3 Part 2

[Past-Lucien]

He looked at the entire class before meeting the teacher's eyes. This was his first day in this boarding school so far away from his home but strangely he wasn't homesick, in fact – he was very happy. His new homeroom teacher was called Ms. Rose, she looked polite and mannered but the overly helpful attitude of hers irritated Lucien.

Lucien was from a very respectable and rich family, one that lived in a mansion and they even had butlers. He used to study in a private school, too but was transferred into this boarding school almost in the middle of the semester. His head felt like bursting when he remembered how his mother accused him of murdering Ben. Ben was a sixteen year old boy, the same age as him. He had long brown hair paired with dark brown doe like eyes and a mischievous smile. His eyes were always darting back and forth between things that made him look like he was constantly thinking too hard. They used to go to school together and were the best of friends. But he betrayed Lucien.

Lucien always loved to inflict pain on others. He knew the pleasures of life, to him it was either sex or pain. He knew he was a sadist and that never really seemed to bother any of his sex partners. His first time was with their maid and he enjoyed himself. His parents didn't like him and were always busy in their own affairs. He spent his afternoons by an isolated lake with Ben, talking and going through adult magazines Ben often found at his home. His father often brought at least ten to fifteen magazines back home and never noticed if one or two of them were missing. Their friends would often be busy with video games but Lucien found he liked the outdoors more.

Once Lucien had discovered a passion for rats and he caught one even. He was about to drop them in the cage he had brought from home when Ben interrupted him.

"Where did you get the cage?" He had asked knowing if Lucien asked for a cage from his parents, they would immediately ask what it was for. His mother would definitely not have liked the idea of her son catching a rat.

"We had a bird – Monty," he told him, digging in the dirt by the lake. "I killed it so we could have space for the rat."

"How did you kill it?" Ben was scared but more than that, he was curious.

"With poison," Lucien replied nonchalantly. "I mixed some in its food. And it dropped dead just like that. Anyway, hold these worms."

"Now, we need to feed it." Lucien showed Ben how to hold them and drop them into the cages. For days they fed it lizards and dead rats, whatever they could find. But soon he got bored and one day poked it with a stick until it started bleeding and died. Then his attention got diverted when he discovered that there was an American pitbull terrier living in a cave near the lake and being the fearless kid he was – he would often venture in and spend time with it. Surprisingly, he was not attacked even once by it. Ben was always too afraid to go in but one day Lucien brought it out with him and Ben noticed how comfortable it was with him. He still didn't approach it because he knew the breed was known to be vicious and this was a wild one which meant one bite from it could mean the end for him.

Lucien was never afraid and always played and spent time with it. He even fed it from time to time but Ben always kept his distance. Then one day while coming to the lake from school, Ben noticed a dead bird on the side of the road. "Look Lucien," he pointed to it. "This bird's dead."

"I can see that. Pick it up," Lucien told him and though unwilling, Ben was curious to see what he intended to do with it so he picked it up. Lucien went back inside the cave with the bird in his hand and Ben heard the dog growling. He stepped back instinctively and stared at the entrance to the cave. It was getting darker. Lucien finally emerged from there, blood on his face and hands. Though everything about him screamed terror, Ben was glued on spot.

Lucien was the most handsome boy in their batch and Ben had never realized why girls liked him even when he acted so cold and distant. Standing in the dark smiling while with blood dripped down from his raven hair to his white school shirt, he looked like a supernatural entity you could just not take your eyes away from no matter how much you wanted to. Ben stared at him in awe, appreciating his beauty- momentarily oblivious of the truth of their situation.

"I know you like me," Lucien whispered softly as he reached where Ben stood. Lucien had always known. Ben never dated girls, he would not even look at them. He was more into boys and Lucien had realized that a long time ago. Lucien knew Ben found him attractive. In fact, he thought Ben was pretty good-looking himself but he was not into boys like that.

Lucien approached him slowly, his calm grey eyes locked on his friend's brown ones.

"I know you stare at me when you think I'm not looking." Lucien intertwined his fingers with Ben's. "I know you like me, Ben. Admit it, love."

Ben opened and closed his mouth like he wanted to say something but the words were not coming out. With Lucien's free hand, he reached up and touched Ben's face. He tilted it up to meet his own gaze. Lucien was taller than Ben and the latter stammered in response. "Lucien – I –"

Lucien leaned forward, pressing his lips with Ben's. He kissed him softly for some time and soon Ben responded.

"Now," Lucien pulled away. "I have a favor to ask from you."

"What is it?" Ben asked breathlessly. He had just had his first kiss from his long time crush and he was having trouble wrapping that idea around his head.

"You see, the bird didn't satisfy my doggie's hunger." Lucien slowly trailed his finger along Ben's jawline. He suddenly noticed the glowing eyes of the dog in the cave behind him. "So I was hoping you could help. You can, can't you?"

When Lucien's words sunk in, it had already been too late. By then he had thrown Ben into the dark cave where the dog was already waiting in the shadows to pounce. The silent night sky filled with Ben's screams. Lucien waited till the screams died down and finally entered the cave once again. He looked down at Ben's body and felt disgusted. He leaned down and checked if he was still alive.

No pulse.

He pet the dog on its head while it ate Ben's flesh. Lucien soon realized he could not just leave Ben's body behind like this, it would create complications.

Then he sat on a rock, watching the dog eat and playing possible scenarios in his head. He played and replayed people's reactions and finally decided on something. He stood up and whistled to the dog. "Come on," he started walking towards the lake. "We are going for a swim."

Lucien knew his dog was afraid of water. He never understood how could a dog living so near to the lake be so afraid of water but now this fear would only act to his advantage. He stood and admired the night sky for a while and then looked down at the dog. "You've been the best pet I have had in a while," he sat and pet it on its head. Then he stood up and kicked it into the water before it could even realize what had happened. The dog was startled and could not do anything but struggle in midair till it landed in the cold frozen waters of the lake.

Lucien watched till the dog drowned and the waters of the lake looked unaffected once again. The water was as still as ever and he finally decided to head back home.

When his butler, Arnold, noticed his disheveled state and the blood on his shirt and hands – he immediately notified Lucien's mother. She came running from her bedroom and then stared at him in horror.

"Ben died, mother," Lucien informed her with a calm voice. She closed the distance between her and her son and then slapped him hard across the face.

"What have you done?" she hissed as she held him up by his collar. "Did you hurt him?"

"No," Lucien lied. "A dog did."

Just then Ben's parents called at Lucien's house, worried. Their son was not home yet. Lucien's mother knew better than to trust Lucien. She quickly made him change his clothes and sent him up to his room.

The police got involved and Lucien told the same story to everyone. He said that they often went to the isolated lake by the abandoned mansion to play and they discovered a dog. It was a wild one but they took care of it for a while. Then one day while going there, they found a dead bird and thought the dog might like it so they took it to him. Ben decided to feed it and the dog attacked him instead. Ben's parents found the story unbelievable because everyone knew Ben hated dogs. But Lucien was a master at manipulation. He soon made everyone believe that Ben was just trying to be brave and feed it even when he insisted that he does it and the situation just deteriorated.

They found his body, scarred beyond recognition. They could not find the dog however, but a few days later they found its body floating on the lake. Reality played out just like it did in Lucien's imagination. Lucien mentally patted himself in the back for killing the remaining witness to the murder of Ben, he somehow felt that the dog would have given him away. Now that there were no more witnesses or proofs that could trace the tragic death of Ben back to him, he was satisfied. No one had any choice but to accept Lucien's words and believe that was exactly what had happened to him.

However, his mother was not convinced.

After Ben's funeral, they came back home and his mother locked themselves in a room. "I know you had something to do with his death even if you won't say it." She looked at him like she was trying to see the secrets he was burying beneath his usual façade. His face was a mask. "I know you killed Louise and… and Nora. They had never done anything to you either. How is it that whenever there's a death, you always just happen to be there?"

Lucien recalled how he had walked into the washroom to find his older sister, Nora, drowning. He was just seven and she was fifteen. He shouted, alerting everyone. She died, nobody believed that it wasn't his doing. That was when his mother had stopped loving him. He realized she never loved him. All her heart would always be occupied by the rest of her children. His mother held him guilty for Nora's death till this day. No matter how many times he denied – she would never believe him. So he decided to teach her a little lesson. When he turned eleven, he choked his little brother Louise to death. But his death turned his mother even angrier. All he wanted was for her to love him. But somehow whatever he did always made her act the opposite way than he had thought. Then soon he found himself not wanting to stay home because every single step of his was always being monitored. Servants followed him wherever he went and his mother would hurt him every chance she got. She both verbally and physically abused him. He was then enrolled into the school and he found that his classmates were easy targets. He hurt them whenever he was angry but in a way nobody realized it was him. He was a quick person – one who committed crimes and left no traces of it behind. When he could not hurt anyone, he started acting out his anger on animals. Ben was the only person who knew everything about him and Lucien could not help but agree that he was the best of friends one could ever get.

But he lied.

Ben promised to never tell anyone about Louise's death. But he told her mother. Lucien was sure it was his mother who had actually put him up to the task to find out if her son's murder was actually done by her other son and Lucien did tell Ben, thinking nothing of it because he trusted him blindly.

He should have known better.

Everyone disappointed him.

His mother was a dumb woman, she kept a journal. Lucien found it out and began to read through it just because he was bored and she was at work – that was when he discovered Ben had told her about his brother's murder. His blood boiled and he had been planning revenge ever since. He never planned to make his death painless like he had Louise's. And Ben indeed died with so much pain in his heart.

"I can't let you stay here anymore," his mother paced back and forth the room. "You will ruin our family's reputation. Do you understand if my only child now gets sent to mental hospital or jail – where will our family stand? No, you have to go."

"Go where, mother?" he asked her quietly.

"Far away from here, far from me," she had answered.

And that was how he had ended up in this boarding school miles away from home. He didn't hate the idea of it, in fact he welcomed the thought of new faces who would not look at him every day like he was a murderer.

Or a freak, as his mother had called him.

Time for a new start, he thought and stepped towards the empty seat at the back of the class.