Chapter 42 Lucian
Lucian
We stand in the tree line, as the cold settles into my bones, the whole abandoned RV campground is spread out in front of us like a place that’s been forgotten on purpose.
There are only a few rigs here, but they sit crooked and sun-bleached, with their windows punched out.
The newest one of them looks too damn much like Celeste’s old rig. That has to be the one she’s in.
We think we have the coordinates right. Linkin swore the triangulation was solid. I keep watching the rig anyway, waiting for movement, waiting for anything that tells me we’re not about to breach the wrong place.
The door creaks open, and I look over to signal Torres of the movement. We both look back at the rig when I notice the person is Celeste.
My phone detonates at that exact moment with that tone I set for her pendant: a single, high, ugly note that means she hit SOS. The sound slices the night into a narrow tunnel. I’m already moving.
Branches slap my jacket, dirt kicks under my boots. Relief hits me like a physical force. I push harder, lungs burning, and she meets my eyes. Everything else drops away; she’s here.
Then she starts to fall.
I put on an extra burst of speed and close the last few yards in two long strides. I catch her before her knees hit the dirt, hauling her into my chest.
“Wildflower,” I say, because the nickname is the only thing that comes out.
Her breath is ragged. Her left arm hangs at an angle that doesn’t belong to any joint; the sleeve is dark at the elbow.
There’s blood at her hairline, a dark, sticky line where her scalp has split, running down her face.
“Who did this to you? Where are you hurt?”
“Kelsey,” she says, and the name drops between us like a stone. “It was your physical therapist. She—she’s obsessed with you. She said if I was gone, she could step in. She thought with me out of the way, you’d be hers. She broke my arm.”
My hands tighten before I even think about it, and I pull her into me so close it feels like I’m trying to stitch the edges of whatever just happened.
“Kelsey?” I repeat, the name a question and a curse, low and raw.
“She—she did this?” I search her face like I’m reading a map of the night, looking for the where and the how and the parts I can fix.
“You’re safe,” I tell her, over and over, the words a litany against the thing that just happened.
“You did it. You stopped her. I’ve got you. ”
She collapses into me and everything narrows to one brutal, bright thought: Celeste is alive. I press my face into her hair and smell her shampoo and sweat and the metallic edge of blood, and let that proof steady my hands.
“I kept her talking,” Celeste says. “I asked about you, and she kept saying the two of you were meant to be, that you’d reverse your vasectomy, and get rid of Sir Sassafrass for her. I kept her on it until I felt like I could overpower her.”
“You did exactly what you were taught,” I remind her. “You stalled her, you kept her talking, and you remembered the pendant when it mattered. Be proud of yourself for that. You did the right thing.”
Torres comes out of the rig and stands next to us.
“The woman inside has lost a lot of blood,” he says, voice tight. He looks up at me, eyes sharp. “She’s starting to come around, but she’s disoriented. The ambulance is en route. The ETA is ten minutes.”
“Let Kelsey have it,” I say, the decision clean and hard. “You go with her. I’ll get Celeste to the closest ER.” My voice leaves no room for argument—Kelsey needs full medical attention and someone lucid at the hospital; Celeste needs speed and stability. Both need to survive this night intact.
I snag my cell, thumb fumbling until Orion’s name appears on the screen. It picks up before the first ring finishes.
“My alert went off. Tell me you’re calling because you have her.” Orion’s voice demands.
I hit the speaker. “We have her.”
“You were supposed to wait for backup. What happened?”
“We were canvassing, making sure we had Linkin’s ping right.
” I slide an arm under Celeste’s knees, the other behind her back, and lift, making sure I hold her in a way where no one can see her bare ass.
She presses into me, small and fierce, and the tremor under my palm is real.
I start toward the SUV. “That’s when she alerted us through the pendant.
I saw her covered in blood and ran to her.
Thankfully, most of it isn’t hers. Her arm is broken, but we’re on our way to my SUV, where we’ll go straight to the ER. ”
“Where’s the ambulance?”
“The hospital only has one ambulance; it’s on its way. Torres is going to stay with Kelsey and let the professionals take care of her. She has significant blood loss and claims to be disoriented. I’m taking Celeste to the nearest ER.”
“Jesus Christ.” Orion’s voice cracks. “We just landed, do you want to meet at the nearest hospital to you?”
“Yeah. Meet us there.”
“Wait—who the fuck is Kelsey?” Orion snaps.
Celeste shifts against me and leans toward where I’m holding the phone. “You mean you don’t remember Lucian’s physical therapist? She’s the one who took me, she said you were the one who said they have a ‘rhythm.’”
Silence hums on the line, heavy and dangerous, like the space before something breaks.
“And you said she’s alive?” Orion asks finally.
“Yeah,” I say. “For now.”
“Good.” His voice drops to a terrifying quiet. Then the line goes dead.
Linkin sees us and stops pacing next to the SUV. He moves without ceremony, takes Celeste from me in a single, efficient motion. I hand her over without argument, grateful for the weight gone from my arms.
My prosthetic leg feels like it’s on fire; every step I take is a hot, grinding reminder that I’m not as steady as I want to be. My limp is louder than it should be, an uneven metronome that wants to slow me down.
“Let me drive,” he pleads. “You stay in the back with our ‘Leste.”
I can’t argue with that. He stands her up next to the SUV, and she slides in.
I get in after her, and after we’re both buckled, I gather her up to me, careful of her arm.
The SUV shudders as tires bite gravel, and then we’re gone, the dark trees sliding past until the world lightens into the pale wash of morning.
When we pull under the ER awning, Orion is already there waiting for us, his eyes hunting for Celeste the moment we slow. Nurses stand at the entrance with him, the hospital’s fluorescent light making their scrubs look clinical and urgent.
Two of them push a gurney toward the SUV the moment Linkin throws it into park. One nurse opens the door, Celeste straightens, jaw set, and tries to argue—“I can walk,” she says, with that stubborn edge I know too well.
Orion’s head snaps toward her. His voice is low and hard enough to cut through the antiseptic air. “You’re not walking into triage with a probable fracture and a head wound. Don’t be an idiot.”
She glares at him, annoyance flaring, but the gurney is already there, the mattress a small island of clinical white.
She huffs, more annoyed than anything, as she slides out of the SUV.
Celeste sits on the gurney with a grudging, precise motion, as if conceding a tactical retreat.
The wheels squeal as they pull her toward the sliding doors.
“Lucian—hold up,” Linkin calls out. “I’m going to update Rowan.
Tell him we found the person behind the attack, and let him know Celeste’s going to be in the hospital for a bit.
Maybe Rowan and Korbyn can come by in case we’re stuck here for a while.
I’ve never broken a bone, so I’m not sure what healing looks like. ”
“Thanks,” I say as I fall into step behind the gurney with Shiloh at my side.
The hospital lights throw everything into sharp relief: the pale sheen on Celeste’s hair where blood has dried, the wrong angle of her arm, the stubborn set of her mouth.
Nurses call out vitals and questions; Orion moves like a shadow at the head of the stretcher, giving terse instructions that the staff answer without missing a beat.
* * *
I ease the SUV down Theo’s street, and the tension in my shoulders loosens when I notice the porch light is on, and figures wait for us in the doorway. Celeste sits beside me, her new cast snug in a sling, a neat line of stitches at her hairline like a dark seam.
The hospital wanted to keep her for forty-eight hours because of the concussion.
She argued until the doctor’s patience thinned, and we were able to chip it down to twenty-four hours.
The discharge papers are folded in my pocket; I’ll wait to read them later.
I’m just focused on getting her home and out of that hospital.
It makes me sick thinking about how she’s in this situation because of me.
We pull up, and I see the smile cross Celeste’s face as she notices Selene standing framed in the doorway, a dark shape against the light; Theo is a step behind her. They just got back from Japan—Orion called after they landed and filled them in on the last two days.
Selene crosses the yard in a rush and reaches for Celeste as the passenger door opens. Celeste steps out with a small, stubborn flare; Theo moves to the other side and takes her uninjured weight.
“It’s a broken arm, not a broken leg,” she snaps before Selene can fuss. “All because I wore matching fucking socks.”
Relief softens Selene’s expression into a smile that’s half exasperation. Celeste huffs and lets them guide her inside.
The living room is loud when we come in.
Orion and Morgan are on the couch, their elbows nearly touching, trading mockery and strategy like a single conversation.
Linkin and Shiloh sit in folding chairs opposite them, hurling insults back and forth; their voices rise and fall like a tide. Nobody notices us at the door.
Selene clears her throat, and the room snaps to attention.
Orion is up before anyone finishes blinking, crossing the room with arms open, voice rough.
“Hey, Silly,” he says, careful around the sling as he folds her into a hug.
The rest of them follow with their own greetings, a scatter of relief and noise.
Linkin wraps his arm around Celeste’s shoulder, his fuckboy grin already in place. “So when’s that cast coming off? Gotta know when to start rehearsing for the world tour we had to cancel.”
A look of confusion passes over Theo and Morgan’s faces as Theo asks, “Wait—why does that matter?”
Without thinking, Linkin replies, “You can’t have Ara performing with a cast on her arm. That kinda defeats the purpose of anonymity.” I knew the head on his shoulders was just for decoration.
Theo’s expression blanks, then he starts blinking too fast, as if he can blink fast enough his brain will register the news he was just given. “Ara? Like—Ara Ara? Umbra’s Ara? Your sister is Ara? The Ara?” His voice climbs into disbelief and then cracks into a high, disbelieving laugh.
Linkin’s grin collapses. “Oh—shit. Sorry. I thought—since you two are getting married, I figured you already knew.” He rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed.
Celeste leans forward and sees the ring on Selene’s finger. It’s simple, but impossible to miss. “Wait—what?” Her hands fly to her mouth, then to Selene’s hand. “You’re engaged? Selene, are you serious? Congratulations!”
I shoot Orion a look when I notice he doesn’t seem surprised. “Theo called me a few months back,” he says with a smug grin on his face. “He told me he had a plan and he wanted me to know he wasn’t asking for my permission—just for my blessing.”
Selene and Theo exchange a small, private look. Selene’s smile is soft and slightly guilty.
“We were going to tell everyone when we got back from Japan,” Theo says. “We meant to, but between the flights and what happened with you and Bennett and… everything else, it just never came up.”
Celeste’s brow knots. “What happened with Bennett?”
Linkin, grateful for the distraction, asks, “Who’s Bennett?”
“Bennett’s my cousin,” Theo explains. “About a year and a half ago, he found out he was adopted. He started looking for his biological family, and that’s how he found me.
He came to Shadow Grove to look for his parents.
He found out that not only was his father murdered by his mother, but also that she’d given up his twin at a different hospital in a different state.
She wouldn’t tell him if the twin was a boy or a girl.
He called while we were in Japan to say he’d found his twin and he was on his way to meet them. ”
Relief and something like joy fold together on Celeste’s face as she reaches for Theo’s hand and squeezes it hard. “That’s—Theo, that’s so exciting. I hope everything goes well.”
Linkin’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and his grin goes sheepish. “Sorry, I’ve been waiting for this call. I’ll be right back.” He slips toward the kitchen as he answers with a “Finally.”
We fold into the couch and the folding chairs like tired limbs finding their place; the house eases itself around the new shape of night.
I let a small, private thank-you slip into the dark—chaos spent, at least for now.
My arm is around the woman I love; she is home, breathing, and best of all, she is safe.
The sharp clatter of glass hitting tile sounds from the kitchen, followed by a heavy thud that sounds like a body hitting the floor.
The room snaps inward; every breath holds.
For a long, suspended second, we listen to the silence that follows, waiting for the next sound that will tell us what just happened.