Chapter 15: A Revelation of Buried Memories

The helicopter hummed steadily through the night, slicing through the dense darkness that had fallen over the landscape below. Inside, the tension was palpable, a silent, unspoken understanding hanging in the air between Marcus and Butcher. Butcher sat rigidly, his mind consumed with the thought of finding Becca, but there was something else gnawing at him, something he couldn't quite shake- the unease that came with Marcus's presence.

Marcus, however, seemed calm, his eyes fixed on the horizon as if lost in thought,after he found the reason to why his attributes hasn't been improving and how to solve it.

There was a depth to his gaze, a weight that Butcher couldn't ignore. He'd seen a lot of men like Marcus-calculating, composed, always a step ahead. But there was something different about this one, something that made Butcher's instincts scream that Marcus was far more dangerous than he appeared.

Finally, Butcher couldn't take the silence any longer. "You got somethin' to say?" he asked, his voice gruff, eyes narrowing as he turned to face Marcus. "Or you just enjoyin' the view?"

Marcus's lips curled into a small, almost sad smile. "Always straight to the point, aren't you, Billy?"

"Don't call me that," Butcher snapped, the old nickname feeling like a slap in the face. "Only one person apart from Becca ever called me that."

Marcus's smile faded, replaced by a more somber expression. "That's exactly what I want to talk to you about, Butcher."

Butcher's brows furrowed in confusion. "What are you gettin' at?"

Marcus leaned forward slightly, his eyes locking onto Butcher's with an intensity that made the hairs on the back of Butcher's neck stand on end. "I'm talking about the person you left behind. The one who needed you the most."

Butcher stiffened, his heart skipping a beat as a memory long buried began to surface. He pushed it down, refusing to let it take hold. "I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about."

"Yes, you do," Marcus said softly, his voice carrying the weight of a painful truth. "You left him, Butcher. You abandoned him when he needed you, and because of that, he's dead."

Butcher's hands clenched into fists, his knuckles turning white. "I don't need to listen to this," he growled, turning away as if to end the conversation.

But Marcus wasn't finished. "You can run from the truth all you want, but it won't change what happened."

Butcher froze, his breath catching in his throat. The guilt he had buried for so long, the guilt he had tried to drown with every bottle of whiskey, every act of violence, was clawing its way to the surface. He forced himself to stay composed, to keep the emotions from showing on his face. "Who the hell are you?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I'm Marcus now," he replied, his tone cold, his gaze unwavering. "But I was someone else once-someone you knew very well. Someone you left behind."

Butcher's heart pounded in his chest, the truth inching closer, threatening to engulf him. He didn't want to hear it, didn't want to face the past that he had fought so hard to forget. But Marcus wasn't giving him a choice.

"My name used to be Lenny," Marcus said, his voice softening just a fraction, the name hanging in the air like a ghost. "Lenny Butcher. Your brother." Marcus recounts about the childhood of his predecessor's body with Butcher.

The words hit Butcher like a physical blow, knocking the breath out of him. He felt like the ground had been pulled out from under him, leaving him to freefall into a darkness he had tried so desperately to avoid.

Butcher's mind was spinning, struggling to comprehend the words coming out of Marcus's mouth. "What are you talkin' about? This is some kind of sick joke, right? You're tryin' to mess with my head?"

Marcus's expression hardened. "Do I look like I'm joking, Butcher? I'm standing right here, aren't I? Living and breathing-if you can even call it that."

Butcher stared at him, disbelief warring with the deep-seated guilt that had been his constant companion ever since that fateful day. "You... you can't be Lenny," he muttered, his voice shaking. "Lenny died. I saw him..."

"You saw what they wanted you to see," Marcus interrupted, his tone sharp as he felt the body's predecessor's reaction. "They made sure of that. But the truth is, after you left, I couldn't take it anymore. The beatings, the torment... I wasn't as strong as you, Billy. You were always the strong one."

Butcher flinched, the words striking a chord deep within him. He had always been the protector, the one who shielded Lenny from their father's wrath. But in the end, he had failed.

"I tried to hold on," Marcus continued, his voice filled with a sorrow that Butcher had never heard before. "But when you left, it was like the last piece of me shattered. I couldn't do it alone, Billy. So I ended it."

Butcher's breath caught in his throat, his eyes widening as the full weight of Marcus's words sank in. "You... you killed yourself?" he whispered, his voice trembling with a mix of horror and guilt.

Marcus nodded, his gaze steady. "I couldn't see any other way out. So I took the coward's way out. But even that didn't go the way I planned. Because after I died, after I was buried, someone dug me up."

Butcher felt like he was going to be sick. He couldn't believe what he was hearing, couldn't believe that the boy he had sworn to protect had suffered so much-because of him.

"They took my body, Billy," Marcus said, his voice growing colder with every word. "They used me like a piece of meat, a guinea pig for their twisted experiments. They wanted to bring me back, to use me for their own purposes. And they did...sort of."

Butcher swallowed hard, his mouth dry. "What do you mean, 'sort of'?"

"They revived me, but it wasn't like in the movies," Marcus explained, his tone bitter. "I didn't come back with superpowers, or even with all my memories.So they abandoned me, threw me out like garbage when they realized I wasn't what they wanted."

Butcher's fists clenched at his sides, anger boiling up inside him. Not just at the people who had done this to Marcus, but at himself for leaving Lenny in the first place. "They just... left you?"

"Left me in a ditch, bloody and broken," Marcus said, his voice now filled with a quiet rage. "They didn't care what happened to me after that. I was nothing to them, just a

failed experiment."

Butcher felt his chest tighten with a mix of guilt and fury. "Then how the hell did you survive?"

"I was lucky," Marcus admitted, though his voice suggested otherwise. "A couple found me...good people. The Hayes family. They saw me lying there, dirty and half-dead on a lonely road in the middle of the night. They took me in, gave me a new name, a new life."

Butcher's mind was reeling, struggling to process everything Marcus was telling him. "Why didn't you come back to me?" he asked, his voice hoarse. "Why didn't you let me know you were alive?"

Marcus looked away, his expression unreadable. "I didn't remember who I was for a long time," he said, his voice tight. "I had flashes, bits and pieces of memories, but nothing concrete. It wasn't until recently that it all came back-when I saw the name Butcher. It triggered something inside me, brought everything rushing back."

Butcher stared at him, his heart pounding in his chest. "So, you're really... Lenny?"

Marcus met his gaze, his eyes hard. "I was Lenny. But I'm not him anymore. I can't be. Not after everything that's happened."

Butcher felt a wave of nausea wash over him, the realization hitting him like a ton of bricks. "This is my fault," he muttered, his voice barely audible. "If I hadn't left..."

"You're damn right it's your fault," Marcus cut in, his voice cold as ice as he felt his body's control although he is dead. "You left me, Billy. You abandoned me when I needed you the most. And because of that, I died. But I'm not Lenny anymore. Lenny Butcher is dead, and he's never coming back."

Butcher felt like the air had been sucked out of the copter. The guilt, the shame, the anger-it was all too much. He had spent years trying to forget, trying to bury the past, but now it had come back to haunt him in the worst possible way.

"I'm Marcus now," Marcus continued, his voice firm. "I've had to rebuild myself from the ground up. I had to survive on my own, without you, without anyone. And I've done things...things that Lenny could never have done. Things that would make you hate me if you knew."