Chapter 22
Lucky
The second Ethan steps out, the silence punches me.
Then—
Click.
His weight leaves the porch.
Click.
I double-check the deadbolt and twist every lock on every window myself. One, two, three. My breath is shaking by the time the latch falls, but I keep going. Curtains. Blinds. Windows. Every damn thing that has a crack or a line of sight gets closed until the lake house feels like a bunker.
Only then do I slide down the hallway wall, knees to my chest.
And it hits me.
Him.
In my bed.
Breathing as if he belonged there.
Waiting.
Watching.
My lungs seize. I press my palms to my temples to stop the replay, but it doesn’t listen. Trauma never listens.
“You’re not there,” I whisper to myself. “You’re not in that house. You’re not twenty-one. He can’t find you. Jett hasn’t succeeded. The press hasn’t. You’re invisible here.”
Invisible.
It’s supposed to be comforting. My therapist called it a grounding phrase — something factual, something external.
But tonight it feels like an accusation.
I force myself to stand. My body feels hollow, like I’m piloting it from two rooms away. I fumble into the kitchen. Still dark. I don’t turn on the lights. Darkness is safer than visibility.
The kettle clicks on. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to still the tremors. My tea tastes like boiled metal and dread, but my therapist said routine helps.
So I drink it.
The house is too quiet. Ethan took the noise with him. He took the light, too.
My phone vibrates in the dark.
I flinch so hard the tea sloshes over my hand. The burn barely registers. My heart rockets up into my throat.
It’s Banks.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Lu.”
My knees nearly give from relief.
“Hey,” I say, voice too high, too thin. “I’m… getting by.”
He hears it. He always does. His tone softens into that calm, steady rhythm he uses when things are bad-bad, not just usual Lucky crap.
“You need to leave Cedar Lake.”
Everything in me goes still.
“What? Why? Banks—”
“Your location’s been compromised.”
The world tilts. The kitchen seems to pull away from me, like it’s stretching down a tunnel.
“What do you mean—compromised?” My voice cracks.
“A video’s circulating,” he says gently. “A teen posted herself singing a Rebel June cover. Said she’s been taking lessons from ‘one of the best guitarists alive.’”
My stomach drops.
Lily.
Oh God, Lily. No, no, no.
“She didn’t use your name,” Banks says quickly, already soothing the panic spike he can hear through the line, “but the photo she posted—it shows your guitar case.”
“That case could belong to anyone,” I whisper, but I already know it’s a lie.
“It’s iconic, Lu. Those stickers? Fans recognize them. The location in the photo appears to be Cedar Lake. And once I figured out the girl was the Lumberjack’s kid? He will too.”
He.
Seven years, and the bastard still found ways to haunt me. Prison walls didn’t stop him. Steel bars didn’t, either.
I swallow, but my throat’s a desert. The hallucination of him in my bed ripples across my vision.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay. What do I do?”
“I’m heading to the airport now. I’ll be in New York late tonight. Since you fired your security in L.A., you don’t have anyone on the ground, so I called the agency. They’ll arrange someone for you.”
“No—Banks—”
“It’s not optional,” he says in that clipped manager tone that used to drive me insane on tour. “You’ll meet me at the Bell Pier Hotel in Manhattan. I’ve booked you a suite. Two, actually. One for you, one for whoever they send. You’re not alone in this.”
The words crack something in my chest. A slow, painful splintering.
“I’ll see you tonight,” he adds, softer now.
“Okay.” My voice is barely audible. “Okay.”
The call ends.
The silence is instant. Smothering.
I set my phone on the counter with careful, shaking fingers.
And when it vibrates again with the aftershock of disconnecting, I break.
I fold over the sink, gripping the edge so hard my knuckles scream. Sobs tear out of me. Deep, animal ones I can’t control. Grief, guilt, terror—they all hit at once, a tidal wave with teeth.
This is my fault.
Not Lily’s.
Not Ethan’s.
Mine.
If I’d told Ethan. If I’d trusted him. If I’d—
God.
I should’ve warned him. I should’ve given him the truth instead of scraps, instead of acting like I’m just quirky and anxious and not a goddamn walking target.
He left, thinking I just needed space.
He doesn’t know space is the thing that kills me.
I slide down to the floor, pressing my forehead to my knees, rocking without meaning to. The kettle clicks again, forgotten.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into my hands. I don’t even know if I’m apologizing to Ethan, or Lily, or the version of myself I keep failing.
My chest is a fist around my heart.
I’m leaving Cedar Lake.
I’m running again.
And this time…
I’m terrified I won’t be able to come back.
I don’t know how long I’ve stayed on the kitchen floor. Minutes. Hours. Time gets slippery when panic eats all the air.
At some point, my breathing evens out just enough for thought to wedge itself back in. One thought, small and sharp:
Move.
If I stay still, the memories get louder.
If I move, maybe I can outrun them for thirty seconds at a time.
I push off the floor and stumble toward the bedroom. My legs feel disconnected from the rest of me, like puppeted limbs. The room is still a mess — clothes, notebooks, guitar picks, scribbled lyrics, all in the same exact places they were yesterday before everything went to hell.
I shove the closet door open and drag the duffel bag down. It hits the floor with a heavy thud. I start stuffing things into it — clothes, charger, medication bottle I haven’t touched in weeks, makeup I rarely wear here. My hands are shaking so badly that I pack the same shirt twice.
None of it feels real.
My body is moving, but my thoughts are somewhere else — a dark bedroom, a silhouette in my bed, the warm exhale of a stranger on my pillow.
I gag.
I need…
I need him off me.
Even if he’s not here. Even if it’s a memory. Even if it was years ago.
The need slams into me so hard I stagger toward the bathroom.
I turn the shower on full blast — hot, too hot — and steam fills the room almost instantly, coating the mirror, the tiles, the air. My clothes hit the floor in seconds. I step under the water before it’s even ready, before my skin can tell me to stop.
Heat burns across my shoulders.
Good.
I grab the soap. Scrub.
Hard.
Harder.
“I need him off,” I mutter, voice cracking. “Get off… get off… get off…”
My fingernails dig into my skin. I drag the washcloth over my arms, my chest, my stomach, everywhere he ever touched, everywhere he breathed near me, everywhere that memory lies dormant like a disease.
The water scalds. My skin turns pink. Then red.
But it isn’t enough.
It’s never enough.
“Get off me,” I choke, scrubbing harder, nails biting through the cloth. “Get out. Get out. Get out—”
Tears mix with the water. I can’t tell where one ends and the other starts. My breath comes in stuttered bursts, shallow and sharp. The steam thickens until the whole room feels like it’s closing in.
My legs give out first.
I drop to my knees with a wet smack against the tile. The sound echoes. Something inside me cracks with it.
I curl forward, arms wrapping around my stomach, forehead to the slick floor. The water pounds down on the back of my neck like punishment.
“I can’t—” The words dissolve into a sob. “I can’t do this again. Please. Please just stop.”
But my body doesn’t listen.
My mind doesn’t listen.
The memory has me by the throat, dragging me under.
His weight.
His breath.
His voice in my ear.
The way he said my name.
Lucky.
Like he owned it.
I claw at my skin again, useless motions, shaking so hard my teeth clack together.
“I’m not there,” I sob. “I’m not—it’s not real—I’m not—”
But the panic is already swallowing me.
My vision blurs.
My chest is collapsing inward, like my ribs are folding around my heart to crush it.
I can’t breathe, can’t get out, can’t get up—
“Please,” I whisper into the floor, raw and broken. “Please… make it stop…”
And then the world goes thin and far away, like I’m sinking to the bottom of a lake, watching myself from beneath the surface.
The water keeps running.
The steam keeps choking the room.
And I fold into myself, helpless, as the last bit of control slips through my fingers.