He wasn't there. It isn't happening to him. That was someone else on the mattress, crying. That was someone else enduring the pain. That person is not Lucca and he is not Luke. He is just an empty shell.
"I'm sorry, Lucca," Luke apologized. "I can't face him. I am afraid of him," he explained. Lucca sees no point in him commenting anything back to Luke. He only watches the boy suffer. They are still in the warehouse but it's like they're not there as well. It was like looking at the world through glass where they can see everything happening out there but no one can see what is happening inside the invisible glass. He had lost his faith in everything. In everyone. "Back then, when he killed mama, he handed you the knife. You didn't want to take it. So I took it for you. If I didn't do as he said, he will hurt you. So I took your place. And you were made to believe that you did it. He kept telling you it was your fault so you believed that it was your fault. You thought it was your doings and I had no choice but to encourage that belief on you so that you won't know the truth. All I had hoped for is that for me, for us both, to be stronger someday, to face him. To kill him. To save us. All three of us. I planned for it to happen, but look," Luke halted and for the first time, Lucca watches him broke down and cry. "I can't. I can't face him. I'm too weak," he admitted defeat.
Lucca can't care anymore. He feels like the whole world is closing in on him but at the very least, he wanted to know the truth. "Then what about Olivia? Tell me everything, Luke. Everything that you know. At least give me back my memories. If you've chosen to be such a coward, can you at least return that part that you took from me?" Lucca asked. He didn't know if he's pleading or demanding but the pain that he had avoided as a child, he thinks he is able to bear it now. He thinks he can be that boy on the mattress soon enough and face this. He thinks it's time to be strong. If he's losing, if he's at the edge of a cliff, he wants to go down with his pride attached. He will never let him win. Papa can't win. Even if he's winning, Lucca wants him to lose too. He won't go down without a fight. He will hold his head high and take it. He will face him.
"Very well," Luke agreed. "But, Lucca. This is goodbye. I will no longer be a part of you," he reminded him. Lucca smiles at him, amused and surprised at his own determination, for he had known strength now. Through the pain and sufferings and the acknowledgement of truth, he is strong now. "I no longer need you," Lucca whispered.
With their goodbyes, he was taken back in time...
The garden at the estate was filled with red roses. "Ah, there you are, my pretty baby," she said as she moved closer towards Lucca. Everything around him looked double their sizes and that was when Lucca realized that he was back in the body of a child. He couldn't tell how old he was though. The woman in front of him is his grandmother, Olivia. "What are you doing out here all alone?" She asked. Lucca sighed and began to sulk. "Papa is so busy. He has no time for me," child Lucca said. "No one wants to play with me. They're afraid if I fall and hurt myself and the bleeding won't stop," he complained.
She laughed. Back then, Lucca couldn't understand why she was laughing but to his child eyes, she was perfect. She was beautiful and her laughter was melodious. She captivated him. "Well then let me play with you," she suggested. Lucca frowned at the suggestion. "But you're old," he said naively. She laughed again, louder this time. "No I'm not. I'm your age, pretty baby," she indicated. That's when, to Lucca's child eyes, she turned into a little girl. Lucca believed her to be a little girl, his age, with a looks that matched to his own. Like twin siblings, they are. And they played. He had found a play-mate.
The last time he saw her, she said they would play a game. She placed a necklace of rope around his neck and hooked the other end to the ceiling. She had the same necklace of rope around her neck as well. She said they would kick the chair beneath them off in the count of three and who could hold on the longest will win. She had lost the game.
Like the end of a movie from a tape recorder, the aftermath of what had happened overlapped with one another with no clear direction. And the story ends. Only blackness prevails.
The sky is dark outside and Lucca is gradually aware that he is currently in a moving vehicle. Papa is by his side. He looks down and finds that his hands are still tied. He is back to reality, he realizes. Caleb is nowhere in sight. He could be in the other vehicle. There are two vehicles on the dark road. He knew this road. It's the dark freeway heading back to the estate. He then remembered that before they got in the car, he was made to watch papa's men cut off Jessica's body into pieces that were later shoved into a suitcase. He is clueless as to what had happened to Caleb though. He was lost in another space and time. He wishes Caleb is still alive and is still hanging on. "Don't worry. I'll spare Caleb for a while. But I have to finish him off when we reach the estate," papa suddenly whispered to his ears, as if reading his mind.
Lucca is still shaken and afraid of his papa but his curiosity for the truth will mean that he won't keep his mouth shut. "Papa, is Olivia my real mother?" He asked, surprised to how weak he sounds. It appears that he is low on energy. He feels his throats dry. He can't remember the last time he drank. He also lost sense of time. "Hmm, yeah," Edmund simply answered. "Does that mean we're brothers?" Lucca asked again, this time his voice had picked up its strength. Edmund tilts his head to one side for a bit as if thinking. "If you put it that way, yeah, technically, you're my younger brother and my son," he informed. There's no sign of shame in his manner of speaking. It was as if to him, it wasn't as bizarre and outrageous as it sounds. Lucca feels disgusted. Both to the fact that he is a product of an incestuous bond and that his father is such a perverted disgusting person. At that point though, he couldn't even see Edmund as a person. He is an animal. No. He is worse than animals. "Why are we heading back to the estate?" He asked as he looks around for any source of hope to escape or any way to delay them from getting there. How far is it yet to get there? He couldn't tell. "The Codrins need to be buried at the Codrins' cemetery, Lucca. I can't leave them just like that. I'm still a gentleman, you see," he indicated. There's a slight amusement and insinuation to his words. Like he was joking but also serious at the same time. Like he can't even take what he had said seriously. Lucca could not understand the amusement. All he can feel towards what he had just said was pure disgust and hatred. Gentleman? What kind of a gentleman would rape and kill someone? He's not even human. Nothing about him is humane at all. Gentleman? He must be dreaming!, Lucca thought angrily in his mind.
"You know, you should love me, Lucca," Edmund said as he suddenly eases closer. His voice is soft and seductive. It makes Lucca's skin crawl in disgust. He then feels a lick to his ear. He is mentally screaming to himself to just shove the man off and punch him on the face or something but instead he froze, knowing that if he did such immature acts, his papa might go 'crazy' again. He didn't want to trigger him. "I'll love you and all of you," Edmund whispered. At that, Lucca was taken aback. "All of me?" Lucca asked, trying to confirm what he thought. Did his papa aware of Luke as well?
Edmund smiles knowingly and Lucca is beginning to despise this connection they had, in which his papa always knows what he's thinking or feeling somehow. And he can't help but to think back now if he knew it from the start as well? When they met at the institution after a long time, did he knew what he was thinking as well? "Yeah. You, Luke, and...," Edmund started and smiled before mentioning the last name. "Olivia the 2nd."
Horrified, Lucca silently thought to himself, No. The realization almost breaks him.
The invisible glass between reality and imaginary breaks again for the second time and he is brought into the light. In this light, he sees her.
"She can manipulate you into believing that what she feels is your feeling and what she thinks is your thinking. And then she can get you into forgetting that she was even there. This is by far, the most interesting personality I've ever dealt with, Lucca" the memory of Dr. Neilson's conversation with Lucca during one of their sessions came into the light. "Oh, honey, you flatter me too much," Lucca replied in a slightly feminine demeanor. "But your praise won't get you anywhere. I can't wait to slice you open, doctor. After all, you're part of the reason why I'm separated from papa. He wants to get rid of me, isn't it? Gosh, he's such a coward! When I was born, he made that wretched woman murdered me and now that I got to be a part of my brother, he wants me gone! How ridiculous!" Lucca said like a spoil rich brat. He acted too feminine to be even seen as a boy for his pretty look. One would definitely sees him as a girl. A spoil rich mean girl. No. A spoil rich psychotic girl. S/he was Olivia the 2nd.
"But I guess the good doctor had gotten rid of them. So all I have to myself now, is you," Edmund continued and planted a kiss on Lucca's forehead.
Back at the institution, he thought a lot about papa. He missed him, he was convinced that he is madly in love with his own papa. Up to the point of where..he would..kill. No. That wasn't him. That wasn't his thought, his desire. It was never his. It was never him. It was her all along.
As he was lost in thought, he suddenly heard a loud screeching noise from outside and realizes that the car in front of him had made an emergency brake and with that, the vehicle he is in skids to left a little bit but could not avoid itself from hitting the car at the front. They collided. There was a loud banging sound, the smells of tires burning, the screaming panic voices of the occupant inside the vehicle, including his, and the vibration from the impact. The worst of all is the knowledge that they had defied gravity and soon, they'll hit the ground.
