Chapter One: The Dominant Personality
(DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVE NOT READ BOOKS ONE & TWO) -The Sapphire Dreamer / Love Triangle-
~*~
Ariel pounded on Luka’s back as he carried her up a path. She had a hard time seeing her surroundings, with the world spinning from being carried over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
Lukas grunted as he rang the doorbell.
Lesa answered the door and stared at the man on her doorstep, with a woman over his shoulder.
“Lukas.” She said as she studied him.
Ariel stopped pounding when she recognized the voice. “Put me down.” She ordered him.
“Ariel?” Lesa questioned as she watched Lukas walk past her and down the hall.
Ariel looked up at Luka’s mother as they passed her. Had the woman called him Lukas?
Lukas walked into the living room to wait for the detective’s parents.
“Who’s at the door, dear?” Kole asked as he walked into the hall.
“Lukas.” She said as she pushed the door closed.
“What?” Kole asked as he turned and walked into the living room. “Hello, Son.”
Lukas looked at the man.
Kole sucked in a shocked breath. Lukas never comes to them. He hates them, and for a good reason.
“Mr. Gunnar?”
“Ariel, is that you?” Kole asked as he stared at the woman over his son’s shoulder.
Lukas set Ariel on the couch, then sat down next to her and pushed his hands through his hair.
“This isn’t how I wanted things to go.” He said as he shook his head.
“What happened?” Lesa asked as she sat in the chair in front of them.
Lukas sighed as he told them what had gone down tonight. Then he told them how he needed their help to convince Ariel of the truth.
Lesa sighed as she looked at Ariel. “I understand that you don’t want to believe it. We didn’t want to believe it either. Who wants to believe their son is a killer?”
Ariel stared at Lesa, then looked at Luka. What is going on? Is someone going to jump out and say April fools?
“Luka was about ten when it happened.” Lesa said as she looked between the two on her couch.
She hated seeing the angry look on Ariel’s face. She was so full of love, the last time she had seen the girl.
“That was when he got sick and thought he was possessed.” Ariel said as she remembered Lesa’s brief story the last time she was here.
“Right.” Lesa said with a nod.
“Our son had disappeared with his best friend.” Kole said as he stood behind his wife.
“Everyone looked for them for days. But no one could find them anywhere.” Lesa said, a frown on her face.
“Then, on the third day, someone almost ran them over in the middle of the road. Luka’s best friend was already dead, and Luka was covered in blood.” Kole said as he watched Lukas and Ariel.
Lukas tried not to look at Ariel, but he couldn’t help himself. He had to see her face.
“What had happened?” Ariel asked as she sucked in a shocked breath.
“At first they tried to say Luka had killed his best friend. But then they found the DNA didn’t match. So then they backtracked and found the cabin where he had held the boys, a dead man inside.” Lesa said with a shake of her head.
“We didn’t know what to do. Luka wouldn’t talk to us. He just cried and stayed in his room. Sometimes we would hear things breaking in his room, and other times we would hear him talk to himself in a soft voice.” Kole said as he laid his hand on his wife’s shoulder.
“We sent him to see a specialist, and they discovered that he wasn’t talking; because he wasn’t there.” Lesa said as she shook her head.
“What do you mean, he wasn’t there?” Ariel asked as she stared at them.
“Lukas and Lizzie kept him hidden away.” Lesa said as she looked at Lukas.
“It was for his own good. He kept replaying the scene of Howie’s death, over and over in his head.” Lukas said with a heavy sigh as he shook his head.
“Howie?” Ariel asked.
“Luka’s best friend. Howard Ford.” Lesa said as she watched Lukas.
“We didn’t want to believe it, at first. I mean, who wants to believe that their ten-year-old son has multiple personalities? And one of them a killer.” Kole said as he looked at Lukas.
“That asshole deserved it, after what he had done to Howie. And he would have done the same to Luka.” Lukas said with a growl.
Ariel stared at him. He sounded like Lukas, but he looked like Luka.
“It’s okay, Ariel. We were where you are now. We didn’t want to believe it. But then one day, I found Luka in my room, wearing a dress he had sewn to fit himself and applying makeup to his face. I knew then that my son was no longer the boy he once was.” Lesa said as she looked down at her hands.
“Why was he in a dress?” Ariel asked, confused.
“Lizzie wanted to dress up. So, I let her.” Lukas said with a shrug.
“Lizzie?” Ariel asked as she looked at Lukas.
“The other alter.” Lukas said as he looked at her.
“There are many stages and kinds of MPD, Ariel.” Lesa said, getting the girl’s attention. “Most have two or more personalities. Some I hear have over a hundred. But luckily, our boy only had the two.”
“How did he get MPD?” Ariel asked as she stared at Lesa.
“He had witnessed Howie’s murder.” Lesa whispered.
“The man had alternated between raping Howie and Luka.” Lukas said as he watched Ariel. “The third day, I guess he had gotten bored with them because he choked Howie; until his eyes almost popped out of his head.”
“Ohmigod.” Ariel whispered as she covered her mouth.
“By this point, Lizzie had already been created. She had kept his mind clear and helped him not to remember what the man did to him. And when he watched the man snuff the life out of his best friend, I was born.”
Ariel stared at him. Everything sounded so bogus. How can this be real?
“What happened next?” Ariel asked.
“I killed the man.” Lukas said with no feelings in his voice. “I took over and picked up the knife on the counter and started stabbing him in the back while he was raping Howie one last time.”
“Oh, dear Lord.” Ariel breathed as she covered her mouth again.
“Luckily, I took over before that part. All Luka remembers is his friend’s eyes bulging out of his head. He replayed the image over and over. Lizzie and I had to keep him from going insane.”
“How did you two end up in the street?” Ariel asked.
“I shoved the man off Howie and dragged him through the forest; until we hit the road. When the car almost hit us, Lizzie took over, and she broke down in tears. Which helped our case, if I’d been there, I would have scared them.” He said as he looked at her.
She sucked in a shocked breath. “Your eyes are real.”
“No contacts here, Sweetheart.” He said with a smile.
“It took us a few weeks to get him to come out of his room. And another week to get him to see a specialist. They tried hypnosis, and many others to bring Luka back to the front. But nothing was working.” Lesa said as she sat back in the seat.
“Because Lukas and Lizzie wouldn’t let Luka go, we had no choice but to try an experimental drug.” Kole said.
“It took a week, but Luka finally came back to us. Not the same happy-go-lucky boy, but still, our son. Darcey was two at the time, and I think she got past his walls, because he started playing with her, and protecting her.” Lesa said as she looked at Lukas.
“When we got our son back, we stopped giving him the pills.” Kole said as he too looked at Lukas. “But, we never saw Lukas or Lizzie again.”
“What did the pill do?” Ariel asked as she looked around the room.
“It captured the alters and put them into a deep sleep.” Lesa said.
“Until they released Darcey’s killer.” Kole said as he watched his son.
“Lukas woke up and started protecting Luka again.” Ariel said as she looked at Lukas.
“Lukas has never liked us because he knew we were trying to get rid of him and Lizzie.” Lesa said with a frown.
“That would explain the outbreak of murders.” Kole said as he looked at his son. “All that pent-up anger.”
“We are so sorry, Lukas. We didn’t know then what we know now about MPD. After we silenced you and Lizzie, we did a lot of research. And with the right treatments, the three of you could have had a beautiful life together.” She said as she watched him.
“We discovered that there is no getting rid of alters, you can just subdue them, or find a way for them to live a normal life together.” Kole said as he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Son.”
Lukas stared at them. He had known when they were ten that things weren’t right, that they themselves weren’t right. But to hear their mother and father say that they should have let them live their life.
“Lukas?” Ariel whispered as she watched his eyes flick over the Gunnars.
He looked at Ariel and smiled. “Hello, Sweetheart.”
She cried as she threw her arms around him.
He sighed as he held her.
“I think we should leave these two alone.” Lesa said as she stood from the chair.
Kole took her arm and guided her from the room.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.” Ariel cried against his shoulder.
He laughed as he held her. “I wouldn’t have believed me, either.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? All those times we have made love, and I thought Luka was inside, how did you do that?”
He laughed as he kissed her forehead. “Unlike Luka, who knows nothing of us, or what is going on when we take over. We are always conscious. So, we see everything and feel everything. The few times Luka would move faster with you, that was me trying to break through and get him to speed things up. That man knows how to torture a soul.”
Ariel laughed as she looked up at him. She sucked in a sharp breath and pulled away from him.
He looked at her. “What is it?”
“That was you in the shower. Wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “I had wanted to be with you as me, so bad. To feel you against my skin.” He sighed as he shook his head.
“Ohmigod. Luka must have thought I was nuts when I tried talking about it in the kitchen.” She said, her cheeks turning a bright red.
Lukas laughed as he pulled her back into his arms. “Yeah, it indeed confused the hell out of him.”
“You’re a horrible person.” She said as she slapped his arm.
He laughed. “You don’t truly believe that.”
“How did you do the other things?” She asked as she sat up from him.
“Well, the stuff with you was easy. I just made it look and sound like Luka was still in the house, while I spent my time with you.”
“But what about after we had made love against the house. You had had to go so fast; I thought you had heard Luka wake up.”
He laughed. “He had. I have better control at night when he’s asleep. But he had missed you and was waking, so I had to run.”
She shook her head. “What about when you had called him?”
He laughed. “I’m just good that way. Set a timer to play a recording, I knew what he would say, so I gave the answers I knew he would want to hear.”
“That’s why you don’t handwrite your notes.” She said with a laugh.
“Yeah, would be stupid to handwrite a note from The Sapphire Dreamer, in Detective Gunnar’s handwriting.”
“Well, now I know why I felt such a powerful pull to you.” She said as she watched his face. “You and Luka are the same, and somewhere, deep inside, I felt it.”
Lukas smiled as he pulled her close. “We are the same body, but not the same person.”
She sighed. “You two are more alike than you realize.” She said with a smile.
“What do you say we get your cheek bandaged up?” He asked as he looked at the nasty cut on her face.
“Oh, I had forgotten all about that.” She said as she touched her cheek.
“I’ll call Abraham, and see if he found Hannah, while my dad patches you up.” He said as he pulled out his phone.
“Ohmigod, I forgot about Hannah again.” She said as she sucked in a breath.
“It’s all right, I’ll check on her, you go talk to my dad.” He said with a smile, then gently kissed her on the lips.
“Have you noticed that you have called him, dad, twice now?” She asked as she watched him.
He looked at her with a sigh. She was right; he had called the old man, dad. Maybe he is changing.
“Go.” He said as he pushed her up off the couch.
Ariel went in search of Luka’s parents and found them in the kitchen.
