Chapter 47 Asher #2
Lucy didn’t wait for me to follow. She walked quickly, descending the stage steps before I’d even started moving.
I followed, catching up with her quickly.
When my foot hit the dusty ground past the metal steps, she was only a few paces ahead.
I caught up to her in seconds, moving shoulder to shoulder with her.
“We don’t need to rush.” This was ridiculous. We were ruining our perfect moment for what was probably something stupid happening outside.
I was about to insist that Lucy relax, but just as my mouth opened, a female performer in a tight leotard burst through the tent flaps. The woman’s face was flushed red with exertion, her chest heaving. Her arms windmilled wildly as she tried to catch her breath.
"The Phantom Tent is collapsing!" she shouted, voice cracking with urgency. "People are still inside!" Sweat glistened on her forehead as she looked between us, desperate for a response.
Lucy stopped abruptly, face horrified. I rolled my eyes, still annoyed at the interruption. Not my problem, not my tent, not my concern.
"And?" I asked coldly, crossing my arms. "I'm sure the crew has it handled."
The woman's eyes widened at my icy dismissal.
"No, you don't understand. Nitro was practicing his knife routine in there.
One of the maintenance techs said he was at stage center when the first cable snapped.
" She turned, already running back toward the entrance.
"Everyone's trying to help!" She shouted over her shoulder.
Lucy's hands slapped over her mouth. Before I could process what was happening, she started running full tilt. Her silver hair disappeared from view moments later when she barreled through the tent flaps. I blinked in surprise, then raced after her.
Bursting out into sunlight, I blinked rapidly and searched. Tent three… where the fuck was tent three! A flash of platinum caught my attention, and I looked just in time to see Lucy rounding the corner of a talent trailer.
"Lucy!" I shouted after her, but she was already out of range.
Lucy was running—not away from danger, but toward it. And not for just anyone. For Nitro. Fucking Nitro, who'd used her for target practice. Who'd backed her against a wall with a knife to her throat. Who'd been nothing but cruel since the moment she'd arrived.
"Nitro better be fucking hurt," I muttered, then started covering ground at high speed.
Shouts and the metallic groan of buckling infrastructure grew louder with each step I took toward the chaos. Lucy better not do anything stupid, I mentally growled.
Collapsing big top came into view, and I spotted her about fifty yards away, darting between clusters of performers and technicians.
The Phantom tent—an obsidian and white monstrosity boasting about a million black lights inside—was already halfway collapsed.
Its peak was inverted, the canvas sagging inward.
From this vantage, it looked like two of the king poles had snapped.
Metal continued to scream and twist, bending in unnatural ways.
Cirque staff strained against thick ropes tethered to stakes, fighting a losing battle against gravity and tons of fabric.
People crawled from beneath the tent's heavy skirt, emerging wherever they could find an opening.
Some limped, others dragged equipment. A group of stagehands formed a human chain, passing smaller props out through a narrow gap.
The one policy that made me debate adding the Cirque to my arson wish list was this one—that saving the props was worth putting employees in peril.
As I grew closer, the distinct cadence of Lucy’s voice carried over the din.
“Has Nitro come out?” she asked one man, who shook his head.
She ran to a woman, voice pitching with fear now.
“Have you seen Nitro?” Another disappointing answer sent Lucy running several feet to one of the Cirque performers who’d crawled out of danger. “Please tell me you’ve seen Nitro.”
This answer made Lucy turn towards the tent. Slowing my advance, I watched as she looked left, then right, and then finally down at the bottom of the failing structure.
I knew what she was going to do, but I didn’t walk faster, because I had to be wrong. She wouldn’t be that reckless. She wasn’t one of us—DemonX Alphas, always placing the high of danger above the finality of death.
Lucy took a step forward.
Now, my pace quickened as a sickening realization dawned. She wouldn't. She fucking wouldn't.
But she did.
My Omega ducked down and pushed her body beneath the folds of the collapsing tent. The heavy vinyl swallowed her whole, leaving no trace of her silver hair or pale skin. She was gone, vanished into the unstable structure that continued to groan and shift.
"Lucy, come back!" I bellowed, pushing myself faster. “Goddammit, Lucy!”
My feet pounded across the dirt as I erased the distance between me and the tent. My mind cycled through increasingly horrific outcomes. What was she thinking? Why would she risk herself for Nitro? For any of us? We'd been nothing but monsters to her. It made no fucking sense!
I skidded to a stop, gulping for air. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! What should I do? Should I go after her?
Frantically, I looked around. Where were my brothers? Had they heard that Nitro was trapped?
“Fuck!” I yelled, a guttural sound that sent more than one head swiveling in my direction.
“What crawled up your ass?” A familiar voice broke through my frustration and anger.
I spun around to find Nitro—several scrapes across his face and covered in dirt but otherwise looking perfectly fine—standing right behind me. He hacked out a cough while slapping dust from his clothes, his eyes drifting over my shoulder to watch the tent continue its catastrophic implosion.
“You’re already fucking out,” I breathed in disbelief. Then I turned quickly again, head spinning, as I realized Lucy had just risked her life for nothing.
“Want me to crawl back inside, brother?” Nitro asked sarcastically. “You seem disappointed.”
"Lucy went in to fucking find you," I snarled. "She's in there. She went in there for you."
The color drained from Nitro's face, his expression morphing from confusion to horror. "What? Why would she—"
His words cut off as we both turned toward the tent, attention drawn by a sustained, terrifying groan of metal. The structure emitted a deafening crack, like a gunshot amplified a hundredfold. The remaining support beams gave way simultaneously, and the massive canopy plummeted downward.
The crowd around us fell silent for one horrible second as the tent collapsed completely, the heavy material crashing with a sickening thud that vibrated the ground. Dust and debris exploded outward in a cloud that temporarily obscured the destruction.
"Lucy!" I screamed, lunging forward, chest constricted with fear.
Nitro grabbed my arm, yanking me back. "We need to be smart about this!" he shouted. "If we just rush in—"
I wrenched free of his grip, my vision narrowing to a pinpoint.
All I could think about was Lucy—fragile, pale Lucy with her translucent skin and visible veins—crushed beneath tons of canvas and metal.
Lucy, who'd held fire in her palm without flinching.
Lucy, who'd finally started to show me who she really was because I’d stopped, for one goddamn heartbeat, trying to drive her away.
"She went in there for you," I snarled, shoving him hard enough that he stumbled backward. "She had no fucking reason to help you after everything you've done."
Confusion flashed across Nitro's face. "I don't—"
"She went in to save you," I repeated, already moving toward the flattened tent. "She shouldn't have. She should have let you die. She shouldn’t care about any of us enough to risk her life."
People swarmed the perimeter of the collapsed structure now, some cutting at the heavy material with knives, others trying to lift sections where bodies might be trapped. I joined them, pulling at the canvas with desperate strength, fingers scraping against the rough surface.
Somewhere beneath this suffocating shroud was Lucy. My Lucy. Our Lucy. The woman who'd looked at fire the same way I did, eyes full of respect and a hunger that couldn't be explained. The woman I was supposed to be driving away, but all I wanted now was to draw her closer.
As I tore futilely at the canvas, I cursed and prayed simultaneously. And I never fucking prayed.
This woman who looked at me and didn’t see the monster can’t be dead.
This woman I don’t deserve has to be alive.
Please, not dead. Please, let her be alive.
I shouldn’t have let her leave the other tent. I should have held her down and made her ignore the screams. I should have told her Nitro could burn for all I cared.
Instead, I'd let her go. Now, she might be gone forever.
With renewed fervor, I attacked the collapsed tent, ignoring the cuts forming on my hands and the sweat dripping into my eyes.
I wouldn't stop until I found her. I’d work my flesh to the bone if I had to.
Because the truth was now undeniable. This Omega had lit an eternal flame inside my soul that even a monsoon couldn’t extinguish.
I wasn't trying to get rid of Lucy anymore. I was desperately trying to keep her.