Lucky and the Killer ✔

Finish the Mark

There came an eerie silence in the castle halls as King stood in front of his once-dead sister. It dripped down from above and hovered over them like some sort of toxic and hellish miasma. Liz's dark eyes blinked slowly in the flickering foyer. Lucky's body stumbled into King's as she rushed into him. She steadied herself before looking towards Liz. All in all, it became a sort of drawn out stalemate. Whoever spoke first...lost.

"It's really Liz," Lucky spoke. Neither of them answered. She looked at King's darkened blue eyes and then to Liz's pale face and red lips. They favored in that they were both unrealistically beautiful people—if they were people at all. She was, after all, supposed to be dead.

"Hello, King," Liz said. "It's...been awhile."

"What have you done?" King whispered. He walked up to Liz, dropped his gun to the floor, and pulled her into his strong arms. He held her close, kissed her forehead, and stroked her hair.

A storm developed overhead, and in its flashing light, Lucky could see a tear drop down King's cheek. Liz shut her eyes and held King close.

"I wanted you back," King said. "I couldn't bare to see you dead, but why?"

Liz pressed her face against her brother's chest. She hadn't felt one of his hugs in a long time. It was oddly suffocating and oddly alluring. It made her think of the old days a bit—to finally feel safe again. He sure was one to talk. She knew what going with their father meant to him. The price of their immortality was their own blood.

"What was I supposed to do? Rot in the ground?" She mumbled. "I know you don't like dad, but he means well."

"Ha," King laughed as he loosened his hold on Liz, "since when has he ever meant well?"

"Since now," she said.

"What is he making you do?" King asked. He knew how it all worked. He never wanted to see her reborn as an immortal. There was one person who controlled the dead, and that was their father. In order for Liz to be standing there already reborn, there was no doubt he was using her to get something. It was what their father did. King knew that.

"He's not making me do anything," she said.

"Yeah, well that's bullshit, and you know it," King sighed as he stooped down to swipe his gun back from the floor. He shouldn't have ever dropped it to begin with—not that it mattered. He still felt pain, and he felt it deeply. It didn't matter for an immortal, though. King had been very much immortal for a very, very long time. "I wasn't born yesterday, Liz. How he thought you could waltz up in here and do whatever the hell he asked is beyond me. I'm not that stupid. It is good to see you again..., but I never wanted to see you like this. It would have been better off if you were dead."

"Father saved my life!" Liz's voice rose into the air above them. It was strained—which meant she was still trying to control herself a little bit. She couldn't help but shake. She could see her father's eyes and his hair in her mind. It blew in the wind above her cold body. He was the first thing she saw when she became an immortal.

"You can't save someone's life after they've already lost it," King said. "You were dead. I saw you. I know what you've done to set foot here today."

"And was what I've done so bad? Like you're any better?" Liz spat. Her eyes moved from her brother, to the floor, to Lucky. "You can't play saint to me. If we obeyed the laws of life and death, you'd never set eyes on Lucky. Does it make you all that different from me? We both chose to be immortals."

"You're wrong," King said. "I never chose anything."

"If you'd just finish the mark, you know," Liz coughed to keep from drowning in her flowing tears, "then he wouldn't have to do any of this!"