Chapter 3
Lyndsey flipped to a fresh page in her notebook and started writing.
It wasn't the instant, violent death Kaycee had suffered. She wrote slowly and carefully, as if weaving an intricate web.
She wrote: [Amy Weaver. Three days from now, a drunk driver runs a red light and crashes into Amy while she's spreading rumors in the library computer lab.
[Right before she dies, her phone automatically sends an apology video to the school forum. The video must show her admitting to helping Kaycee set Lyndsey up.]
When the final period hit the page, a warm rush flowed from the paper into her fingertips.
Unlike the sharp pain she'd felt when killing Kaycee, this time it was a comforting and thrilling sense of fullness.
Lyndsey felt her eyes grow warm, and her vision shifted. She could see the dust floating in the air and the delicate scales on Night's black wings. She touched her face, and her skin was glowing, a gentle, pearlescent light radiating from deep within.
Night gave her a complicated look. "You manipulated 'accidents.' That's a lot riskier than writing 'heart attack.' It'll attract—"
"The cleaners?" Lyndsey asked.
"No, something even worse." Night suddenly became more solid, grabbing Lyndsey's wrist so hard it hurt. "Your parents are on their way to the school.
"They took a $60,000 down payment from a black market broker. They're coming to sell your kidney, Lyndsey. They'll be downstairs at your dorm in forty minutes."
Lyndsey's expression didn't change. She even managed a small smile, and that was enough to make Night release her wrist.
"Just in time," she murmured. "Now I don't have to go looking for them myself."
*****
The paint on the walls of the rental was peeling, like the place was suffering from a bad skin condition.
When Lyndsey pushed open the door, Night floated behind her. Ever since their conversation in the gazebo, he stopped hiding, lingering in his spectral form like a persistent shadow.
The rental was barely 160 square feet, with a bed, a table, and a plastic cabinet overflowing with expired canned food.
"Your family will be here at 6:15," Night said, his voice only audible to Lyndsey, "with fake organ donation papers, forged with your signature. And...
"And a tranquilizer syringe," Lyndsey finished, dragging a suitcase out from under the bed and starting to pack. "My dad's a vet. He knows how to sedate big animals."
She pulled out a box cutter from under her pillow, bigger than the one she'd used in the woods. The blade flashed with a cold gleam.
Night drifted in front of her, his black wings folding tight as he grew more solid. He looked almost human now, except for those eyes with no whites and skin so pale it was almost ghostly.
He grabbed Lyndsey's hand, the one gripping the knife. This time, his touch was real, icy cold like the water drawn from the bottom of a well.
"Look," he said, waving his other hand through the air. An image shimmered into view above them.
It was a figure in a black suit, with no face, no features, nothing but a seething mass of darkness. It floated in the void, limbs twisted at impossible angles, letting out silent screams.
Even without sound, Lyndsey felt a stabbing pain in her eardrums, her nose almost starting to bleed.
"This was the previous user of the death note," Night said coldly. "He regretted it by the third second after becoming a reaper. But he could never say the word 'regret' again. A reaper has no voice, no tongue, only endless, gnawing thirst for blood."
The image faded away. Night locked eyes with Lyndsey. "If you write their names here, you'll bear the karma. Kill your own blood, and you'll ascend to godhood twice as fast. However, you'll plunge twice as deep into darkness."
Lyndsey yanked her hand away. "I never planned on writing their names directly."
She flipped open the notebook, but instead of the main pages, she turned to the hidden pocket behind the cover. There, in tiny letters, was a line that had been obscured by blood before, but now it was clear.
It read: [Rule Zero: if someone else writes a name voluntarily, the karma falls on the writer. The one who induced them only bears half the consequences.]
Lyndsey's fingers lingered on the words. She looked up at Night, her eyes shining. "It's the accomplice rule."
Night's black wings snapped open as he lunged for the notebook, but his fingers passed right through the pages. The notebook wouldn't let him touch it.
He roared, "You can't. This is a shortcut straight to the abyss!"
"But I can hack the rules, right?" Lyndsey quickly scribbled a passage in the notebook. It was not a name, but a whole "script."
It read: [Garry Burton, the black market boss, will kidnap Liam and Arlene Duncan in the early hours today, planning to sell their organs.
[During the surgery, a malfunction in the equipment causes massive bleeding, and all three will bleed out and die together in the operating room on the third floor of an abandoned hospital.]
She paused, then added: [Right before they die, Liam and Arlene will hallucinate seeing their daughter, Lyndsey, and be overwhelmed with regret.]
Night froze, staring at the passage. For the first time, what seemed like shock flickered in his eyes. "You... you manipulated the villains to turn on each other. You didn't kill them directly. You engineered them to destroy one another."
"And then die together in the same snare," Lyndsey said, closing the notebook with a steady voice. "The karma lands on Garry. I'm just the one who pulled the strings, so I bear only half the consequences. Isn't that right, reaper?"