Lucky and the Killer ✔

What Have You Done?

Lucky stared up at the darkening sky. Stars studded the ink above her. Her back was to the apartment, and she walked around the lamp post trying to get herself together. Between the bubbling frustration and Helix's voice, she couldn't think straight.

"I'm not a risk," she whispered to herself as the cars drove down the expressway down the hill. She watched their steamy-red tail lights stream together in a wave of electricity down the black asphalt—reminiscent of all the car rides she'd taken with her mother on Earth. "What does that even mean?"

"It means," Helix interjected, "that you have power over death itself."

"No I don't," she sighed.

"Yes, you do," he said.

"How does that even happen? I mean, why me?" she asked aloud for Helix to answer. She bit her lip and remembered her promise to King to not listen to Helix. It was his fault. He knew, and he ran off and left her there—like he always did.

"You're mad at him," Helix said instead.

"Yeah," Lucky spat, "of course I am. I'm mad at you, too, you invisible asshole."

"Haha," Helix laughed, "That's fair."

"I've always wanted to be somebody," Lucky whispered to herself as she leaned her head against the street light. "I've always wanted to help and make a difference. I've always wanted to change the world, but...now I'm turning into something bad, aren't I?"

"Depends on what you see as bad," Helix said. "Death isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's necessary. In a way, I'd say that means you're living your dream now, right?"

"No," she sighed. "I don't...want to be needed like this. I don't want to. I hate death. I can't even walk past a cemetery without thinking about mom in the ground."

"Does it matter how you're needed?"

"Well, yeah, I want to be needed in a good way."

"You mean, in a way that makes you look good."

"No," she said quickly, but the more she thought about it, the more she thought he was right. "Will this power help people?"

"Yes," Helix said, and his voice was both simple and sad. He said nothing else. He left her alone to her thoughts, and she swung around the pole again.

"Dang it," she groaned. "Lilly's taking too long."

Her foot skipped down off the edge of the road and crossed the side walk. She made her way to the dark staircase that led up to floor 2B. The metal clacked quietly beneath her ballerina flats as she stepped up towards the lit window of 213.

She raised her hand to knock, but Lilly's scream came first. Lucky pulled the door open as quick as she could. She ran into the living room until she saw them: Cedric walking around with a knife sticking out of him and Lilly half-naked and crying on the carpet.

"Lilly!" Lucky screamed and ran towards her crying friend. "What the actual hell happened?"

"Get away," Lilly cried. "Lucky, he's an immortal. I tried. I tried to use the knife next to the medicine, but he didn't die. He didn't die."

She sobbed and took in gulps of air. Her finger weakly pointed to the knife she'd plunged into his back. Cedric was pulling it out and holding it up to the light so that he could see the blood running down it. It dripped, blackened and burgundy, to his bare skin as he circled around the two huddled girls on his living room floor.

"What do you want?" Lucky asked as she pulled her coat off and wrapped it around Lilly's shaking shoulders.

"Well, for starters, not being stabbed would be nice," Cedric said and flicked the blood off of the blade. "Haha, but damn that got my adrenaline going even more than before."