Section Nine
"The scholarship!" Luke said grandly as he entered the room.
Nikolas turned way from the files he'd been going over to acknowledge Luke's sudden presence. "The scholarship?" he asked suspiciously. Luke had been out of contact for three days now, despite Nikolas' repeated attempts to get the man to communicate, and for him to show up here, out of the blue like this was unexpected.
"Of course!" Luke exclaimed, obviously excited, "Lucky went to school on a scholarship."
Comprehension dawned on Nikolas at the mention of Lucky's name and he was immediately interested. The people he'd hired to help had come up against a rather formidable road block while searching for Lucky and Jeremy; if Luke had something concrete to follow up on he would be willing to overlook some of the older man's more annoying habits, for a while anyway.
"Go on." Nikolas said, letting Luke know he had his attention.
"Think about it," Luke said, plopping down hard into the chair across from him, and Nikolas winced at sound the legs made scratching against the hardwood floor. "You have enough money to pay for a house in cash, install an elaborate surveillance system, and you have either taken over Ceasar Fasion's business or you know enough about it to have found Lucky and figured out what happened. Why, pray-tell, would you have to send Lucky to school on a scholarship?"
Nikolas frowned, "There are any number of reasons for that Luke. It could be he didn't want Lucky to go to school and the scholarship was Lucky's way of forcing the issue, or maybe . . ."
Luke cut Nikolas off with a dismissive wave of his hand. "No, there's no reason for it. Someone who's this good at covering their tracks knows there are better ways to fund something like that. This was Lucky's doing. Lucky did this so I would have something to look into if I ever found out what happened."
Nikolas fought of a wave of irritation at being dismissed so quickly. He'd given Luke a lot more leeway than he would have given anyone else, because he knew how hard the situation must be for the man, but this was getting ridiculous.
"Are you sure you aren't just so desperate to find something that you're seeing meaning where there isn't any?" He asked reasonably.
"You have anything better to follow up on?" Luke said confidently propping his feet up on the edge of the desk.
"All right," Nikolas finally conceded, oddly comforted by the return of the annoying Luke he'd known for so long, "we'll look into the scholarship."
Malus sighed in frustration, sitting down at his desk heavily. He wasn't ready for Luke to find them yet. He hadn't had time to move into his position in Port Charles fully. Oh, he had made some good headway, and with the local mob boss ensconced in a turf war, there had been no one there to inhibit him. But the war was over, Corinthos had taken care of that little problem faster than expected, Jeremy had started regaining his memories faster than expected, Luke had found Jeremy at the hospital faster than expected. Things were just moving too fast.
He didn't know why he was so worked up over this now. He'd been planning it for months, and even if Luke showed up today things could still work out exactly as anticipated. Malus pushed a button on his desk and turned his chair to watch the TV monitor as it slid silently out of the hidden compartment. After a moment the dark screen flickered to life, showing him Lucky and Jeremy's room. Jeremy was, predictably, pacing the room like a caged animal. Lucky was ignoring his companion in favor of reading through one of his school books.
A strange sensation filled his chest as he took in the familiar sight of Lucky sitting quietly, reading to himself, and suddenly he knew what was bothering him. It wasn't that he wasn't ready to move to the next part of his plan. It was that he wasn't ready to let Lucky go. He'd had Lucky to himself for the last three years, and giving that up was a risk he wasn't sure he wanted to take. When Lucky was no longer directly under his influence, chances were the kid would turn against the relationship he'd carefully cultivated between them.
He had been considering bringing the truth to light for a long time now; ever since Lucky had hospitalized himself before his final semester of school by simply not eating. Lucky was, by nature, a rambler. He thrived on movement and adrenaline, it's what he was used to, what he'd grown up doing, and being here was very slowly killing him. If he was honest with himself, Malus knew, five years earlier, Lucky would have joined Jeremy in his endless pacing.
He had tried getting Lucky out of the house, even going so far as to let him take a few classes on campus, and for a while that had helped, but about halfway into the semester he'd gone listless again. Then his people had informed him Jeremy was beginning to regain his memories and he had been forced into a decision he wasn't ready for. He had briefly considered bringing Jeremy here alone, with no way for Luke to find them, but Luke had ended up in town following a clue Jeremy had left, and suddenly Malus had found himself with no other option.
Malus sighed, allowing his gaze to slip from the monitor to the window. He wished he'd gotten to Lucky before Fasion. He could have ingratiated himself to the boy slowly. Allowing him to build a rapport, get the kid to trust him. Instead he was forced to show Lucky how his family had happily accepted someone else in his place to get him to stay. And it had been voluntary, he was sure of that, Lucky hadn't made a single move to give him the impression he was planning on leaving. Now, however, he wasn't sure.
He had told Lucky the reason for the increased security and return to the isolation room was for Jeremy's benefit, but the truth was, since Jeremy had appeared, he'd seen the wheels turning behind Lucky's eyes. Lucky wanted to go back home. As refreshing as it was to see the return of the personality traits that had first caught his attention, he couldn't help but wish he could keep Lucky here. That had always been his problem with Lucky. How do you encourage traits such as that without running the risk of having the kid take off on you? Even Luke had had that problem, and he raised the kid. Though Luke had made some rather colossal mistakes, the idea that Lucky would leave someone he loved like that was still disheartening.
Movement on the screen caught his eye and he pulled his gaze away from the window to see what was happening. Jeremy had suddenly stopped his pacing and rushed over to Lucky. Malus paused a moment taking in the scene, Jeremy's body was blocking his view of Lucky, so he pushed a button on the desk to switch to another camera and turned on the sound. With the angle shifted, he could clearly see Lucky slumped down in the chair, one arm hanging over the side, the book he'd been reading crumpled on the floor. Jeremy had Lucky's face in his hands and he was talking quietly.
"Lucky? Lucky?" Jeremy's voice filtered through the speakers in the room, and for once it didn't seem annoying "Lucky, what happened? Are you OK?" Jeremy's voice took on a slight edge, and got a little louder, "Lucky! Come on, don't do this to me. You're the only thing keeping me sane here."
Malus made his decision quickly. He was perfectly aware that Lucky could be faking. They'd been in the isolation room for nearly two weeks and it wouldn't be too far off the mark to say Lucky and Jeremy both had to be going a little stir crazy by now. But the pale color of Lucky's skin combined with the undertone of panic in Jeremy's voice convinced him he couldn't take that chance. In less than a minute he's shut down his office, called the doctor and headed to the isolation room at an impressive clip.
