"I needed to be sure, so I spied on you." Jae gazed at her crossed legs, turning a bit red on the face. "I felt this mixture of emotions whenever I got too close to you."
"And guilt was in there somewhere," Ashleigh said.
"Lukas," Duke said, staring at the ground, "you were the last person to see Ava alive. Tell us what we're missing."
They were onto something. It was written on their faces. If by some luck they weren't aware of what he'd done, they were investigating him. This was no rescue mission. It was an interrogation.
"Yeah, I was, " Lukas said after a pause, "that doesn't prove anything."
"We never said it would."
"So you're saying I killed her?"
Duke set his jaw tight. "No."
"Yes."
Every head swiveled to Gracie.
"Peanut!" Duke was gaping at Gracie as if she'd confessed to murdering a baby.
"What? It's true. It's his fault she's --"
"Whoa, shh. Stop. We talked about this."
"I don't give a damn," Gracie said.
"Let's not do this right now, okay? You're stepping --"
"She was my sister, damn it!" Gracie had stood up and her breathing was loud.
An abrupt hush blew across the shelter while the twins glanced from Gracie to Lukas and Duke, then back again.
All Lukas could do now was to force himself to look at Gracie. It would've been less painful to drown and die.
"Don't do anything you'll regret," Duke said.
"You killed her, you hear me, bastard?" Gracie said. Jae's hands flew to her mouth before she could gasp. "It should've been you."
"Shut up!"
Then, on the spur of the moment, Gracie crumbled to the ground, suffering a choking fit before her body went still.
"Wow, " Ashleigh said, holding her head in her hands, "not this crap again."
"Is it another influence?" Jae was already rushing to help prop Gracie's unconscious body.
Duke scowled upon Jae's attempts at hefting Gracie's body. "I can't believe I missed that."
Silently, they all watched as Jae dragged Gracie's body to a corner.
"Get out of my way," Lukas said, "I'm leaving."
"What?"
"Move. Now."
"Seriously. Contain yourself, dude. You're being a real jerk right now." Ashleigh was crossing her arms, regarding Lukas with cold eyes.
"Please move."
"Stop being a git! We're trying to help --"
"No!" Jae darted from Gracie to shield Duke, who was on the floor, nursing an eye from Lukas's punch.
The sense of release that came with hurting someone didn't come. He wanted more, to see Duke's blood.
"Please, he didn't mean it." However, his belly knotted with sudden guilt at Jae's tearful face.
"Fine. Get out." Duke said.
Lukas didn't need telling twice. He paced to the door. Yet, when he shoved it, it didn't budge. He began a frenzy of shoving, shouldering, and eventually kicking the door brutally. All that managed to do was to chip off a piece of wood from the door frame.
He turned around to address the startled party in the room, "Open this door."
It was Ashleigh who pulled the door for him with ease, saying, "It opens when you pull, genius."
Lukas stormed out into the passage, clawing spider webs off his head and face.
Gracie wished he were dead.
MEANWHILE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD:
Villagers called it the Black Forest. Though a failed tourist attraction it was, the Black forest still harbored an ancient medicine. Black Rose.
It was also a no-entry zone. Villagers wanted to believe that the reason for the sudden shutdown was the tourists' loss of interest. Unfortunately, It was something more unnerving than that.
