Chapter 47 #3
That’s where they were found murdered in their apartment.
It’s stupid. Irrational. And yet my gut twists so hard I almost gag. Something in me knows.
Alex.
Why does my chest feel tight at the thought? Why is my gut screaming that this—this is connected to him and me.
Oliver.
Only Oliver knows what those boys did to me. I knew my mother told him.
And Oliver is still wherever Alex took him, wherever he’s keeping him.
What if Oliver told Alex everything?
What if—
I push up from my chair so fast my knees knock the table. The room tilts, blurring in my vision. My fingers claw at the edge of the table just to keep myself from hitting the floor.
“Lucas?” Maksim’s voice has a thread of concern, but I’m already moving. My legs are moving before my mind catches up. The diner feels too small, too loud, too bright. I shove my way to the door.
“Lucas!” Maksim calls, his chair scraping back, but the sound is distant and muted, like I’m underwater. I hear a muffled exchange between him and the waiter about paying the bill, but it’s just noise.
The moment the cold air hits my face, my chest pulls tight, like it’s trying to collapse in on itself. I suck in a breath that barely makes it halfway down. I step off the curb, throwing my hand up at the first taxi I see.
It brakes hard, and I climb in like I’m being pushed inside by something I can’t name. “Hilton complex,” I tell the driver, my voice scratchy. My hands tremble as I pull out my phone, my thumb hesitating over my mother’s contact before pressing.
She picks up on the first ring.
“Lucas.” Her voice is small. Too small.
“I…” My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. My throat feels thick, clogged. I swallow hard, squeezing my eyes shut. “I don’t know. I feel…”
I want to ask why she told Oliver. I want to ask if she’s seen the news. I want to ask if she thinks Oliver told Alex. I want to ask her to tell me I’m wrong.
And—God help me—I want to ask for a hug.
“Lucas,” she says again, and there’s something in her tone that makes my pulse stutter. “I told him.”
My hearing aid hums faintly as her words hit.
“Told… who?” But my gut already knows.
“I told Alexander what happened,” she says, her voice quiet but heavy, like she’s lowering a weight straight onto my chest. “I also gave him the camera.”
The air leaves my lungs so violently that it feels like I’ve been punched. My grip on the phone tightens until my knuckles burn. The city beyond the taxi window is just smears of color, shapeless and unreal.
“What… do you mean?” The words scrape out of my throat, shaky and raw. “What camera?”
“Lucas, I—” Her voice cracks.
“No, wait.” My hand drags through my hair, tugging at the roots. “You told me you didn’t see the camera. You told me I might be imagining it. Maybe I didn’t record anything. That I might have left it somewhere before I went to the treehouse. So what camera did you give him?”
“Lucas, I can explain,” she says, her voice already breaking. “Please, my love, just—”
“Oh my God…” The words tear out of me, my chest burning like I’ve swallowed fire. “So the camera existed, then? Everything was recorded? You saw what they did to me… You saw what I did to Tim… and now—”
My voice cuts off, strangled. My mind yanks me back to that night—every moment, every touch that felt like acid eating through my skin, how I didn’t fight enough, how I let them use me. How I… hurt Tim.
And now Alex knows.
Alex.
The man I love. The man I am terrified to tell. The man whose eyes I’m not sure I could ever meet again without drowning in shame. Because now he’s seen what I am—filthy. Weak. Unworthy. A curse in human skin.
“Lucas, please, hear me—”
“Mom,” I cut her off. My voice is trembling, raw.
My eyes sting; the pressure behind them feels like it’s going to split my head open.
I press my palm hard against my eyes, but it doesn’t stop the stupid tears.
My throat is a knot. “How many times are you going to break my heart before it’s enough for you?
Before you can finally find your peace?”
Her sob cracks through the phone, jagged and desperate, but I’m already ending the call.
By the time the taxi stops in front of Alex’s building, my head is foggy. I step out like I’m walking through water. The familiar doorman greets me warmly, and I nod like a machine, my face refusing to move.
The elevator swallows me whole. My phone vibrates in my palm—it’s a call from Alex. My heart stumbles, breaking into smaller, sharper pieces. I don’t answer. That’s when I see the other missed calls from him, my mother, Maksim, and Tyler.
Been so deep in the spiral, I didn’t even feel my phone buzzing the entire ride here. No sound. No vibration. Just that thick, underwater silence pressing against my skull.
By the time the elevator doors open and I step into Alex’s space, the anxiety clamps down harder, doubling over inside me until my stomach twists so hard I feel like I might throw up.
The air smells like him. His home. That familiar blend of expensive cologne, clean wood, and something warm I can never quite name. Normally, it sinks into my bones and quiets me, like my body recognizes I’m safe here. But now—
Now my body rejects it.
Now it feels like my own skin is pulling tight, like I’m covering myself, protecting myself from the shame flooding in.
Like I shouldn’t even be here. Like I’m dirtying the space just by breathing in it.
Thank God he’s still at work. If he were here, if those eyes were on me right now…I think I’d shatter on the spot.
I move toward his room, my legs wooden, my chest tight. My hands are cold and trembling, but I start searching anyway. Drawers. Cabinets. The huge closet that smells faintly of him. Nothing.
I walk out into the den. Scan the massive bookshelf. Touch each spine, like maybe the answer’s hidden there. Nothing.
Then his office.
I’ve never entered this space without him. It’s too him—sharp, orderly, professional. I’ve always respected it, left it untouched. But now respect feels like a luxury I can’t afford.
I move through it like a thief. Shelves. Cabinets. The polished desk, every drawer sliding open under my shaking fingers. Nothing.
A pathetic, broken sound slips out of me—half sigh, half sob.
My head feels too heavy for my neck. I’m almost ready to give up when my gaze catches on the nightstand near the far wall.
I cross the room in quick, uneven steps, my heartbeat roaring in my ears.
A flower top and some magazines sit neatly on top.
I grab the edge and pull it away from the wall. The back is solid, my fingers find the hidden latch, and the wood swings open.
I’ve seen Alex do this once before. The back panel opens, revealing a safe.
My mouth dries instantly.
The keypad stares back at me like it knows exactly what I’m about to do. My fingers hesitate, then move on their own. I punch in his phone password.
A sharp click.
My chest seizes. I open it slowly, like maybe if I go slow enough, I can change what’s inside.
I can’t.
It’s there.
Sitting in the dark like it’s been waiting for me.
A small, plastic pink camera.
My camera.
My throat closes.
The world tilts hard to the side, and I have to lock my knees just to stay upright.
Breaths drag out of me in harsh, shallow bursts, my rib cage tight like a vice is crushing it. Every heartbeat slams against my ears until it’s all I can hear.
The shame is instant.
The panic is absolute.
The camera feels heavier than it should, the cold plastic biting into my palms. My fingers are shaking so badly that I almost drop it. My thumb fumbles over the compartment, and when the SD card pops out just enough for me to see it—still there—my stomach twists like something inside me just tore.
I slide it back in.
The screen flickers to life with a low-battery warning, the dim glow making the room feel suddenly smaller. My breathing is uneven as I scroll through the files, each thumbnail like a ghost I don’t dare wake. I don’t open any of them. I can’t. My thumb keeps moving until the last recorded video.
My throat closes.
I click.
The screen fills with my own face, younger and smaller somehow, framed by the worn wooden boards of the treehouse. I’m talking into the camera, lips moving with words I can almost hear, words I remember like a dream I’ve been forcing myself not to think about for years.
The edges of my vision start to pulse. My chest gets tight.
And I skip forward the video.
Big mistake, because the scene I skipped to is the one where Caleb’s hands are yanking mine behind my back, and Josh’s fingers are pressing against my cheeks to open up.
Bile surges sharp and fast in my throat.
My knees almost give. I can’t breathe, my body is remembering too much at once, every sound, every smell, every desperate heartbeat from that day. My hands are trembling so violently the image blurs, but I can’t look away, the panic flooding me until I can’t feel my fingers.
The sound of the office door opening rips through the suffocating haze. My head turns slowly, like it’s the only speed I can manage.
Alex is in the doorway. Breathing hard, like he just ran here. His tie hangs loose around his neck. His face, worried and almost scared, makes something in my chest twist in a way I don’t have the strength to name.
His gaze drops to the camera clutched in my hands, then back to me.
And in that moment, I know. I can’t run from this anymore. The truth. The rot under my skin. The memories aren’t going back in the box. I can’t outrun what happened.
How did my day go from light to this crushing black?
“Lucas,” he breathes, stepping toward me.
I stumble back, shaking. My hand presses against my chest, trying to rub out the ache. It doesn’t work. So I hit it. Once. Twice. Harder, because maybe pain will replace the pressure, but it only gets worse.
The camera slips from my fingers, the sound of it hitting the floor swallowed by the roaring in my head.
My vision smears at the edges. My knees give.
And then Alex is there, solid and warm, catching me before I hit the ground. My body collapses against him, too weak to hold itself up.
He cups my jaw, tilts my face toward him. His touch is tender, but my brain is too loud to register it fully. His face hovers above mine—too beautiful, too close. Angelic in a way that feels cruel, like he’s here to take my soul.
His eyes are soft, so painfully soft, and that hurts worse than anything.
His lips move. He’s saying something. I can’t hear it.
All I hear is my heartbeat—slamming in my ears, pounding in my skull, thrumming in my fingertips.
My chest is heaving. My breaths are short and shallow. I’m gulping for air, but it’s not enough, it’s never enough. My thoughts are breaking apart like shards of glass, slipping through my fingers before I can hold on.
I feel the edges of the room folding in, my vision tunneling, my body shutting down, one piece at a time.
And then, just like that, it’s gone, everything quiets, and my world folds in on itself and goes dark.