Lucas stumbled into his room, the air inside feeling thin and sterile compared to the heavy summer heat outside.
He didn’t turn on the lights.
He couldn’t risk seeing his own reflection in the mirror—not with the phantom heat of the branding iron still pulsing in his palms.
The evening felt so surreal, so cold and so unforgiving.
He collapsed against his desk, his chest heaving, when his hand brushed against something that shouldn’t have been there.
A few, crumpled piece of notebook papers were tucked under his laptop.
With trembling fingers, he smoothed it out.
It was Malfoy’s handwriting—jagged and rushed, likely slipped there during their morning lecture when they were still just two boys complaining about history dates.
“L, if you’re reading this, it means I didn’t make it back to the dorms as planned, I’m sorry. I might have stirred up trouble with the Mayfairs and now they are after me just like they were after my brother Harry a few years ago because of their obsession with him & I… L, I have so many secrets that I never told you about which I truly wish that I had confessed…secrets about my family, about the Mayfairs, about Andrew, Harry and me. We have a foul history that could never be resolved peacefully except for a blood spill. And to tell you the truth I hate myself for loving Andrew that I ended up neglecting my family, my brother and my daughter just to pursue him knowing very well that he is my family’s enemy. Harry shouldered all of my sins and responsibilities just to protect me when I ran away from reality and he really hates me for it, he can never stand seeing me again.”
Lucas flips over the paper to continue reading the letter.
“Now that Andrew has found out the truth about Lolleta, my daughter I am done for…he should have never found out about it at the first place but my slippery tongue just sold me off because of the fury that I was feeling when we were arguing the other day about Harry’s whereabouts. To tell you the truth Lucas Lolleta was supposed to be Harry’s child not me, the experiment was supposed to be done to him instead of me but I found out about it and I swapped myself to take his place only because I was in love with Andrew. I impersonated my twin so perfectly that even Andrew couldn’t quite pinpoint the difference between us anymore, and I knew that Harry hated Andrew but I loved him so much…of course, I wanted to be the one who gave him what he wanted the most, a child. Even if it meant impersonating my brother. And the result of that was beyond common sense, I got experimented to conceive for Andrew discreetly. Andrew was obsessed with Harry that he wanted to lock him up forever and never let him leave, and make him conceive his child scientifically by stealing his grandfather’s lab resources and team…I don’t really know how they made it happen, but the Mayfairs only knew how they achieved such an impossible thing but I couldn’t care less because what mattered the most was I would be Andrew’s vessel.”
“During the whole procedure I was drugged and Andrew forced himself on me for the whole week to conceive Lolleta.
And once it was a success, everyone believed that I was Harry and I was pregnant with Andrew’s child, including Andrew and his family as well as mine….Only Harry and my mother, besides me knew about the actual truth of the pregnancy.
Hence Harry took it upon himself to just live my life once and for all, cutting his own short to shoulder my responsibilities.
He faced malice and scrutiny from the society like he was a defective.
Our family and the Mayfairs turned their backs on him because of me, the Mayfairs always hated him for their own reasons but now my father was also part of the few because of Lolleta, especially that she carried the blood of the ‘abominable’ Mayfairs he hated the most.
But still Harry he never abandoned the perfect lie that I had roped him into, he held on to it for my sake and Lolleta’s, While I was busy chasing after Andrew Mayfair.
Now that we have come to this I thought you should at least know the reason why Andrew and his family were after me.
And now not only Andrew but you also know the truth about Lolleta’s origins.
Now Andrew is after me, he might kill me…well of course he will, or even worse he might start looking for Harry all over again to get what he wants and get his hands on Lolleta and put Harry through what he put me through.
Harry’s contact is at the old pier in Gqeberha, when he asks about what happened while he was gone tell him that it was either an accident or I had committed suicide.
That way he will only hate me like he usually does and not plan for any revenge against the Mayfairs because Lolleta can’t lose him too.
Even though there are still so many more secrets that could harm the family, but I just want him to stay away from them.
You will know everything as time goes by just as long as you stick to Harry’s side and look after him on my behalf.
L, Don’t trust the Mayfairs.
Even the one you think you love.
Especially him, don’t make the same mistake as I did….I’m sorry for the half hearted letter but just know that you are always in my heart my good friend so don’t feel bad that I’m gone I’m only paying for my sins….take care of yourself and I love you, I always have.”
A sob caught in Lucas’s throat, but as he moved to hide the note, the shadows in the corner of his room began to bleed together.
“Why did you do it, Lucas?”
The voice was a wet, rattling whisper.
Lucas froze, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
He slowly turned his head toward his bed.
There, sitting on the edge of the mattress, was Malfoy.
But it wasn’t the Malfoy from the morning.
This Malfoy was pale, his skin the color of salt and ash.
The rope was still coiled loosely around his neck, trailing onto the floor like a dead snake, and the center of his forehead was a blackened, charred ruin—the “final mark” Lucas had delivered.
“M-Malfoy?” Lucas choked out, the note fluttering from his hand.
“I’m sorry… I had to… Andrew made me…”
The hallucination didn’t move, but its eyes—dark and clouded with burst capillaries—stared directly through him.
“You didn’t just watch, Lucas,” the ghost murmured, its jaw clicking unnaturally, his final smile still curled on his bluish lips.
“You held the iron. You felt my skin pop. Does it still smell like me in there?”
“Stop it! You’re not real!” Lucas screamed, throwing a heavy textbook at the corner.
The book thudded against the wall and fell to the floor.
The bed was empty.
The room was silent.
But as Lucas gasped for air, he felt a sudden, icy pressure on his shoulder—a cold, damp weight, as if a wet rope had just been draped over him.
“He’s never going to let you go,” the whisper echoed, right against his ear.
“Now you’re just like them. A Mayfair monster.”
Lucas scrambled back, hitting his wardrobe, his eyes darting frantically around the dark room.
He realized then that the “Man Eat Man” wasn’t finished.
It had followed him home.
Lucas slumped onto his chair, his breath coming in jagged hitches, staring at the empty space on his bed where the salt-pale version of Malfoy had just been sitting.
The silence that followed was absolute—the kind of heavy, ringing silence that happens after a bomb goes off.
Just then, his phone vibrated through the dark with a bright flick of light illuminating the room.
Lucas flinched, his body jerking backwards.
The blue light of the screen illuminated his face, making him look as ghostly as the hallucination he’d just seen.
He reached out with a trembling hand, the screen glare stinging his eyes.
*Andrew: > Don’t forget Tomorrow, You will sit in the front row of the chapel, right next to the Bishop, and you will offer him your deepest condolences.
You will look him in the eye and tell him how much you’ll miss his son.*
The message was a masterclass in Mayfair cruelty.
It wasn’t just a reminder; it was a leash.
Andrew was forcing Lucas to take the sin out of the dark hall and bring it into the light of the church.
He was forcing him to lie to a grieving father while the “final mark” he had branded into Malfoy’s skin was still fresh in his mind.
Lucas stared at the word “miss.” A fresh wave of nausea hit him.
He could almost smell the incense of the chapel mixing with the scent of charred skin.
He looked at his hand—the hand that had held the iron—and realized that no matter how much he washed it, he would be wearing that invisible mark when he shook the Bishop’s hand tomorrow.
He didn’t reply.
He couldn’t.
He pulled his knees up to his chest on the chair, rocking slightly, his eyes fixed on the door.
He was terrified to turn off his phone, but he was even more terrified to keep it on.
******
The sun rose over the school grounds with a clarity that felt insulting.
It was a perfect, golden morning, the kind that made the stained glass of the chapel glow with vibrant, holy colors.
But for Lucas, the light was a spotlight, exposing every tremor in his hands as he adjusted his black tie in the mirror.
The cathedral was packed.
The air was thick with the scent of lilies and expensive floor wax, a suffocating sweetness that made Lucas’s stomach churn.
He didn’t want to be there.
As he walked down the center aisle, the clicking of his dress shoes on the marble felt so heavy and slow.
He took his seat in the front row.
To his left sat the McGuire family.
The Bishop was a mountain of a man, now crumbled.
He clutched a prayer book with trembling fingers, his face a mask of profound, aging grief.
He looked over at Lucas, his eyes red-rimmed and hopeful.
“Lucas,” the Bishop whispered, his voice cracking.
“Thank you for being with him… I know how much he was fond of you as a friend. Tell me… did he say anything at the end? Was he… was he at peace?”
Lucas felt a drop of cold sweat slide down his spine.
Behind him, three rows back, he could feel Andrew’s gaze burning into the back of his neck.
He didn’t need to look to know Andrew was smiling—a small, sharp, expectant smile.
As Lucas opened his mouth to answer the Bishop, the peripheral of his vision began to warp.
The lilies on the altar seemed to wilt and turn a sickly, charred black.
He looked at the Bishop, but for a split second, he didn’t see the grieving father.
He saw Malfoy, standing right behind the Bishop’s chair.
The ghost’s head was tilted at that same unnatural angle, the rope around his neck trailing over the Bishop’s shoulder like a macabre shawl and still smiling eerily.
“Tell him, Lucas,” the ghost hissed, its voice merging with the soft organ music playing in the background.
“Tell him about the ‘final mark.’ Tell him how much fun you and the Mayfairs had when they did that to me.”
The air inside the cathedral was thick with the scent of burning myrrh and cold stone, a suffocating weight that pressed down on Lucas’s chest.
He gripped the edge of the ornate wooden pew so hard his knuckles turned white, the splinters biting into his palms.
He welcomed the pain; it was the only thing keeping him anchored to reality.
Forcing his eyes away from the floor, he locked his gaze onto the Bishop’s heavy, gold-embroidered robes.
“He…” Lucas started, his voice a frail ghost of itself.
“He was thinking of his family, Excellency. He… he spoke of Harry and—and Lolleta too. About how much he missed them. And how much he wanted to come home.”
The lie felt like a hot coal in his mouth, blistering his tongue.
The truth—the memory of the iron, the scent of burning flesh, and the absolute terror in the boy’s eyes—screamed to be let out.
The Bishop, his eyes clouded with the deep, aching grief of a father, reached out.
He squeezed Lucas’s trembling hand—the very hand that had held the branding iron under Andrew’s strict command.
“You are a good boy, Lucas. A true friend,” the Bishop murmured, his voice cracking under the weight of his sorrow.
“The headmaster told me you were with him until the very last moment. I find comfort in knowing that he wasn’t alone in the dark.”
Before Lucas could swallow the bile rising in his throat, a sudden weight dropped onto his shoulder.
A hand settled there, firm and unyielding.
Lucas nearly jumped out of his skin, his heart hammering against his ribs, but the grip tightened instantly, clamping down like a vice.
“He really is a good friend indeed,” Andrew’s voice purred from the pew behind them, smooth as velvet and dripping with a mocking sympathy.
Andrew leaned forward, invading the space between them.
His face was a mask of smug satisfaction, a cruel, lopsided smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
“Lucas was our absolute rock that night, Bishop. When things grew… complicated, he did exactly what was required of him as a friend. Didn’t you, Lucas?”
Lucas nodded numbly, his throat paralyzed.
He could feel the heat of Andrew’s breath on the back of his neck, a physical reminder of the leash around his soul.
The Bishop’s posture altered instantly.
The soft, grieving lines of his face stiffened, hardening into a mask completely devoid of expression, as if his sorrow had been instantly frozen over by a deep, instinctual hatred.
The sole reason for his sudden transformation was the young man leaning over the pew.
The demon at the apex of biological abomination: Andrew Mayfair.
The Bishop was entirely unaware that he was staring directly into the eyes of his son’s executioner.
But for a fraction of a second, a primal, murderous urge flared in the old man’s chest.
His fingers twitched, his muscles tensing as if he might leap across the wooden divide and wrap his bare hands around Andrew’s neck to choke the vile life out of him.
Andrew, sensing the lethal shift in the air, only widened his smile.
He tilted his head, his sharp eyes gleaming with dark amusement.
“Bishop, that is quite an intense glare you’re perceiving me with right now, really it makes my skin crawl.” Andrew mocked softly, his tone dripping with false innocence.
“One might think I committed a sin just by breathing your air… or did you simply miss me that much?”
“You vile fiend—” The Bishop scoffed cutting his words short as he looked around, seeing everyone watching them closely.
Just then he lowered his voice but his eyes had remained as murderous as before.
“You are unwelcome here, Andrew,” the Bishop hissed, his voice dropping to a harsh, dangerous whisper that barely carried past the pew.
“You devil’s spawn. You bring nothing but rot into the house of God.”
“That is quite a harsh greeting for your son’s former friend…” Andrew paused, his gaze drifting lazily from the Bishop toward the altar, before snapping back with venomous precision.
“…and the father of your only granddaughter.”
Andrew delivered the final words with pure, unadulterated provocation, leaning a fraction closer as he scanned Bishop McGuire’s face, hungrily searching for the exact moment the emotional blade hit its mark.
“Shouldn’t you be welcoming me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek right now as your son in-law?…after all I blessed you with the most beautiful granddaughter in the whole world.”
The Bishop’s jaw ground together, his knuckles tightening over the silver cross resting against his chest.
His chest heaved, a man teetering on the precipice of ignoring his holy vows to enact a very human, and a very brutal vengeance.
Lucas stared at the two men, his breath shallow, trapped in the suffocating pocket of space between them.
The sheer density of the hatred vibrating between Bishop McGuire and Andrew was suffocating.
Seemingly the hatred between the families was actually real.
Before the Bishop could take action—before the coiled tension in his shoulders could snap into violence against Andrew—the heavy, reinforced oak doors at the back of the cathedral didn’t just open.
They slammed against the stone walls with a resounding, echoing boom that shattered the sacred silence of the sanctuary.
The abrupt disturbance caused all three of them to freeze.
And the arrival of Harry McGuire sent a ripple through the front pews that was more violent than any scream.
The organ music seemed to falter for a heartbeat as the heavy oak doors at the back groaned closed once again.
Andrew’s smug smile didn’t vanish, but it instead it stretched even wider, his eyes narrowing as he tilted his head to listen to the heavy, deliberate footsteps echoing down the marble aisle.
Lucas felt a sudden, frantic spike of adrenaline, his eyes darting toward the silhouette cutting through the haze of drifting incense.
Harry McGuire stepped out of the shadows of the narthex.
He didn’t look like a man visiting a house of God, nor did he walk like a man in hiding.
Instead he looked like a storm that had finally broken through the roof.
His coat billowed slightly behind him, and the faint, unmistakable scent of flowers and ozone followed him into the stagnant air of the nave.
In his arms, he carried a toddler girl—perhaps two or three years old, who clutched a small, faded stuffed animal.
Her presence was a shock of pure, untainted life in a room that smelled of death and lies.
Everyone whispered as he walked past, pointing fingers at the sweet Lolleta who had snuggled herself in Harry’s arms.
As Harry sat down on the other side of the Bishop, the air around the Mayfairs turned arctic.
Molly stopped breathing for a moment.
Her hand flew to her throat, and her fingers searching for the locket she had stolen, her eyes wide and glassy.
This was the man she had destroyed a brother to find, and he had walked right into the lion’s den with a child in his arms.
Andrew’s jaw tightened, he looked at the back of Harry’s head with a mixture of predatory hunger and cold fury.
Harry was the one piece of the board he couldn’t move, the one who had escaped his grasp and hid himself from him.
Andrew’s fingers twitched in excitement, suddenly he couldn’t wait to get his hands on him.
Lucas stared at the toddler.
She had the same eyes as Malfoy—bright, curious, and innocent.
A fresh wave of nausea hit him.
This was what Malfoy was protecting.
This was the reason for the silence and endurance not to spill Harry’s whereabouts.
Lucas glanced toward the back of the cathedral, his mind spinning and hazy.
His head has been aching really bad for a while now and he just wants to go back to his room and sleep his grief away.
Attending the funeral was the worst idea, his guilt was eating him away slowly but surely.
Lucas sighs turning to look at where Harry was and he watches Lolleta let out a soft, restless whimper as the Bishop began the liturgy.
Harry leaned down, whispering something in her ear, his voice a low, soothing rumble that sounded similar to Malfoy’s own.
Everything about Harry reminded him of Malfoy, even for a split second he had believed that Malfoy actually came back from the dead.
They were so identical that no one would easily spot a difference between the two of them, they were the same person halved.
Suddenly, the little girl looked over Harry’s shoulder and locked eyes with Lucas as if she felt his stare.
She pointed a tiny, chubby finger at Lucas smiling.
Lucas waved…smiling at her so warmly piercing through his overbearing emotions.
And for once he actually yearned to leave everything behind and atone for his sins.
To make up for the little girl who had lost her biological father.
Harry’s head snapped to where Lolleta was looking behind him, and that’s when he spotted Lucas.
And for the first time in years, the two former friends locked eyes.
And before Harry could say something, Lucas heard the soft click of Andrew leaning forward in his pew, his hand moving toward the back of Lucas’s chair like a snake preparing to strike.
Lucas was unaware that Andrew had been watching him this entire time.
The heavy, possessive hand of Andrew Mayfair dropped onto Lucas’s shoulder.
It wasn’t a comforting gesture; it was a claim.
Andrew leaned forward, bridging the gap between the pews.
“Harry,” Andrew mouthed a murmur, his voice smooth and resonant, easily masking the lethality of the moment.
“It’s been quite a long time my dear friend, we were beginning to think you’d forgotten what home looked like.”
Andrew’s grip tightened on Lucas, his thumb pressing firmly into the nerve at the base of Lucas’s neck—a silent command to stay still and stay quiet.
Harry’s eyes didn’t leave Lucas’s side.
“Don’t mind Lucas Harry, focus on me instead.” Andrew continued, looking directly at Harry with a thin, sharp smile.
“Lucas has been through a traumatic ordeal. He was the one who found Malfoy. And he has been in shock ever since. Haven’t you, Lucas?”
The lie was seamless.
He was painting Lucas as the tragic hero instead of the accomplice.
Harry’s gaze didn’t flicker.
He looked at Andrew’s hand on Lucas, then back at Andrew’s face.
The toddler in his arms shifted, hiding her face in Harry’s neck, sensing the sudden surge of predatory energy between the men.
“So he found him at his last moments huh?” Harry’s voice was like grinding stones.
He looked at Lucas, his eyes searching for the boy he used to play soccer with, but finding only a hollowed-out shell staring right back at him.
“Funny. I don’t even care.” Harry admitted as he turned to look back at the child on his arms, shielding her from their view.
Especially from Andrew.
“Malfoy and I weren’t on the best terms you see…and I am not one to forgive people just because they are dead so–.”
He shrugged giving Andrew a side eye filled with nothing but malice.
He resented him, more especially the sight of him.
“It is quite disappointing that he died by his own hand instead of mine. Well if he wanted to die so bad then he should have just came to me and I would have done the honours.”
With that confession, Harry looked back at the front clicking his tongue as he brushed them off.
Molly, sitting next to Andrew, finally found her voice, though it was brittle.
“Harry…it is good to see you again.”
She reached out as if to touch the sleeve of Harry’s jacket, her eyes pleading for a scrap of attention she could have, but Harry shifted the child, pulling away from her touch as if it were toxic.
“Stay away…all of you” Harry said, his voice rising just enough to make the Bishop stir.
Andrew’s eyes darkened.
He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a whisper that only the four of them could hear.
“Careful, Harry. You walked back into this town with your own two feet. And you brought a very precious little reason for us to make sure you stay.”
He glanced at the little Lolleta.
The threat was as clear as the summer sky outside.
Lucas felt like he was suffocating.
He was trapped between the man he feared and the man who resembled the one he had betrayed.
The Bishop stood up then, raising his hands for the final blessing.
“Let us pray for the soul of Malfoy McGuire,” he intoned, his voice trembling with grief.
As the congregation bowed their heads, Andrew leaned into Lucas’s ear, his breath hot and smelling of mint.
“One word to him about Malfoy’s death, Lucas,” Andrew hissed, “and the girl is the guest of honor for the 10th of June.”
Lucas’s breath hitched, because he knew very well that Andrew meant every word, he never bluffs.
He would make it happen one way or another.
******
How is the story so far?