by Billy Wong
They visited Patrick who stayed in the infirmary; while his life wasn't in danger anymore, he would apparently be laid up for a while. He assured them he would be just fine, though his optimistic demeanor seemed to hide some upset hinted at by tension in his features. Was it shame for falling to the Grin, or a deeper issue stirred up by the reaper's taunting as he had done against Charlene and Peggy?
The group didn't seek out Gwen right away, as there was no pressing need and she could probably use some time to settle down after her brother's death. The way she had finished him off with so little hesitation unsettled Rupert, though. What background did she come from to be able to take her own sibling's life like that, even if he had become a monster and been on the verge of dying?
In spite of the damage she'd sustained, Peggy insisted she could still train, and Rupert and Charlene continued doing so with her albeit with lowered intensity to accommodate the tiny girl who moved gingerly. "You don't need to hold back that much on my account," she said when she noticed. "Even a little beat up, I don't mind being pushed."
Rupert patted her head in response. "No need to act so tough. We already know how strong you are, feel free to rest and take care of yourself a bit."
"Hey, don't treat me like a little kid! Besides, I'm not trying to act tough—who do you think I am, Meg? I just don't want to keep anyone else from working hard if they desire, that's all." She glanced at Charlene.
"Charlene?" he asked, shifting his attention to the blonde whose gaze had grown downcast. "Is something wrong?"
"N-no, nothing, it's fine," she replied, but the unsteadiness of her voice made clear otherwise.
He grinned warmly at her. "Oh come on, we'll all friends here. You can tell us, we just want to help as PP said."
"It's embarrassing, though..." After Rupert and Peggy looked expectantly at her for a few seconds, she caved. "Well, I... I came here thinking that being heir to the Lyonesse family and with my training I would at least be the best in my age group, and I'm not at all! I'm fifth best at... best, and it wouldn't be surprising if Gwen or somebody else was better than me too. It's not pleasant you know, learning that your long held beliefs were mere delusions."
"Oh, that's why you've been acting so glum," Peggy said. "I could tell you were just itching to explode on Rupert too since you had to take it easy on me, and barely restrained yourself. But you shouldn't be hard on yourself. You showed plenty of skill and fearlessness against the Grin, I was impressed."
"Yeah," Rupert added, "you did fine. You went right after him even after seeing he had taken down Pat who's much more experienced than you, that was some courage. And it's admirable you recognize there are things you could improve and are working on them. A lot of people with your type of upbringing would probably be too proud to admit to flaws and write off any setbacks as flukes."
"Thank you," she said with a smile. She frowned again. "But it isn't just that I lost. In the heat of the moment I started swinging so wildly PP couldn't even assist me, and ended up being defeated for it. I endangered you all and especially Peggy, by depriving you of my aid."
Peggy put hands on her hips. "Admittedly, that was quite an annoying thing you did. Being goaded by the Grin like a child... but then, Pat was affected by him too, so we can just write it off as his slick tongue this time. As for your flailing obstructing me"—she paused dramatically—"why don't we try practicing some team maneuvers in place of the usual individual combat? We train our own moves all the time and can only improve so much at them, learning new things might only help us progress faster."
Charlene nodded. "I'll be happy to do that. But who would we practice our teamwork against?"
"Oh, we don't need anyone to practice on yet. To start, we could just work out the techniques we'd combine... but once we get that down, we could always use Rupert as our punching bag."
"Punching bag? Would you be all right with that, Rupert?"
He laughed, glad to see the girls getting along so well after being on opposing sides before. It made him like them even more, and how strong they were notwithstanding, want to protect them. "She's just joking around, I'm sure she doesn't want to harm me any more than you would. And in that case, I look forward to meeting your challenge!"
#
Almost a week after the Grin's demise, Meg had been considering whether it would be okay to approach Gwen yet when the latter intercepted her in the hall following a student council meeting. "Did you not want to ask something about me and my brother? I'm ready to tell you, if you still want to know."
"Thanks, I know it must be hard to talk about this. But if you wouldn't mind, could we meet up later with my friends present? They'll probably want to hear this too."
"Let me know the time and place then."
Meg invited Gwen to join the girls and Rupert around a table at the library the next evening. After offering condolences for her loss, Meg asked awkwardly, "So what happened to your brother exactly? He was obviously human seeing as you are, yet..."
She swallowed. "I should start from the beginning. Both my brother Glen and I were child soldiers with a mercenary band called the Laughing Reapers." Well, that already helped explain a few things—the Grin's above average skill even taking into account his enhanced physical abilities, his reaper motif and Gwen's willingness to kill.
"Was he always seven feet tall?" Peggy asked.
"No, but I'll get to that. After our leader died and the band broke apart, I thought Glen and I could give up our lives of bloodshed and live as 'normal' teenagers do. But Glen didn't take being subjected to the horrors of battle as well as me—his mind was broken, so that he had constant nightmares and could barely even face people as they often reminded him of those he'd killed or watched die. Nonetheless I somehow convinced him to join me in school, but it couldn't go on. Eventually he was expelled for disrupting class and the sleep of his roommates one too many times, leaving me to attend on my own."
Charlene gave her a sympathetic look. "I know it's hard to watch somebody you care about deteriorate, like my father did under the strain though he thankfully recov—sorry, I shouldn't have butted in with my family's business. Carry on."
"But he was here," Rupert said. "Why, if he was expelled? And that doesn't sound like someone who would be driven to kill innocents, more the opposite even."
"I couldn't leave him to fend for himself, since we have no other family. So I had him stay in a cheap apartment in the city, where I visited him whenever I could. That wasn't enough for him though, me being the one person he felt safe around, so he insisted on moving back onto school grounds. I knew it might be a bad idea, but being separated from me really seemed to hurt him. So I hid him under the abandoned building, and brought him food there. As for your question about killing, while he slew many in our mercenary days as you'd expect, he never killed unprovoked after we ended our careers as sellswords."
Charlene frowned. "Until that changed... sorry."
"You're right though, it did change." It seemed they were about to get to the meat of the story, and Meg wondered if they would get insight into the previous murderer too. "Glen and two other boys were recruited for an experiment about unlocking the mind, which sounded appealing enough. The way it was sold to him, he thought it could help him get over his trauma, which I wished for too. But when I heard Hughie, one of the boys in the experiment who befriended us after, had been apprehended as a murderer, I grew scared. And soon after, sure enough, my own brother followed his path!" Tears slid from her eyes down her cheeks, and Meg saw she wasn't quite the girl of stone she had seemed until now. "I should've looked deeper into that experiment, realized something was wrong and stopped him from ever participating!"
"It's awful what happened," Meg said, "but nobody can foresee everything. Did Glen ever show an inclination to kill wantonly before this, even if he never acted on it?"
Gwen shook her head. "The closest thing was that he sometimes called himself the incarnation of death, but he didn't view it as something
to embrace—more a curse. That is until he began identifying as a reaper, and could somehow transform into one."
"This is insane," Charlene put in, "I can hardly believe it..."
"Wait," Rupert said. "Your brother was recruited into an experiment while hiding out on campus, unknown to the faculty?"
"Yes, the people who ran it must have known about him, yet didn't reveal it to anyone who would've made trouble for us."
"And this didn't make you suspect something might be off?"
She bowed her head. "Of course it did. But I also worried that if I went against them, they might tell on us and get me ejected as well. So I told myself their intentions weren't sinister—it really is my fault!" She sobbed. "Glen..."
"I'm sorry. I can't even imagine how you must feel."
"How much do the guards know about this?" Charlene asked.
"Not much. They know the Grin was my brother, since he reverted back to human form sometime after death and they could see the reaper tattoo we share, but I didn't admit to hiding him here for obvious reasons."
Meg raised an eyebrow. "And you admitted it to us even though PP..?" Killed your brother, she left unsaid.
"I don't fault you for killing him, or mortally wounding him rather since I finished him. He had already taken innocent lives, so it wasn't wrong to put him down, and you couldn't have known he was even human let alone who he was. Admittedly ripping his face off was a bit much—I've had nightmares about that since—but he might've been dying already with his chest crushed, and Peggy had no clue his mask was his face transformed. I know you've been trying to get to the bottom of these murders, and that proactiveness is something I can appreciate."
"That's not the only reason though is it? I'd wager you didn't tell the guards about the experiment Glen was in either, and there's a reason for that."
Gwen held her gaze briefly, then exhaled. "I don't trust them. Look at how little they've done to stop the murders or given insight into them, even running for backup when a student had just been killed and at least one more injured to their knowledge. Both killers were stopped by the students themselves, which to me speaks volumes. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the guards had something to hide, like turning a blind eye to them."
"That's the sellsword in you talking," Meg said. "I imagine you must've seen your share of betrayals out there on the battlefield. But I wouldn't rule it out either, though it could also just be incompetence on the guards' behalf. They are school security not used to dealing with serious threats... for the most part."
"You're right. Still, I have more trust to go to you guys who actually thwarted the killers than them."
"So you suspect the trouble may not be over and want to help us stop the killings for good, is that it?"
"I had thought of it more as you helping me get to the root of the killings and bring whoever turned Glen into that monster to justice, but considering you've done more so far than me, your way of seeing it is fair too."
"Well, there are a lot more of us after all," Charlene said. Meg approved of the humility, even if she could be cocky herself.
Peggy asked, "Do you know where the experiment your brother took part in was held? That would provide a good starting point."
"I don't unfortunately, only that it was somewhere in the city, which knowing the size of it isn't much of a clue. However, there was another boy in the experiment besides Hughie and Glen who might remember."
Meg nodded hopefully. "Sounds like we should ask him."
"By the way," Charlene said, "I didn't want to butt in before, but I learned something from a guard after loosening his tongue with money. Apparently, a puncture wound was found on Glen's back after he reverted to human form."
"What's the significance of that?" Gwen asked. "Did any of you wound him there?"
"I didn't."
Peggy shook her head. "My Lolipop is a blunt force weapon, it doesn't puncture."
"Meg and I didn't even engage him," Rupert said.
"So unless he fell on a piece of sharp debris when I knocked him down the last time, which doesn't seem likely from what I recall, the wound was probably there for the same reason Hughie was stabbed after Charlene caught him."
Gwen recoiled. "You're saying somebody stabbed my brother after he was already dead? But why would they do that?"
"That is strange... it's not like they were probably warning anyone when he's dead, and few others would see it."
Rupert scratched his chin. "Stabbing a dead person, and stabbing an unconscious person but not killing them, does seem very weird—but what if they weren't stabbed?"
"They both had stab wounds though," Peggy said.
"They had punctures, but did they have to originate from outside? Nobody saw them get stabbed, so it might be possible that they had something put inside them during the experiment, which then forced its way out after they were captured or killed."
"Yes," Meg agreed, "that seems plausible when you mention it... and if that's the case, maybe the implant is what caused those boys to become murderous and transformed Glen."
He bit his lip. "Then the third boy, if it isn't removed, might meet a similar fate soon. But how will we get it out of him?"
"Hughie didn't die when it came out, did he? So if it's the same way for the others, it shouldn't be too deep for us to cut out without killing him."
Charlene stared at her. "Are you sure you have the medical expertise to do that safely?"
"I wouldn't exactly call it expertise, but I've seen and treated plenty of wounds with Pat and Gavin. So I think I can get it done if it isn't deeper than Hughie's... and in the same position."
"The guard did say Glen's wound was between his shoulder blades. Seems consistent unless the third boy differs."
Meg looked around. "I don't think it would be a good idea to have the lot of us sneaking around together when two should be more than enough to subdue a student." Well, unless he turned into a monster, but even then Peggy had taken down the Grin one on one. "So which of you wants to help me kidnap him?"
"I think I'm the only one who would recognize him on sight," Gwen said.
"True, though the rest of us could familiarize ourselves with him before we act, but no need to make things more complicated. Do you already have an idea of his routine?"
"A bit, since I was already thinking about having a private talk with him, but we'll have to observe him more to find a good opportunity to go so far as to capture him."
"Perhaps," Meg said. She grinned. "Or, I could just use my student council president status to lure him somewhere and we can take it from there."
#
Meg told the freckled boy named Nick to meet her in a classroom after dinner to receive an award from the council, which seemed to confuse him as he probably wasn't the most popular similar to Hughie and Glen. When he entered the science classroom to find Gwen waiting inside, he asked, "Where is the president? Are you with the student council? Hey... I remember you from somewhere! What's going-"
Stepping from beside the door behind him, she grabbed him covering his mouth with one hand while placing her blade to his throat. "Be very quiet while my associate restrains you. I mean it." Seeing the terror in his eyes, she moved her hand while Gwen stepped forward with rope in hand.
"P-president?" he said keeping his voice low. "What's going on, why are you doing this?"
"We're doing it for your own good. Relax, we don't mean to kill or hurt you." Not badly anyway...
"Then why bind me if you aren't going to harm me? Wait, do you think I'm going to become the next murderer? I'm innocent I tell you, I haven't done anything. And there's no proof I will, so you can't turn me in!"
He was a bit sharper than expected, making that connection so soon. "We're not looking to turn you in, if you being arrested was warranted at this point we wouldn't have to be so sneaky about it. Relax a little, I promise you aren't in danger."
"But you're tying me up... that's not a good sign..."
"We're
just afraid you'll try to run away when we ask you some questions. Instead of giving you a chance to put up a noisy struggle, we'll make sure you stay put."
His eyes grew the slightest bit calmer. "Just questions, that's it? You still hardly have to tie met, I'll answer them as thanks for that award you're giving me." Or maybe not so sharp, unless he was trying to be funny... "It's about the experiment, isn't it?"
"Yes. You were recruited for an experiment along with Hughie and Glen—where did it happen, and who was in charge of it?"
"I don't know who he was, how should I? He was just a tall man in his thirties I guess, who called himself Cain."
She rolled her eyes. "A tall man in his thirties, wonderful detail."
"Er, he had slicked back blond hair, though he could have changed it since then, and a narrow chin. He wasn't extremely tall, maybe one or two inches over six feet, but his lean build and tight clothing accentuated his height. His eyes were brown, I think, and his hairline was receding a bit."
"That's still not a lot to go by," Gwen said. "Did he say who he worked for?"
"No, just that he was testing something for a client."
Meg sighed. "Well, any employer he claimed would likely be a lie anyway if the experiment was intended to or thought capable of turning kids into killers. Do you remember where you and the others met him?"
"I think so. It was the sixth floor of a building in the commercial district, where we were given a drug to put us to sleep and..."
They got directions to the place as best as he could remember, then Gwen asked, "So you were all drugged and you agreed to it? Admittedly my brother did too, but that wasn't very smart of him either..."
"We were getting paid, in addition to the supposed miracle treatment which would make us more sociable and popular. It didn't take, but there seemed to be no harmful effects either until..."
Meg wasn't sure how she should phrase the next question, or if she should ask it at all for fear of making him scream for help. "Did your back happen to hurt afterward?"
His eyes widened. Shit, he did catch on quick regarding some things. "N-no..."