A/N: Hello, everybody! This came to me in a dream—no, no, just kidding, I'm not that cool. But it was one of those annoying plot bunnies that waits to make an appearance until I've turned the lights off and gotten comfortable, haha. So that almost counts.
This story is kinda dark, but no more than the show. Lilies are traditionally seen at funerals, thus the title.
Funeral Flowers
The first time she noticed the marks—really noticed them—was the day after the Fab-Four got caught playing beer pong on Dog Beach at 4am. Despite her insistence to her parents that it was a rite of passage for After-Prom, she and Duncan were still grounded. Logan snuck in her window, since he was still free to go where he pleased, and they made love on her bed, amused by the imminent danger that one of her parents might walk in at any moment. Of course, she knew they probably wouldn't come in unless they heard something; her folks weren't in the habit of just coming to visit her, especially when she was being punished. Well, she figured sourly, that was their own poor judgement.
She'd made an irritated comment about the unfairness of life, since Logan's parents hadn't grounded him, and he'd gotten an odd look in his eyes, which he hid an instant later with his trademark twinkle and smirk.
"Yeah, well, Daddy Dearest wouldn't want the adoring masses to think he's hard on his kids," he'd responded with a shrug, and Lilly had just rolled her eyes and pulled him down on top of her.
They'd made out, shedding their clothes onto the floor, but she'd noticed—in the small corner of her mind that noticed anything during sex—that he seemed kind of stiff, and would become tense when she put too much pressure on his back. This wasn't the first time he'd failed to mention beforehand that he was injured—surfing and off-roading accidents were the usual suspects—but this time, it bothered her.
Afterwards, while they lay in her bed, he drowsy, she contemplating, she realized what was so odd about the situation. She'd seen him last night, and he'd been completely fine. He'd been in school all day.
So, he hadn't had time to indulge in any extreme sports.
"Hey, you okay?" She asked, squirming over him so she could see his back. Angry red and purple welts decorated it.
"Yeah," he responded with a shrug, rolling over so that he was laying on the damaged skin, hiding it from view. His movement almost tossed Lilly onto the floor, and he had to catch her, pulling her quickly and quietly onto his lap. "Drunk Logan isn't quite as graceful as he likes to pretend. Got out of dad's car, took three steps, wound up in mom's rock garden, teaching her ceramic gnomes new swear words."
A story which Lilly might've believed. If the pattern hadn't almost exactly matched the bruises he'd gotten from wiping out on his surf board, and the accident he'd had playing basketball. She lay down with her head on his shoulder, keeping her thoughts to herself, but Lilly Kane was no fool. Something else was going on.
-0-
Hopping up on her dressing chair, Lilly quickly unscrewed the air conditioning vent, mentally thanking Logan for coming up with such good hiding places. Her parents looked through her room all the time, searching for condoms, alcohol, pot, or anything else illegal or fun that she could possibly own. Unluckily for them, she was three steps ahead.
She stowed the little stack of tapes in the vent, alongside her much-used secret message pen, the pipe Weevil had stolen for her a few months ago, and her trusty box of condoms.
She was a bit more rushed than she'd anticipated, but this would still work out. She screwed the vent cover hastily back into place, grabbed her phone, and after a moment of consideration, collected a magazine and suntan lotion to bring down with her to the pool area. She needed to call Duncan about this—needed to have one other person who knew, in case Aaron's temper was worse than she thought, but she didn't want her parents involved, for a lot of reasons, and they were supposed to be home any second. They didn't notice much, with her, but they would surely think it odd if they caught her locked in her room to have a serious phone conversation with her brother.
-0-
It wasn't until Logan left that night, kissing her and slipping out her window, that she put the pieces together. He'd "fallen off his surfboard" after his dad had busted him having a rager while the rest of the family was supposed to be in Texas for a film shoot. He'd "hurt himself playing basketball" shortly after three beer bottles were found in his locker. Neither incident had seemed like such a big deal at the time—he'd even bragged later about how his dad's lawyer had gone to bat for him and challenged the school to prove he knew the alcohol was there, or that he'd consumed any, which, luckily, he hadn't. He'd been saving it for himself, Duncan and Dick to celebrate Neptune crushing Pan in the soccer tournament.
But now, after a third set of matching injuries had appeared following a drunken incident that he should have been punished for and reportedly wasn't…
That was one coincidence too many.
Being angry was easier than being sad. Lilly knew that she ought to have spent more emotion feeling bad for Logan, but her heart instantly dialed itself to rage. How dare that miserable excuse for a man do that to Logan—to her Logan? Sure, she knew that there were things that parents (felt that they) had to do to teach their kids responsibility or keep them out of jail or whatever, but this was crossing the line. No, this was taking a running leap over the line and landing squarely on the side of cruel and unnecessary.
She had literally dialed Sherriff Mars's number before she realized what a bad idea it was to go to the police. Best case scenario, Aaron Echolls went to jail and Logan's abuse became every inch the star his dad ever was. Worst case scenario—and much more likely—Aaron's lawyer would prove to the world that she was a lying little girl who just wanted attention. Logan's best friend was dating the Sherriff's daughter—if he wanted the cops involved, or thought it would do any good, he'd have done this himself. Lilly closed her phone and tossed it on the bed in frustration.
She wasn't strong enough physically to protect Logan in the traditional sense, and she didn't have a reputation as an honest, upstanding citizen, at least, not that could compete with the made-for-film face of Aaron Echolls. She wasn't even old enough to sue him and create a media circus.
Sometimes, being sixteen rally sucked.
-0-
She was with Weevil when it hit her. She was sure she ought to feel like a hypocrite, for cheating on Logan when she wanted to protect him, and thinking about him while sleeping with Eli, but Lilly Kane's standard of morality was a little more complicated than that of most other people. She loved guys—Logan knew that. Besides, they were already doing something "wrong" by having premarital sex in the first place. Why try to make it "right" by keeping it to one partner at a time?
That was actually what made her think of her daring plan. True, she couldn't fight Aaron, or sue him, or get him arrested. But there was one thing that Lilly Kane excelled at, one thing that she could use as a weapon until they day she turned eighteen. One thing that a sixteen-year-old town slut could do that would ruin a respectable man's life.
That night, she threw out her birth control pills, and modeled her sexiest outfits in the mirror.
She tried not to think about the fact that if her plan worked, she'd eventually provide her boyfriend a sibling. That was too weird and gross to dwell on too hard.
-0-
He was good. She couldn't deny it, and did not try too. After all, if he thought she wasn't enjoying herself, she might actually be in danger. She'd seen him in "Love is Spelled with a U" and "Deep Red Sheets" and fantasized on her own time, before she knew what a creep he was, but what her mind and the theater screen had supplied was a pale, two-dimensional sham of the real thing.
The only lie she told him that first night was that she was on the pill, and he hadn't questioned her further.
This was going to be easy.
-0-
Easier than she'd expected, actually. She smirked as she opened up the patio doors and walked out to the pool. Aaron Echolls, as it turned out, was even more promiscuous than the tabloids speculated. It had taken her all of thirty minutes of flirting before he'd taken her to the pool-house and ravished her that first night. She'd begun to wonder if the reason the place was decked out with a bed an everything was so that he'd have place to bring his lovers where his wife wouldn't find evidence.
Of course, as of under an hour ago, she knew that there was another reason.
-0-
"Come on, lover," Lilly called, laying down on the bed. "Time to earn your keep." She'd become more snarky with him as the school year began; more demanding, more imperious. A little of it was the high of seeing a grown man—especially one so attractive and famous—bending to her will by the power of his sex drive. But only a little.
It was October, and Lilly was impatient. She'd been having an affair with him for almost five months now, with no protection and no birth control. In that time, she'd had her seventeenth birthday, so now the clock was really ticking. If she was going to do this, if this whole damn thing was going to do one lick of good, she had to get pregnant well before she turned eighteen. If she couldn't prove, for sure, that she'd been underage when she conceived, he could deny statutory rape, and 90% of the scandal would be ruined. If she couldn't get pregnant at all, then she could never prove anything had happened between them in the first place. And, of course, it would beg the terrifying question of what was wrong with her that she couldn't get pregnant.
She'd told Logan, Eli and Jackson that her pills had been making her sick, so they had to use condoms until further notice, but she'd said her doctor would probably proscribe her something else soon. That was months ago, and her lovers were getting impatient. Logan, at least, knew that it didn't take that long for the rich and privileged to get a prescription changed. Soon, someone was going to call her out on her lie. That was one of the downsides of sleeping around as much as she did.
She was running out of time. And after what she'd noticed and suspected about Logan's physical condition after the homecoming limo party, she was desperate to fix this for him. She folded her arms behind her head, staring listlessly up at the ceiling fan, following the wire with her eyes.
The wire?
Lilly's eyes slid across the ceiling, following the unassuming wire casing down the wall, where it vanished behind a book case. She might have dismissed it as nothing important, if it wasn't for the eerie glint in the tiny, round black jewel in the center of the fan.
Standing up on the bed, Lilly squinted at the little black circle. Sure enough, tiny variations within the orb revealed it to be a camera—with an automatic focus, apparently, since it was shifting to zoom in on her.
Lilly hopped down to the floor and ran to the book case, prying the two shelving units apart. After some initial protestations and creaks, they slid apart like closet doors, and Lilly found herself staring at a little screen showing the empty, slightly ruffled bed, and, if she looked carefully, the back of her ankle. She held her arm out, back towards the bed, and watched her fingers wiggle.
"You sly old pervert," she muttered as she looked around the space.
Above the little screen was a small compartment with two tapes, and Lilly grabbed one and switched it out for the one in the player. She fast-forwarded until she was watching a home video of herself having sex with Aaron. Briefly, she contemplated her facial expression. Did she really look like that during intercourse? It was weird.
Then reality hit.
Here was proof—all the proof she'd ever need, neatly stacked and ready for her blackmailing pleasure. No teen pregnancy or big reveal to Logan necessary. But she knew she had to move fast. There was now a recording of her finding the equipment, and even if she passed it off as idle curiosity, he'd likely hide the rest of the footage better. If she was going to take them, she had to take them and run right this instant.
Ejecting the tape of her weird sex-face, she grabbed the other three and exited the recording closet, closing the door hastily behind her. She left the pool house through the back door, knowing that Aaron would come in from the front, since his wife was away. She was in her car, burning rubber down the street, before she'd even formulated the rest of the plan. She didn't even notice the red light she'd blown. Not that something like that had ever really been on her radar.
-0-
How to start explaining this to Duncan, she wondered as she set her suntan lotion and magazine down on the little poolside table. It would be kind of a long story—maybe she should make him come home first.
"Where are those tapes?" Aaron's voice was rough and angry, and against her will, Lilly jumped a little. She hadn't expected him to follow after her so quickly. She wasn't sure what to say to start off.
"Hello, Mr. Echolls," she greeted him with a sly grin. "Logan's not here right now." He grabbed her upper arm.
"I'm not in the mood to play with you, you little bitch," he hissed.
"Really?" She demanded, "because usually you're very interested in playing with me."
"Give me those tapes, Lilly, now," he growled as she shook her arm free.
"No," she responded musingly, "I think I'd rather send them to Variety." Let him think about that for a few seconds, she decided. Then she'd make her demand.
She wheeled to face him.
Lilly Kane didn't even live long enough to feel the pain from the ash tray bashing her head in.
A/N: Rather dark, but you've all (hopefully!) seen the series, so you knew what was coming. I feel like Lilly was crazy enough and passionate enough and ultimately foolish enough in an "I'm-a-teenager-and-nothing-can-hurt-me" kind of way to try to pull something like this. And it would explain why she would be sleeping with someone who was actively abusing someone else that she cared about, on whatever level.
Those of you waiting for the next installment of the Red Queen series, fear not—the first chapter of Season II is written, but the next one is giving me grief, and I want to get that one ready as well so I can be ahead of the game and update more often. Shouldn't be too much longer.