"I... this..."
"Lincoln, stop doubting me and observe the facts right in front of your face," Lisa insisted, annoyance clear in her tone.
"But... it just doesn't make any sense!" Lincoln replied, wrapping the shell casing in his fist.
"I realize that, and I know this is all circumstantial, but I would be willing to bet my Nobel prize that real, hard evidence can be acquired in her room."
Lincoln was more than weary of entering Leni and Lori's room. It was nearly as off limits as his Mom and Dad's. In fact, any time he needed access to it, he had to devise a plan and use the ventilation systems. And the only time he'd successfully infiltrated it, he'd nearly got caught.
Lisa recognized the look on his face. "I know it seems impossible, but if we can just get inside that room, I'm positive we can prove or disprove this hypothesis once and for all."
Lincoln fidgeted with the casing in his hand. He still wasn't wild about the idea, but if this would finally put to rest his sister's insane theory, then he supposed he could charge into the breach of potentially angering Lori once more. He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly.
"Fine, I'm. But how are we gonna get in?"
Lisa smiled. "Leave that to me. All I need you to do is join me in being the first one to be done eating dinner."
He was immediately suspicious. "What are you gonna do? She's got that super high tech lock on her door, and she changes the code daily!"
His little sister scoffed at the very idea that something so simple would be able to thwart her plans.
"Don't you agitate your aesthetically pleasing cranium, Lincoln. Just follow my instructions, and we'll have our proof."
Even though he was still far from convinced, he nodded. "Okay, I'll do it."
Lincoln left Lisa's room, still idly twirling the bullet casing between his fingers. He looked down the hallway toward Leni's room. He could hear her cheering on Lola's pageant walk. The more he thought about it, the more insane Lisa's ideas became. This was the same girl who nearly walked into downtown Royal Woods because a sign told her the kitchen was in that direction!
But the casing clenched in his palm suggested otherwise. He quickly stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans and retired to his room. He could lose himself in his comic books for a few more hours until dinner time. The hours flew by, and before he knew it, his mother was calling them all down for dinner. The usual stampede began right on time. Usually, he'd wait for it to pass. But this time, he had to be at the front of the heard. Lincoln sprinted out of his room, using the bannister to slide ahead of his sisters and score his seat, Lisa was next, their chicken nuggets ready and waiting.
With a nod, they both began inhaling their food. Before his sisters could even get the mustard out of the fridge, Lincoln and Lisa were done. they disposed of their plates and headed upstairs.
Once in the hallway, Lincoln leaned against the wall, keeping watch for any other sisters that may have finished dinner early.
"Keep watch, I'll be right back," Lisa said, scurrying to her room. Lincoln peered down the stairs. The clanking of silverware on plates and dull conversation let him know everything was going according to plan. The foodfight hadn't even started at the kids table yet, so he knew they were still golden on time.
Little footsteps drew his attention back to the hallway. Lisa came running out of her room, clad in black from head to toe, even wearing little black combat boots with the pants tucked into the tops. Lincoln had to admit she looked cute.
"Ready to assault the objective?" Lisa asked, her tiger-stripe camo face paint wrinkling as she spoke.
"Where did you get all this?" He asked, noticing the duffle bag across her shoulder.
"That's classified," she replied, laying the bag on the ground and unzipping it.
If he had to guess, Leni had something to do with it. She was always glad to make costumes for her sisters. Although he imagined Lola would be pretty upset once she realized how much of her makeup Lisa used for her warpaint. But that was an argument for another day.
Lisa pulled out a small blue device with a cord leading from it. She headed to Lori's door and struggled to reach the outlet on the keypad to install her gadget.
"Ahem," she said, glaring at Lincoln over her shoulder. He sighed, putting his hands beneath her arms and lifting her to the proper height. She plugged into the keypad, and in moments, the light shifted from red to green, the door unlocking itself.
"No problem." Lisa smiled as Lincoln put her down. They both peered carefully into Leni's room, acutely aware of any additional traps that might come into play.
"Okay, where should we start?" Lincoln asked.
"I'll check Lori's closet, you check beneath Leni's bed."
The two went to work. The precious minutes ticked by, neither of them finding any proof of any murder-related activities. Lincoln searched Leni's closet, finding only shoes, clothes and her not yet unpacked travel bags. Averse to going through his sisters dirty clothes, Lincoln began to look around. Where else could Leni hide something? He sat down on her guitar case before recalling how heavy it was when he tried to unload it from the car.
He slowly stood up and turned around, staring at the old, beat up instrument case. He knelt down next to it, undoing the latches and raising the lid.
Lincoln gasped. "L-lisa. I think you better look at this."
"What? There's still some space behind Lori's closet I havent—" the air left her lungs as she walked over and laid eyes on the contents of the guitar case.
"Sweet mother of science..." Lisa whispered, as Leni's AWM gleamed back at them in the low light.
"What... what is this?" Lincoln asked softly. He reached into his pocket and produced the casing. He held it close to the bullets already loaded in the magazines.
"Lisa... it... it's the same size."
Lincoln's hand began to tremble as he and Lisa realized the truth. He refused to believe what was right in front of his face. The item in that guitar case was unmistakably, a rifle. A high tech, fancy looking rifle at that. Both siblings were rooted to the ground, frozen in their own bodies. The implications of what finding this weapon in Leni's closet meant for not just them, but their family were too huge to process at that moment.
"Lisa..." Lincoln whispered, now very aware of how dry his mouth had become in the last few seconds. "You were right..."
It took his younger sister a moment to find her voice. "I... I wish I wasn't..."
Heavy footfalls climbing the stairs drew both their attention to the hallway. Someone was coming up the stairs!
"Quickly, close the case!" Lisa ordered as Lincoln's unsteady hands fumbled with the latches. Lisa scurried around the room, hurriedly pushing drawers back into dressers and trying to leave everything as she found it.
Lisa turned back to him as she began her run towards the door. "Lincoln, let's go!" she said as she ran by. He finally secured the last clasp and leapt towards the door behind his sister. Lisa skidded to a halt on her heels as she whirled around. "The code breaker!" she whispered harshly, pointing to the device still attached to the keypad. The footsteps were growing louder as they neared the top of the landing. Lincoln took a few steps back and yanked the gadget from the keypad. They dashed passed the landing and towards Lisa's room. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the Loud climbing the stairs was none other than Leni herself.
Luckily for them, she had turned around to answer their mother halfway up, missing the two smaller Louds dashing from her end of the hallway. They made it to her room and slammed the door, both of them leaning against the door, panting heavily. The seconds passed slowly as Lincoln and Lisa finally had time to consider what they had seen. As their thirst for air began to lessen, they glanced at each other.
"Leni... Leni's a-a murderer!" Lincoln said before Lisa shot a tiny hand over his mouth.
"Quiet, you want her to hear you?" she whispered harshly. "She's already killed five people, who knows what she'll do to us if she finds out we know her secret!"
A chill raced down Lincoln's spine. He hadn't considered that. Leni may as well have been a total stranger after this discovery. He shuddered to think was 'this' Leni was capable of.
"But what are we gonna do?" Lincoln asked, removing her hand from his mouth.
"I...I don't know, I just need time to think." Lisa replied, pacing around her room, still in her cute tactical outfit. "One thing we absolutely must do, is keep this between us until I conceive a course of action." She stopped pacing and faced him, pushing her glasses higher up onto her nose. "For now, it will be best for all of us if we just pretend this didn't happen."
Lincoln nodded, his chest finally having stopped heaving as he caught his breath. He grabbed the knob on Lisa's door and let himself out. He walked back towards his room, still in a state of disbelief. He walked on autopilot as he found himself sitting on his bed, staring at his feet. In that guitar case, there was a gun, and bullets. And those bullets were the exact same size as the casing Lisa said came out out Leni's room earlier that day.
He glanced to his right, his issue of Ace Savvy number one stared back at him. Only this time, it was different. It was bought with blood money. The comic itself might as well have been covered in it. Lincoln took the comic and put it in a drawer in his nightstand. He couldn't bare the thought of his hero being purchased with someone's life.
He stretched out on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He still couldn't believe Leni, his sweetheart of a sister, who was mortified at the idea of someone eating the live lobsters at the supermarket was the same girl who had put five different people in the ground, for money! People who probably hadn't done anything to her, or even knew who she was!
Lincoln glanced at the clock on his wall. Even though he usually made it a habit of staying up late and playing video games, or reading comics during the summer, tonight he was unusually tired. He figured perhaps if he slept some, perhaps he could help Lisa get a better idea of how to hand the situation in the morning.
With a twist of the switch, Lincoln turned off his lamp, casting his room in darkness. He removed his shirt and pants, leaving only his underwear and shimmied under the covers.
In moments, he found himself in a fitful sleep. He seemed to wake every hour or so, still tired, but unable to get continuous rest.
Lincoln glanced at the clock again. It was well into the early morning hours.
Deciding a glass of milk might help him salvage the rest of the night, he threw off his sheets and crept out of bed. He opened his door, peering into the darkened hallway. He could hear Lynn snoring away in her room as he passed. The nightlight in Lana and Lola's room cast a streak of light into the hallway as he continued on towards the stairs. He stopped at the top and glanced down the hall towards Leni and Lori's room.
Another bolt of ice slithered down his back as he headed down the stairs. Sleep hadn't helped him come to grips with the situation any better, it seemed. Lincoln avoided the creaky steps as he tip-toed towards the kitchen. By sense alone, he dodged the tables, chairs and toys strewn about the living room and kitchen. He grabbed a glass, poured himself some milk, and placed it in the microwave. He began heating it, careful to stop the appliance with one second remaining, so as not to wake his mother and father downstairs.
With a deft hand, he stopped it at :01. He carefully removed the glass from the microwave, blowing on it as he turned around, ready to head back upstairs to his room. He had only made it one step into the living room when a voice spoke from the darkness, nearly startling him onto the ceiling.
"Someone was in my room today, Lincoln."
After he caught his breath, he set the glass on the dining room table and squinted into the darkness of the living room, searching for the owner. He spotted a silhouette on the couch, the outline of a pair of sunglasses perched atop it's head left no doubt in his mind who he was talking to. A lump settled in his throat.
"L-leni, isn't scaring people Lucy's job?" he joked nervously. He could see her moving her hands as she sat on the couch, but it was too dark to see what she was doing. She ignored him.
"You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?" she asked, the sounds of metal interacting with metal greeting him as she continued to mind her handiwork.
"Me? N-no, you guys have a lock on it, remember?" he replied, beginning to feel the sweat bead on his forehead.
"Uh huh, I do. But someone told me that you and maybe... someone else had a way to get around that lock," Leni replied coldly. Her voice was much different than the Leni he'd grown up with.
The lamp beside her clicked on, illuminating the two of them. To Lincoln's horror, Leni was holding a pistol, nonchalantly screwing a suppressor into the barrel, one leg crossed over the other, as though she was merely filing her nails.
"You don't have to lie to me, Lincoln, I'm your sister!" She pled, not taking her eyes away from her weapon as she continued to assemble it. "Besides, Lisa told me everything."
Lincoln was frozen. That was definitely a gun, and Leni was definitely holding it as she finished attaching the suppressor. Once finished she looked up at him. From off the end table, she grabbed a magazine and fed it into the bottom of the gun, but not before chambering a round. "You just had to go snooping around my room, didn't you, Lincoln?"
As the weapon's bolt snapped shut with a metallic clank, Lincoln snapped out of his terrified silence.
"Please, Leni! Lisa and I won't tell a soul, we promise!" he begged, putting his hands together and falling to his knees.
Leni stood up from the couch. "I know Lisa wont. And like her, after this, I know you won't either."
She raised the gun to his head. Lincoln stared down the barrel, petrified with fear. He inhaled to scream, but she struck before anything more than a soft whimper could escape.
Then he woke up, panting heavily and drenched in sweat, but safe in his bed all the same.