Chapter 51
Unintentional Anchor
Lucan
I feel it first in the spaces between thoughts.
The sedation loosens its grip not all at once, not mercifully, but in thin, uneven strands, like a net being pulled off my nervous system thread by thread.
Sensation leaks back in where numbness used to be.
Weight. Pain. Gravity. The chair beneath me becomes solid again, not an abstraction, but an anchor bolted into the floor, its metal frame biting into my spine, its restraints hugging my wrists and ankles with an intimacy I despise.
I breathe.
Too fast at first. Then slower. Then slower still.
I am restrained, but my body doesn’t know that yet.
It remembers what it is built for. My muscles tense instinctively, coiling against steel, testing limits that do not give.
The brace behind my neck forces my head upright, keeps my gaze level, denies me the comfort of curling inward.
They never let me curl. They’re always afraid of what happens when I gather myself.
The ache comes next. Deep, electrical, humming under my skin like a warning system waking up. Every nerve feels inflamed, overstimulated, raw. Eidolon never leaves cleanly. It retreats the way a tide does—dragging debris with it, leaving the ground unstable, reshaped.
I feel different.
Not calmer. Not healed. Just… offset. Like the axis of me has shifted a fraction, and now everything I am has to relearn how to balance around it.
Henrik is still here.
I don’t need to look to know that. He fills space differently than Elara does—sharp, restless, vibrating with too many thoughts and not enough absolution.
He stands close to the monitors, one hand braced against the edge of a metal counter, his injured wrist cradled against his chest like it’s the least of what hurts him.
He keeps glancing at me.
Not with fear.
With recognition.
That bothers me more than fear ever could.
“Vapor,” he says, low, careful, like he’s addressing a weapon with a hair-trigger.
My jaw tightens.
“My name,” I say, my voice rougher than I intend, scraped raw by chemicals and silence and things I’ve held back too long, “is Lucan.”
The word lands heavy in the room.
Henrik stills. His eyes flick up to my face fully now, not skimming, not avoiding. He nods once, slow.
“Lucan,” he repeats.
He doesn’t flinch.
Not at the scars carved into my skin. Not at the asymmetry Eidolon has etched into my features, the tension that never quite leaves my jaw, the way my eyes don’t move like a normal man’s anymore. No revulsion. No reflexive step back.
It clicks then, sharp and undeniable.
“You knew,” I say quietly.
Henrik exhales, long and unsteady. “I knew the boy,” he says. “And I knew what kind of man he would become if he survived.”
Survived.
The word scrapes.
“You knew I was Vapor,” I say.
He doesn’t argue. “I suspected early. I confirmed later.”
“I want to help your sister,” he says then, quickly, like he’s afraid the moment will close if he doesn’t push through it.
I close my eyes briefly, letting the ache in my skull crest and pass.
“You can’t,” I say.
Henrik frowns. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
I open my eyes again, lock them on his. “Einar has the formulas. All of them that matter. The refined compounds. The stabilizers. The failures you never saw. You were working from echoes, Henrik. He didn’t just take your formulas. He took the core when he ran.”
The color drains from his face.
“He wouldn’t—”
“He would, and you should know by now.”
Silence spreads, thick and ugly.
“Without those formulas,” I continue, “you can’t help her. You can’t help anyone. You’ll just keep breaking things and calling it progress.”
Henrik swallows. His gaze drifts, unfocused, like he’s watching the future collapse in real time. “Then we get them back.”
I meet his stare, something sharp and lethal settling comfortably into place inside me.
“Gladly,” I say. “I’m good at hunting. It’s my job.”
The words don’t feel like a boast. They feel like a confession.
Movement catches my attention.
Elara.
She’s closer now than she was before, no longer folded into the corner like she’s trying to disappear into the wall. She stands near the edge of the room, arms wrapped loosely around herself, eyes fixed on me with a mixture of fear and something else, something heavier. Understanding.
She sees it now. The pattern beneath the violence.
The reason the non-contract kills never quite fit, why some deaths were sloppy, experimental, wrong.
She sees the throughline leading back to one small, broken girl with seizures that never stopped.
It would be a good story for one of her articles; trying to humanize me again.
“What was her name?” Elara asks softly.
The question threads straight through my ribs.
“Freya,” I say after a moment. Saying it out loud feels like reopening a wound I stitched closed myself.
Elara tilts her head slightly. “What is she like?”
Alive, I think. Barely. Fragile in ways I can’t fix.
“She’s younger. She liked logic puzzles. The kind with patterns hidden inside chaos. She used to solve them faster than I could.”
Elara takes a tentative step closer.
My pulse spikes instantly. The monitors react before I do, their quiet beeping accelerating, betraying me. I force my breathing down, jaw clenching hard enough to ache.
“You shouldn’t,” I say. “Stay back.”
“I want to be closer,” she replies.
Her honesty disarms me more than fear ever could.
She moves slowly, deliberately, giving me time to object, to pull away, to bare my teeth. She stops just outside my reach, her gaze flicking to the restraints, then back to my face.
She reaches out, fingers brushing my forearm.
The contact detonates through me. Not pleasure. Not comfort. Regulation. My nervous system latches onto it like a drowning man grabbing air. The monitors protest again.
I inhale sharply, then steadier.
She moves to the restraints.
“Elara,” I warn.
“I know what I’m doing,” she murmurs.
No, you don’t, and you never have little scribe.
She undoes them carefully, one by one, her hands steady despite the tremor in her shoulders. Each release sends pain and sensation crashing back into me, my muscles screaming as blood flow returns. I stay still. I have to. The absence of restraint feels more dangerous than the restraints ever did.
When the last cuff falls away, I don’t move.
I don’t trust myself.
“You’re not safe near me,” I say hoarsely.
She steps closer anyway.
Her fingers trace the bruises on my wrists, then drift upward, hesitant, toward my jaw. I flinch when she touches the scars there, not from pain, but from the intimacy of being seen, again, by her.
I lift my hand slowly, to see if my body obeys again, stopping myself inches from her throat.
Then I touch her neck.
The bruises there gut me. Purple and red, my fingerprints blooming against her skin like evidence that will never wash away. My vision blurs.
“I’m sorry,” I say. The words feel useless, but I give them anyway. “For hurting you. For all of it.”
She covers my hand with hers. “You weren’t yourself.”
“That doesn’t absolve me.”
“No,” she agrees softly. “But it explains you.”
Her gaze flicks briefly toward the far side of the room, where we can’t see him, but can feel the dark cloud. “Halldroson,” she says. “He isn’t waking up again is he…?”
“No Elara, he isn’t,” I tell her. “And you know that, you know that I did that.”
The ache in my body sharpens as the last of the sedation bleeds out of my system. Every nerve hums. Every movement costs.
I straighten as much as the chair allows, grounding myself, forcing distance before I lose it.
“Elara,” I say, my tone shifting, hardening. “I need you to get something for me.” Something so that I can speak to your douchebag of a father.
She blinks. “What?”
“North wing,” I say. “Cold storage. Third cabinet on the left. There’s a black case marked with a red seal. Bring it here.”
She hesitates. Fear flickers across her face.
“Go,” I order, softer than I could make it, but firm enough that she doesn’t argue.
She nods once and leaves.
The moment the door seals behind her, I turn back to Henrik.
Everything soft drains out of me.
“This is how it’s going to work,” I say, my voice low, lethal. “You will help me retrieve Einar and the formulas. You will not lie to me. You will not keep copies. When this is over, you burn everything. All of it.”
Henrik bristles. “You’re asking me to destroy my life’s work.”
“I’m ordering you,” I correct. “And if you refuse, I’ll kill you.”
Silence.
“And then,” I add, leaning forward just enough to make the threat breathe, “you will become a father again. For her. You will stop hiding behind grief and guilt and start acting like the man she needs.”
Henrik’s face crumples. “I misunderstood you,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry. And I’m… grateful. You protected her. In your way. I will do as you say.”
Pussy.
“I think she cares about you,” he adds. “Do you care about her?”
I bare my teeth, I do, and more than you ever could. “You wouldn’t want a serial killer near your daughter,” I say. “Would you?”
Henrik looks away.
“Be wise,” I continue. “When this is done, I disappear. You keep her away from me. I don’t trust myself near her.”
He hesitates. “Why?”
“Because monsters don’t get happy endings,” I say flatly.