soaking his cuff, dripping in slow, rhythmic ticks onto the floor.
Then, just a breath.
And — with a twisted calm — he pulled it out.
The glass slid free with a wet, grating sound. His fingers trembled once… then steadied.
A thin smile unfurled across his face.
Not pain.
Not shock.
Satisfaction.
Like the sting made everything more real.
He turned toward them — bloody hand dangling by his side like it didn’t belong to him anymore — and said, voice as smooth as silk wrapped around a blade:
“Alright. I’ll be in class. First gotta head to the infirmary. Anthony is quite strong, f****d up my hand real good, as expected from the boy whose dad is a sharp cop. Well done.”
He started walking away.
A steady, unnatural rhythm to his steps.
Christy clutched her arm. Anthony still stood frozen, hand trembling.
But Lucien stopped.
Right at the corner. Didn’t look back yet. Just let silence bloom like a bruise.
Then, slowly, he looked back ones.
His smile was still there.
Calm
“You both wanted me to be a monster?” he said, his voice almost playful. “You both wanted to believe I really did it?”
He lifted his bleeding hand, fingers still twitching.
“Then go ahead. Somewhere in the West Wing lies everything you need. A story. A corpse. Your little treasure map of guilt.”
Then came the shift — his voice dropped. Dense. Sincere. Like the echo of a real boy beneath the wreckage.
“But it hurts, you know?”
He looked at them fully now — not angry, not deranged. Just… hollow.
“I trusted you two. Treated you like the only thing close to family I had left. And you Anthony ? You didn’t even think twice about it. You ran. You thought that I, who cares for both of you more than my own pathetic life, would hurt Christy. Stabbed me, no thoughts behind the action at all, no talks to de-escalate the situation.”
His eyes flicked to Anthony’s hand.
“That was your first instinct.”
A pause. Too long.
“Not even a second when you asked,What if he’s just… broken? What if he’s bluffing?
Lucien took one small step back toward them. Blood dripped with a soft pat pat pat against the floor.
“It’s like you both never knew me at all.”
Another step. And then — just before he turned again, his voice slipped back into that lilting, deadly calm.
“Anyway. You’ve got a mystery now.”
He smiled one last time — that wide, dead-eyed grin — and whispered:
“Go solve it.”
Then he walked away, footsteps echoing like a countdown.
- Writer
