Chapter 21
Ethan
Lucky’s house looks wrong.
The day is too bright for how wrong her house feels. Birds are going off in the trees, sun glinting over the lake, everything deceptively peaceful — and Lucky’s home looks like a boarded-up crime scene.
It makes the hair on the back of my neck rise. Houses don’t go still like this unless something’s happened. Someone’s hurting.
And Lucky doesn’t do stillness. She avoids silence the way most people avoid fire.
It’s barely past noon, and she’s usually out on the deck by now, legs kicked up on the railing, coffee in one hand, guitar in the other, hair messy as hell and beautiful for it. But today the place is sealed tight. Curtains drawn. No lights. No shadow passing in front of the windows.
Her rental is parked exactly where it always is, so she didn’t leave.
I stand on her steps with a knot twisting low in my gut. Something happened after yesterday's phone call. Something she’s not telling me.
I knock once, lightly.
Movement. A flick of the curtain. Then an eye, wide, frantic, unmistakably terrified.
Christ.
“Lucky?” I keep my voice steady, soft, the way I used to talk men down from panic overseas. “It’s me.”
She hesitates, then the deadbolt turns. The door cracks open just an inch.
She’s pale. Not makeup-pale, but fear-pale. Eyes red like she’s been up all night. Hands gripping the door so tightly her knuckles are bone white.
“Hey,” I say gently. “Can I come in?”
She hesitates like the question itself hurts, then swallows hard and steps back.
Inside, the air hits me first. It’s stale, warm, wrong.
There’s a smell in the air, sweat, old fear, the sour edge of adrenaline drying on skin. I’ve smelled it in tents overseas. On the backs of uniforms after night terrors.
She’s been panicking for hours.
Curtains shut, lights off, not even a crack of sun in the room.
Her usual morning chaos — mug somewhere on the deck railing, music spilling from her speakers, barefoot footprints on the wood floor — none of it is here.
It feels like someone pressed pause on her life the minute that phone call ended.
My eyes sweep the room automatically, out of habit and concern.
Her little music corner, the one she always swears she hates but refuses to tidy, is frozen.
Not a single thing has moved since yesterday.
Pages of lyrics, usually tossed around like confetti, sit untouched on the coffee table.
The cap of her pen is exactly where I noticed it lying around before I left.
Her guitar is still sprawled across the sofa like she meant to pick it up and never did.
Nothing has been lived in since I left.
She hasn’t eaten either — I can see it the moment she steps into the dim light. She’s pale, too pale, cheekbones sharper than they should be. Her hoodie hangs off her like she’s lost weight overnight. Christ.
When was the last time she ate? The dinner I made her two nights ago?
Her lips are colorless. Her hands tremble like she can’t keep them still. She won’t look at me as her eyes dart everywhere else, shoulders tight, breathing small and rapid.
Like prey.
“Talk to me,” I say, keeping my voice level. “Yesterday — after the call — you changed. You shut down. I thought maybe you needed space, but now…” I look around again, taking in the sealed-up house, the dark, the untouched chaos. “Now I’m worried something’s wrong.”
“I’m fine,” she says too fast, voice sharp and brittle.
My jaw tenses. “You’re not.”
I step closer, slow, non-threatening. Her whole body jerks. It’s tiny, but unmistakable. Like she’s bracing for impact that isn’t coming. It hits something deep in my chest.
For a half-second, her hand lifts — like she’s reaching for me, or for something to hold on to. But she catches herself, fingers curling into her palm so hard they shake.
That small aborted gesture wrecks me more than any words could.
“Lucky, you’re shaking.”
“I said I’m fine.”
She turns away, pacing a tight little line, fingers yanking through her hair. She’s breathing too fast — hyperventilation edging closer with every second. I’ve seen this before. Combat stress. Panic attacks. Soldiers haunted by things they refuse to speak aloud.
This is the same look. The same tremor. The same fear of being seen.
“Did something happen? Was it the call?” I ask quietly. “You can tell me.”
She stops pacing. Her back rises once, sharply. Then she spins around, eyes wild and shining with something she’s trying desperately to outrun.
“Don’t,” she whispers. “Don’t do that. Don’t… be kind. It’ll make it worse.”
Worse for whom?
Her?
Or me?
I take one more step, heart pounding because every instinct screams to grab her, hold her, protect her from whatever ghost is clawing at her. I want to wrap my arms around her and let her fall apart against me. I want to kiss her until she remembers she’s safe.
But I know — I know — that would only push her further. She’d shut down harder, run faster.
So I hold back.
“I’m trying to help.”
“I don’t want help,” she snaps, but her voice wavers. “Okay? I just need… space. I’m fine. I just need to write. Just— just go home, Ethan.”
“No.” The word leaves before I can stop it. “I’m not leaving you like this.”
Her jaw clenches, but her eyes… they flicker with fear. Defiance. Shame.
“Lucky,” I say softly, “you’re terrified. I can see it. Let me in.”
“You are in,” she says with a broken laugh. “You’re literally in my house, Maddox.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
For a heartbeat, she meets my eyes, and I see everything. The exhaustion. The trembling. The hollow fear. The part of her begging to be held. And the louder part is shoving me away.
Then it’s gone. She flips the switch. Shuts it all down.
“You need to go,” she whispers.
“I’m not leaving until you tell me—”
“Ethan,” she says, voice flat now, deadened, stripped of everything vulnerable. “Please.”
That word.
Spoken like surrender.
Spoken like she’s drowning and won’t grab the hand right in front of her.
It guts me.
She’s not protecting herself from me — she’s protecting me from whatever’s in her head.
A cold ripple moves down my spine. Not fear of her — fear for her. Fear that whatever broke inside her didn’t start yesterday. Fear that I’ve missed signs. That she’s been drowning quietly while I mistook it for moodiness or stubbornness.
I’ve seen this kind of retreat before, the kind that comes from trauma you don’t have language for.
This is not about a phone call.
This is about survival.
I stand here, fighting myself. The urge to reach for her and break down every wall she’s throwing up. The urge to stay until she talks or cries or screams, anything but this silence.
But she asked.
And the last thing I want is to become a man who ignores her “no.”
I force a breath. “All right,” I say quietly. “I’ll go. For now.”
Her throat works. She nods, but she’s staring at the floor now, like looking at me will break her.
And it kills me to walk away.
I move slowly toward the door, giving her all the space she thinks she needs. My chest feels too tight. Every instinct screams to stay, to press, to demand answers. But she asked. And I won’t be a person who ignores her boundaries.
I open the door and step onto the porch.
“Lucky,” I say quietly without turning back, “I’m only a step away. If you need anything. Anything.”
Silence.
Then the door clicks shut between us.
I walk down her steps, each one heavier than the last. The air outside is cool, clean, nothing like the suffocating quiet in her house. I get halfway down her path when I hear it:
One lock.
Another.
Another.
Metal sliding, snapping, sealing me out.
Then the soft swish of curtains being yanked tighter.
My stomach drops.
Whatever she’s running from — it isn’t small. It isn’t fleeting. And it damn sure didn’t start yesterday morning.
My brain does what it always does — maps exits, weak points, the fastest way through her house if I needed to reach her. It’s automatic, instinctual.
But every route ends with the same truth:
I can’t save someone who won’t open the door.
My fists clench, and I stand there on the gravel drive, listening to the house seal itself up like a bunker.
Helpless.
And more scared for her than I’ve ever been in my life.
I wait a moment before walking to my truck, half hoping the door will crack open again, that she’ll call after me, even by accident.
Nothing.
Just silence thick enough to choke on.
Whatever this is… It’s bigger than me. Bigger than her pride.
And I won’t let it consume her.
Even if she’s locking me out of the one place she needs me most.