Chapter 16
Lycos
LUCAS
I promised never to do that again.
I just broke that promise.
I’m looking at Paul, who’s smirking with his face full of blood. He doesn’t even seem to feel the pain, just a peculiar and disgusting passion for Anmara.
“Did your fiancée eat your tongue? Oopsy, wait, she is not yours,” he laughs like a big idiot.
“Yours neither, you bastard!” I lash out with a voice I haven’t heard for a while.
Hold on. Just a little.
“You didn’t let me finish my job. I would’ve made her mine, and nobody would’ve ever wanted her. I would’ve had so much fun with her soft body after she gave her last breath. God, how good it would’ve felt to enter a continuously tight space…”
Remember, he’s your brother.
My conscience tries to keep me calm and focused on what matters, but my instincts want to control me.
“You should’ve heard how she was whimpering for me… how much she tried not to indulge me… it was making me fucking horny. And that blood… was delicious,” he says, licking his own blood from his lips and closing his eyes.
“You’re crazy,” I huff.
“I think it’s better to call me obsessed. Over her. She’ll only be mine, you’ll see. Just untie me, and I will prove it,” he smirks, making me punch him again.
“What makes you think she’ll want you after what you did to her?”
“I’m irresistible. Soon, I’ll be her new obsession.”
I get to participate in a conversation, where I am trying not to kill him.
Badly.
I tried all of my psychological methods on him, even the worst one that implied electric shocks with my devices, but I had no luck with this one.
Absolutely nothing worked, and it never happened to me.
If they resisted the shocks, people told me what I wanted to hear from them and reached an agreement.
I could easily negotiate with a certified psychopath with my methods and devices, which were the best in the world.
That’s the reason Cathal wants me back. He knows that he will never get the best deal and will lose a lot of people and money without me.
Especially since I am the only one who knows how all of my creations work.
But with Paul, something was weird. I also tried forcefully, and I got no result. I couldn’t get anything out of him, and this infuriated me even more, wanting to bring out the monster I needed to keep hidden. A monster that should never see the light of day again.
Lycos. Nice to meet you.
That’s how Cathal called me because of the wolf-spider tarantula that covered my back, but also because of the beast inside me.
He knew that if he took control of my body, I would no longer be called a human.
The second personality that appeared once I lost my little sister and parents.
A personality that, if used under specific limitations, could get results while still keeping people alive.
But when used at maximum capacity… I could no longer control it.
I don’t wanna get that far again. I stayed in the darkness long enough while around me was hell on earth. I was in a terrible blackness, while at the surface dominated the demon that took over my body. It was difficult for me to get my human forces back.
In just one week, Lycos killed more people than Cathal’s army, and that said something. He was a killing machine that could not be controlled. Cathal profited from that and put us in the right environment when he wanted to kill the enemy clan.
He succeeded.
I don’t even remember how I regained control of my own body. That is the grimmest part. Well, that and the fact that I only have a few pieces of that story’s puzzle because of an idiot who wanted supreme control.
I’m not sorry at all.
Of course you aren’t, but I don’t wanna kill my brother just to keep Anmara safe. That is because she won’t be safe either.
I turn on my heels while Paul laughs and trembles from his macabre amusement, and I get out of the door. I just want to get to the person who calms me down and can help me not to become a hard-to-control monster again.
?
I get to her floor and see Anmara’s door closed. It’s annoying that I still have that dream on my mind, so I rush my steps, open the door, and close it behind me. Inside the apartment is too quiet, and I can’t see a single light on.
Maybe they’re asleep.
The door to the other room is open, and when I get inside, I see Anmara curled up in the armchair next to the window, with her head on her knees, only illuminated by the low light of the moon.
“Hey, is everything alright?” I ask when I get closer to her.
I put a hand on her shoulder, and she strongly trembles, making me frown.
She doesn’t calm down when she sees me either. I can only see a deep fear behind her agitated pupils. She knows who I am, but she is trying to push herself onto the sofa. I take my hand from her shoulder and take a step back.
I look at her, confused. She tightens the hold over her knees while looking at me like she sees her nightmare in front of her eyes.
“Are you ok?” I ask the stupidest question, and then I remember something. “Did he hurt you?”
“How do I know you’re you?” A small, fragile voice answers me, and I start to feel a strong shiver passing through my body.
Blake’s image appears before my eyes. I think the drug kicked in earlier than it should have.
I look around. In the low light, I notice Blake’s body on the bed, his hands and legs tied, and a big pool of blood around his head.
“What the f…” I say and go to him.
“He’s alive, but it’s not him,” Anmara growls slowly before I can get a chance to check his pulse and turn to her.
You’re screwed.
But at the same time, I’m happy that I took that fucking syringe. I only hope it is the same substance that he was administered and not just a trap that those idiots planted there.
I have an even bigger problem now, seeing her chocolate eyes widen with fear.
She thinks I am like them.
I slowly get closer to her with my hands above my head.
“I promise you that I am me, Lucas,” I calmly tell her, but she’s still looking at me the same.
Really? A promise? Wasn’t one time enough?
“Then prove it!”
“Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.”
She slowly takes her hands off her knees, gets up with her hands clenched to her chest, and goes to the other corner of the room, far away from me.
This time you’ve got away with it.
“Take him somewhere else,” Anmara says after a few moments of silence, pointing to Blake’s body. “And please tell me you got something out of Paul.”
“It would’ve made my life easier, but he’s uncrackable.
” A mask of sadness spreads all over my face while I tell her.
“Whatever they gave him, it’s strong. Stronger than I’ve ever seen.
They somehow made him obsessed over you, and I got a hunch, but I can’t know for sure.
Although it’s possible that I could find out,” I say and get the syringe out of my pocket, making her frown.
“It has something to do with Marshall,” she reads my thoughts, like she is feeling my unease while her eyes are on the syringe. “Where do you have that from?” she asks me with her gaze full of hope, a fact that comforts me.
“I found it when I also came across this idiot.”
“What does this drug do exactly? You told me vaguely, but I need more details considering my experiences.”
“From the stories I’ve heard, in theory, it should make you fall in love with another person if certain quantities of the ingredients it contains are used.”
“And practically?” she asks, seeing I stopped speaking.
“It has many side effects that nobody knows about, but it is used to control the people who receive it like puppets. It makes them obsessed over someone, but they resort to bloody methods to lure them. Or at least, that is the original, the last one discovered. Many times, people get to kill that person if they don’t obey their orders,” I say, and see a tear rolling down her cheek.
“Shortly, it creates the most idiotic and brainless killing machines if they get a bigger dose. I don’t even have to tell you about alternative options for it. And in Cathal’s hands… we would end up in a never-ending war.”
“Why? Why did I have to fall in love with him?” she asks herself more, and I get closer to hug her, and surprisingly, she lets me.
She then rests her head on my chest and hugs me back, filling my heart with her warmth.
“It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known,” I try to comfort her.
“I should’ve listened to my instincts. I always felt that something was wrong. I saw it in his eyes, but the way he was behaving with me didn’t let me believe otherwise.”