Invictus

Chapter 28: Adam

We found our next  off-the-grid place to crash for the night. Santiago was relieved to know that he wouldn't have to stay awake leaving false bread crumb trails to distract Ori-gen's algorithm. It was a bed and breakfast, which had no peeping Tom cameras wired into any of the walls. Kya made sure of it.

The place was run by a little old lady named Mildred. She was short in stature, spoke little English, and always seemed to be wearing a red apron everywhere she went. Her house was an antique on the verge of collapse. The exterior wood was in complete disrepair and the roof was rotting. It was almost impossible to tell what color the original paint was that had been used. The only things still intact were the windows and the front door. We got the impression by the excitement in her voice that we were her first guests in a very long time.

The good news was that it was spacious, which meant each of us got our own rooms. It was in my isolation there that I spent time reviewing what Santiago had sent me earlier that day.

He was right, Trenton had been lying to us.

Well, maybe not lying, but he certainly wasn't telling us the whole truth. Either way, it confirmed that Trenton likely had ulterior motives.

According to the news clippings, CCTV shots, cellphone GPS coordinates, text records, and emails, Trenton Kuo and his brother Damian had a dark secret.

Apparently, Trenton and his brother had used their abilities to win the Mega Millions lottery on four separate occasions in the state of California. Being that they were eighteen at the time, they had never considered the possibility that someone might start putting together that they were special, and that their special abilities were behind their winnings.

Santiago, at that time, was in Manuel Cardenas's custody — a name I knew to be familiar, but couldn't quite figure out why — and had been the one tasked with discovering the secret of the Lucky Kuo Brothers. As soon as Santiago made the connection, that Damian and Trenton were Freaks like him, Manuel moved in to apprehend them. But seeing the future had it's perks, Damian and his brother escaped.

After that incident the two got smart. They purchased new burner phones every month and started paying people to buy the tickets with the winning numbers for them, promising in exchange that the buyer would receive a quarter of the money. The purchaser of the winning ticket would then take credit via the various media outlets ensuring that no one would ever know that Trenton and Damian were the ones behind it all. To make the cover up even more convincing, they kept on the move. Winners popping up in various states across the country would make the recipients of the cash feel more "randomized" they concluded.

This worked for awhile, until a guy named Sullivan Macintyre decided he didn't want to stick to the original deal. He was the first to keep all the money, thereby snubbing Trenton and Damian. He was also the first to die a gruesome death, which the media dubbed the Curse of the Mega Millions after six others ended up dead in similar ways, all of them suicides.

After the sixth death, Trenton and Damian parted ways. There were no text conversations or emails to conclude as to why it had happened though. Lucky for them that they did, one more murder-suicide and Manuel would have probably caught up with them.

I didn't sleep after I read it. I couldn't. It wasn't because Trenton was some sleazy killer, it was because I had gotten myself into a hole that continued to get deeper every day. And as I reflected back on the events of "how," that all consuming depression returned. The pit of my stomach felt like it had a black hole inside it and my chest continued to thud like an 808. I tried hard to muffle the sobs and tears I shed for Jacob, Cal, Donnie, and Tia, but it didn't work. So instead, I held my head under a pillow and waited for the sun to spill into the bedroom.