Ok, we are so close to the end. We'd better be. My hubbie is coming back from Afghanistan, I have other stories to write, and lots of studying/work to do.

As always, thank you for the reviews. You know who you are and I am declaring you AWESOME! So there, it's declared! LOL

Hope you like the chapter. Stay tuned for more soon, B

Skye:

But a moment ago, my mind had been solely focused on our situation of captivity. It had been churning and working on possible escape scenarios. All my tension so concentrated on Mira and the gun in her hand but now… now, all those concerns have faded into the distance. There is no Mira, no Sixers, no hostage situation, there is just… this dead body… in a hole… out in the middle of nowhere… that looks just like Lucas.

"Lucas," I try again, wanting an explanation, needing an explanation.

I need to hear that it's a mistake, that my eyes are playing tricks on me, and that the corpse I am looking upon truly is not an exact copy of him. I need to hear him tell me that he is who I have believed him to be all these weeks. Please, don't let me have fallen for a liar, a deceit, a fake. If the dead person in the grave is the real Lucas, than who is standing across from me? Who have I allowed to get close to me, seduce me, and make love to me?

He shakes his head, slowly, as if refusing to accept what is happening. "It's not what you think," he denies.

What he is denying, I do not know.

"It's not?" I murmur, hoping and praying that this is the case.

"So that's not Lucas Taylor?" Mira asks bluntly, pointing at the dead man with Lucas' face. She's giving Lucas that look, the look that she used to give me when I was spying for her and she wasn't pleased with my intel. "He looks just like you… or should I say; you look just like him. So tell us, who is the real Lucas Taylor? You? Or, him?"

This is exactly what I had wanted to ask but was too afraid to. I want the truth but I am also terrified to hear it. These last weeks have felt like heaven, like living a fairy tale. Is it so strange and wrong that I don't want it to end?

"Shut up, Mira," Lucas hisses and I can afford a small smile.

He sounds like the real Lucas; the rude and I-don't-give-a-shit Lucas. The one my brain was telling me not to love but my heart couldn't help not to.

"I could care less about what you think. Mira."

He has kept his eyes on me and despite everything, I notice myself melting as I see his agony and despair. It makes me want to hold him, kiss him, tell him that I am still his.

Then he begins to explain…

"That is Lucas Taylor…" he says and my breath gets caught in my throat. It halts there and I don't seem to be able to move the air; either in or out. "There was no other way, Skye. I had to do it. There can be only one."

'That is Lucas Taylor… the dead man… not the one standing in front of me… not the one I trust… rely on… love.'

My head has begun moving from side to side, automatically, without my brain telling it to do so. I am refusing to believe what I have just heard. It can't be. It can't all have been a lie. Not something so beautiful, so perfect. It is not possible.

"… and I am Lucas Taylor. We are both Lucas Taylor."

The world which had been wildly spinning out of control suddenly stops and I crash.

'What?'

"What?" Mira echoes aloud my very thought. She leaves my side and walks around the grave to get in Lucas' face. "What kind of game are you playing now, Lucas?"

"No game," he says, eyes still on me despite a pissed off Mira inches away from his face. "There were two of us and no two can exist as the same time. There can be only one."

So many questions, yet I don't seem to be able to find my voice.

Luckily, Mira has no problem finding hers… as usual. "Why and how was there two of you? These are the things that you have to explain."

Irritation and frustration is what her tone depicts. Within me, there are other emotions brewing… slowly… mostly, I just feel numb… I feel off… as if it is all a bad dream which I am soon to be awaken from… please, let it be a dream.

All hopes of this being a nightmare I can wake up from shatters as Lucas' voice carries across the grave and enters my ear canals. It's bringing with it more of what I do not want to hear. What I can't bear to hear. All is being ruined. All is falling apart. I am falling apart.

"Something went wrong when I was returning from 2149. There must have been a disturbance, a glitch, in the fracture and I was thrown further back in time to the exact time when another one of me existed. And, there can be only one."

An agitated Mira sighs. "You keep saying that, Lucas. What does that mean 'there can be only one'? Make sense!"

No regret, no hesitation, no shifting gaze in shame. "It means that I had to kill him. It means that I killed myself."

Silence… no one whispers, moves, or barely breathes.

"You … you ki… you kil…" I struggle.

"I killed myself, my other self," he finishes my sentence and confesses once more to his crime. A hideous crime against himself. "I did. And, I would do it again. There was no other way. There can be only one."

I stand gaping, staring, at him. Who is this person? What kind of person is wired to commit such a horrific act. A sick person? A cruel twisted person? A person without conscience and soul?

Tears begin to fall as my Lucas, the one I love, disappears. In fact, he never truly existed. It was all a scheme set up by an inhuman killer. He had portrayed an illusion to hide his true nature. Heartless, mercilessly, he had killed his other self and thrown the body into a hole. Then, he had simply just walked away. No one would have been the wiser if the Sixer's had not found the grave with the body.

Nausea threatens to escape and I turn away, hunching over. I can't bear to look at him any longer. I will not be able to look at him ever again. Inside, I feel as dead as the body in the grave. He had told me he loves me. He had made love to me. Now I just feel dead inside. Dead as if he has slaughtered me as well.

"I've heard enough," Mira says, sounding bored "As long as you can operate the device and control the portal, I could care less who you've killed."

'She is equally heartless. They would make a good match; her and this Lucas.'

Mira points a finger at me, signaling to the Sixer next to me. I am grabbed like a piece of useless waste of space and pulled away in the direction of the Sixer's camp. Not wanting to, not able to stop myself, I glance over my shoulder and see him watching. His eyes tell me that he loves me, that he is in pain, and that he wants to make me understand.

Not giving him any comfort, I set my gaze straight ahead. I will never trust those eyes again. They are the eyes of a killer.