Chapter 56 Nitro
NITRO
{Days later}
I slid the knife through the red bell pepper with practiced precision, producing even strips.
The blade hitting the cutting board made a crisp, satisfying sound.
I sliced quickly, rhythmically, getting lost in the repetitive movements.
I could do this blindfolded if needed. Hell, maybe that could be a new show stunt.
The kitchen had become my domain in recent days. I channeled my energy here. Each meal I made for Lucy was a small bid for forgiveness, saying what I couldn’t put into words: I'm sorry for how I treated you. I'm sorry for being one more person who hurt you.
I transferred the vibrant red slices to a waiting bowl, then reached for a yellow pepper.
How many cups did I need? I leaned over, double checking the recipe displayed on the tablet screen.
I may be a whiz with a blade, but I wasn’t a genius cook.
Everything I successfully made was a result of following instructions to the letter. Perfect knife work only got me so far.
Again, I got lost in the slicing.
For some reason, each cut now produced a memory along with a pepper strip.
Lucy—braver than I realized at the time—got out of the transport van.
I was watching from a window, peering through a gap in the blinds.
I’d felt visceral hate at the sight of her in that suit.
She represented everything DemonX rejected.
We met the world with little care for safety, our focus on chasing the rush of danger.
Here she was shuffling forward in a protective suit. Ridiculous.
Lucy walking through our front door. Her eyes taking in the bloody photographs, my target—intentionally threatening—the empty liquor bottles, the women’s underwear, the general mayhem we’d created to greet her.
Lucy, taking off her helmet even though it risked her health, her face defiant as Xander put on the heart necklace.
And her scent, somehow winning out over the reek of Asher’s gasoline, hitting my nostrils and making me question everything.
Though, I’d squashed the recognition. I’d refused to let my inner Alpha reach for her.
Lucy suffering the indignity of using the buckets.
Lucy on her hands and knees scrubbing the bathroom.
Lucy against my target, standing perfectly still as my blades whizzed through the air towards her.
Lucy’s body being pulled from the tent wreckage.
My hand slipped, the blade edge caught my skin. The memory sloughed away and I focused down at the line of red welling up across my index finger.
“You cut yourself,” Lucy was beside me suddenly, grabbing my cut hand and pulling it towards her.
Embarrassment flooded me. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d accidentally hurt myself with a knife. On purpose? Sure. Those cuts were shallow; they hurt so damn good. But not by accident.
“Do you have a first aid kit?” Lucy stared up at me, green eyes half hidden behind thick lashes.
I nodded stupidly.
“Where?” She asked, a smile playing at her lips.
“Cabinet over the fridge.”
Lucy started walking, pulling me along with her. When we got to the sink, she guided my hand under the tap and turned on a cool stream of water. “Rinse it for a minute.”
I listened, like I didn’t decide my own actions anymore; that was all Lucy’s business.
I watched as she turned away from me, padding over to the fridge.
She put her hands on her hips, looking up at the high cabinet.
She moved to the counter, pressing palms against its surface and trying to hoist herself up.
When she couldn’t, she turned to me with a frown.
“Why would you guys put it so high up? Not everybody is ten feet tall.”
Fuck, she was the prettiest thing ever when she pouted.
I turned off the tap, shaking off water and wrapping a paper towel around my finger. The blood had already slowed. I walked over to Lucy, eyes locked on her face, memorizing every detail.
“Turn around,” I said gently. She cocked her head curiously but listened.
Wrapping my hands around her waist, I lifted her up high enough to reach over the fridge. She laughed nervously, hands covering mine, telling me to put her down.
“I’ll never let you fall, Lucy-Loo.”
“I don’t like heights,” she admitted, but then her arms lifted. She opened the cabinet, finding the red first aid bag and pulling it towards her.
I lowered her slowly, placing her gently on her feet. My fingers tingled when I released her waist, already itching to hold her again. Her smile was so warm. Her eyes turning a brighter green, seeming to hold inner light.
She moved away from me, and I followed like a damn lap dog. I’d follow her anywhere, I realized.
Lucy made quick work of bandaging the tiny wound, even though it was all but invisible now.
“You’d make a great nurse,” I murmured, staring down at my finger.
“No,” she said resolutely, “I’d be a terrible one, always sneaking my patients stuff they shouldn’t have or taking them outside when they’re not ready. I couldn’t watch people miss out on life the way I did.”
How was she still so kind? How could she look at me with concern in her gaze? Lucy had endured our cruelty and coldness, coming out the other side wholly unpolluted.
She threw the trash away and zipped the kit up. Her stomach growled then, and she pressed a palm against her middle. Blush crept into her cheeks.
“Guess I should get back to work,” I teased.
“You’re a terribly slow chef,” she bantered back.
I grabbed the rinsed baby red potatoes from beside the sink and headed back to the chopping board.
First ensuring there was no blood in the prep area, I changed my kitchen knife.
Before I started slicing—because I didn’t trust myself to look afterwards—I glanced toward Lucy.
She was now perched on a barstool across the kitchen island, I and caught her watching me.
"What?" I asked, the corner of my mouth lifting.
"Nothing," she replied, a small smile playing on her lips. "I just like watching you cook."
My stupid chest fluttered at her words. How quickly shit had changed. Not long ago, I’d wanted her to leave as quickly as possible, now I wanted to keep her from leaving at all costs.
Lucy was a miracle none of us had expected. She’d been cured and sent to us. After that, she became the cure.
Once the peppers and potatoes were fully prepped, I moved to check on the bread dough I'd prepared earlier.
Lifting the cloth that covered the bowl, I examined the rise.
Not quite there yet. I'd started making bread because I'd read that the smell of it baking was comforting, and Lucy deserved that comfort, that sense of home.
My first dozen loaves were terrible. The next dozen passable.
Tonight, I had a feeling the yeast rolls would be my best attempt yet.
I wiped my hands on a kitchen towel and walked to the island where Lucy sat. She was no longer looking at me but had turned her attention to the wooden figures I'd carved for her. My heart quickened, seeing her focus so steadily fixed on my gifts.
Lucy's fingers moved over the miniature motorcycle.
She pinched the back of it, pushing it back and forth across the butcher block counter.
Next to it sat a small female figure with flowing hair.
The detail wasn't perfect, but anyone could tell it was meant to be Lucy.
I'd spent hours on that tiny wooden face, trying to capture the shape of her eyes and mouth, the slight point of her chin.
She seemed completely absorbed. I leaned against the counter, content just to watch her. Her silver-white hair fell forward, slipping down in curtains to frame her face. Her mouth curved into a smile as she picked up the figurine of herself, bringing it to stand next to the bike.
Goddamn, she was gorgeous. Too pure, too bright to belong in the shadows where DemonX dwelled. But we couldn’t let her go, even if it meant Lucy slipping into our darkness.
When she picked up the carved dog, something in my chest constricted. I'd made that one on a whim; I didn’t even know why. The detail on that piece was rougher. Still, I'd managed to capture the playful pose, the floppy ears, the wagging tail.
Lucy rolled the wooden dog between her palms. Then she patted its head, a gesture so innocently childlike that it made my throat tighten.
How much of her childhood had she lost, locked away in hospitals?
How many simple joys had been denied her—running through grass, petting a family dog, eating ice cream on a hot day.
Fuck, I’d been a product of the system, and I still got to be a kid sometimes. I was able to hit the skate park, scrounge up a few quarters for a fudge bar, make mistakes, throw tantrums, and eventually form a pack family.
I wanted to give Lucy everything she’d missed out on. I wanted to rewind time and show her the wonders of childhood. But I couldn’t do that. I could only make every moment now full of things that made her look this way. Curious, content, carefree.
A new kind of heat spread through me. Not my oldest companion anger. Not desire. This was something infinitely tender, and more terrifying.
Lucy arranged all the carvings into a little scene. The motorcycle, the dog, herself. Her mouth moved, murmuring something under her breath.
I swallowed hard against a rising tide of emotions. I could give her decent food, wooden toys, and a safe place to heal—from the far away past, and from the recent past when we’d been misguided idiots—but I couldn't truly give back the years that sickness stole from her. No one could.
"I never got to have a pet when I was a kid," she said suddenly, index finger resting on the back of the carved dog "Before I ended up in hospitals full time, I mean." Her voice was casual, but there was an undercurrent of old pain beneath the words. "Everyone was worried about my immune system."
I nodded, unsure what to say. Had Lucy ever spoken about her past before? I didn’t think so… We knew everything from the files, but it wasn’t the same as hearing it from her mouth, hearing how she’d felt when ill, abandoned, treated with excruciating drugs.
She picked the dog up and set it on its side, a faraway look crossing her face. "I wonder if my parents got Tom a dog."
Tom. Her brother. The child her parents didn’t sign away to state care. He’d be grown now. Did he even wonder where his sister was? My jaw tightened, fingers instinctively reaching for the folded knife in my pocket. I wrapped my hand around it, letting the cool metal ground me.
The thought of Lucy's family stirred within me a primal urge to protect. These were the people who had abandoned their daughter to strangers in hazmat suits, who had stopped visiting, and stopped calling. They’d made Lucy a government ward, subject to the same type of system me and my brothers grew up in.
In my mind, Lucy had no parents. No sibling.
But the wistful note in her voice when she mentioned her brother made me hesitate.
"We can contact them if you want," I said slowly, measuring each word.
My hand tightened around the knife reflexively.
I wasn't sure it would be a good idea for Lucy's parents or brother to be anywhere near DemonX.
The pack might not show the restraint I was struggling to maintain.
We might not hate her family for our own sakes, but we certainly hated them for hers.
Lucy's head snapped up, green eyes locking with mine. "No, I—" She swallowed hard, the movement visible in the delicate line of her throat— "I don't think I ever want to see them again. I was only curious."
Her words sent a pang through my chest. I felt the pain not for her family, who deserved whatever fate karma had in store for them, but for Lucy, who deserved so much more than the hand she'd been dealt.
The certainty in her voice told me everything I needed to know about how deeply their abandonment had cut.
I wanted to reach for her, to pull her against me until the sharp edges of her aching dulled, but I remained where I was, uncertain.
Physical comfort wasn't something that came naturally to any of us at DemonX.
We were more accustomed to threats than tenderness, to fists than embraces.
The few touches any of us had shared with her, picking her up, sitting next to her on the sofa, brushing hands during a task, were easing us into an affection not rooted in carnal pleasure.
Lucy made me want to be a softer man.
I didn’t hug her.
Instead, my eyes fell on the covered bread dough bowl.
"Hey," I said, forcing a lightness into my tone that I didn't feel, "want to help me shape the dough into rolls? It should be ready now."
Relief flashed across Lucy's face at the change of subject. She nodded, sliding off the barstool and moving around the island. I grabbed a clean apron from a drawer and held it out for her.
"You might want to wear this. Flour gets everywhere."
She turned, presenting her back to me, arms slightly extended to slip into the apron. The simple gesture of trust wasn't lost on me. Again, I was struck by the force of Lucy’s indomitable spirit. Despite everything, she stood before me, vulnerable and waiting.
I placed the apron over her head carefully, my callused fingers brushing against the silky strands of her hair.
The summery, uplifting scent of her enveloped me as I reached around to grasp the strings of the apron.
My arms created a circle around her, not quite touching but surrounding her small figure nonetheless.
As I tied the strings at the small of her back, I found myself close enough that my breath stirred the fine hairs at the nape of her neck. She stiffened slightly, not in fear but in awareness.
"This family won't ever abandon you, Lucy-Loo," I whispered, mouth near her ear, voice thick with emotion. The nickname slipped out unbidden. I worried she’d hate it, because I’d called her that name in cruelty when I was being my very worst self.
I felt her breath catch, saw the slight tremble in her shoulders. When I pulled away, she turned to face me, eyes glistening with unshed tears. She nodded slowly, biting her lower lip.
For a moment, we stood there in the kitchen, neither moving nor speaking.
It felt like the last barrier between us had crumbled.
I had promised her a family. I’d offered DemonX as the safe harbor her own blood had failed to be.
In doing so, I'd acknowledged what I'd been fighting for weeks: Lucy wasn't just our responsibility, or our Omega to protect. She wasn’t just a tool to stabilize our Alpha natures.
She had become essential. Lucy was life itself.
She smiled.
And the sun appeared in the kitchen, blocked by not a single cloud.
Hers was a smile that I’d do anything to preserve.