CHAPTER 20 - Lucy
My head throbs with a million questions I can’t answer. Since I woke up this morning, I’ve been staring at my phone, watching the cursor blink in an empty text box.
Madeline hasn’t been herself. She’s acting like a ghost haunting her own life, and ever since that night I bumped into that strange man, everything changed. I can’t take it anymore. I’m the one who kicks doors down; I don’t sit around waiting for them to open.
I hit the dial. It rings three times before she picks up. Her voice sounds like it’s being pulled through gravel.
ME: "Mali? It’s me," I say, my tone sharper than I intended.
ME: "Don't give me the 'I'm busy at the morgue' excuse. We’re meeting at The Broken Cross in thirty minutes. You’re going to sit down, you’re going to drink a double espresso, and you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on before I lose my mind. We’ve been distant, and I need my best friend. "
There’s a long pause. I can hear her shallow breathing on the other end.
Finally, she whispers.
MADELINE: "Okay. Thirty minutes."
The café is crowded, smelling of burnt beans and damp coats.
I’m already in our usual booth, tapping my nails rhythmically against the scratched wood, when Madeline slides in.
She looks terrible. It’s not just exhaustion, it’s a hollowed-out look, like someone reached inside her and turned off the lights.
"Madeline," I start, leaning forward, my voice dropping into that protective edge I only use for her.
"I know Bryan is missing. I heard the nurses talking. And I know you were at the morgue last night."
Madeline flinches at the name. She looks around the room as if the walls have ears.
"Lucy, please. Not here."
"Then where?"
I snap, my temper flaring.
"It was him, wasn’t it? I’m not stupid, Madeline. You’re tied to a monster, and he’s starting to pull you under."
Madeline’s eyes well up, but she doesn't cry. She just stares at her hands.
"He's... he's not just a monster, Lucy. He’s everything. And Bryan... Bryan wasn't just a disappearance. He was a message."
My blood runs cold. I want to scream at her to wake up, to run, but the air in the café suddenly shifts.
"Good morning, ladies. I hope I’m not interrupting a friendly crisis."
I whip my head around. A man in a tailored grey coat is standing over us. He has a sharp, narrow face and eyes that look like a cold flint. He doesn't wait for an invite; he just pulls a chair from the next table and sits.
"Detective Sterling," Madeline whispers, her professional mask cracking before she can even put it on.
"Dr. Emerson," he nods, then turns those predatory eyes on me.
"And you must be Lucy. The stubborn half of the duo. I’ve been looking for an excuse to meet the woman who’s been keeping such... interesting company."
"We’re in the middle of a private conversation," I hiss, my hand tightening into a fist under the table.
"Unless you have a warrant, get lost."
Sterling chuckles, a dry, humorless sound.
"Fiery. I like that. But I think you’ll want to hear this. You see, I was looking into Bryan’s disappearance. It’s funny how the cameras in your morgue went dark last night, Madeline. And even funnier that I found a silver cross in the drainage grate outside the service exit this morning."
Sterling leans forward, the light from the café window reflecting off his cold eyes. He reaches into his inner pocket and pulls out a small, transparent evidence bag. Inside, the silver cross glints.
"I ran a rush panel on the biological traces found on this," Sterling says, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
"I expected a match for our shadow, the man you've been 'hosting,' Dr. Emerson. But the results were... unexpected."
He slides a printed lab report across the sticky table. My eyes blur as I try to make sense of the markers, but Sterling doesn't let me struggle for long.
"The DNA isn't a match for the man I was looking for. But it is a familial match. Specifically, a parental one."
He turns his gaze directly to me, his smile sharpening into something cruel.
"It belongs to a man who hasn't officially existed for a long time. A man named Charles."
The name hits me like a gun shot. Charles.
Memories I’ve buried under layers of armor start to fracture. A tall silhouette in a doorway. The smell of expensive tobacco and old paper.
A man who tucked me in once and then vanished into the night before I was old enough to even form a full sentence about him. My mother never spoke his name. To her, he was a ghost; to me, he was just a hole in my life.
"No," I snap, my voice cracking with a fierce denial.
"You’re lying. He’s been gone for years. You’re just trying to rattle us."
"Am I?"
Sterling tilts his head.
"Because the lab didn't just find his DNA. They compared it to the mandatory blood sample you gave for your license last year, Lucy. It’s a ninety-nine percent match. Charles Vane is your father. And apparently, he’s back in town."
I feel the air leave the booth. I look at Madeline, expecting her to back me up, to tell this cop he’s insane. But she isn't looking at me.
Madeline is staring at the silver cross as if it’s a ticking bomb. Her face has gone from pale to a sickly, translucent white. Her mouth is slightly open, her breath coming in short hitches.
I grab Madeline’s arm, my grip tight enough to bruise.
"Mali? Tell him he's wrong. Tell him this is some sick police tactic."
Madeline doesn't answer. She looks at me, and for the first time in our entire lives, she looks at me with a flicker of pure, unadulterated horror. She isn't seeing her best friend anymore. She’s looking at me like I’m someone else. A stranger. And I can’t figure out why?
"Lucy..." she whispers, her voice barely audible over the clatter of coffee cups.
"Oh god, Lucy."
I watch the color drain from Madeline’s face, leaving her looking more like the corpses she examines than a living woman. Her eyes are wide, fixed on the silver cross in Sterling’s hand, but I can tell she’s seeing something else entirely, some nightmare I haven't been invited into yet.
Sterling stands over us, his presence a suffocating weight. He looks like a man who just placed the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle and is enjoying the picture of the carnage it creates.
"Detective," I snap, my voice trembling with a mix of fury and genuine fear. I don't care about the badge; I care about the fact that my best friend looks like she’s having a stroke.
"Give us a minute. Look at her. You've made your point, now back the hell off before I call your sergeant."
Sterling gives a thin, oily smile. He knows he’s won this round.
"I'll be in the car, Dr. Emerson. Don't take too long. Silence is just another word for complicity."
He turns and walks toward the exit, the bell above the door chiming with a cheerful sound that feels like a mockery.
The moment the door closes, I grab Madeline’s shoulders, forcing her to look at me.
"Mali! Talk to me. Okay, so this creep says Charles Vane is my father. Fine. It’s a shock, it's sick, but why are you acting like the world just ended? You’re scaring me."
Madeline’s lips move, but no sound comes out at first. She looks at me and I see a flash of pity so profound it makes my skin crawl.
"Lucy," she finally chokes out, her fingers digging into the vinyl of the booth.
"The man... the one who you bumped into at the morgue. The one who killed Jake and Bryan."
"The Arbiter," I whisper, the nickname feeling like poison.
"He told me about his father," Madeline says, her voice a hollow rasp. She leans in close, her eyes darting to the window to make sure Sterling isn't listening.
"He hates him. He told me his father was a monster who broke everything he touched. A man who disappeared to build an empire of shadows, to the Elite."
I feel a cold sweat break out across my neck. I still don't see the bridge. I don't see the connection.
"Mali, lots of monsters have fathers. What does that have to do with Charles?"
Madeline reaches out, taking my hand in hers. Her grip is crushing.
"Lucy, he didn't just mention his father. He spoke of him as the man who made him. And the name Sterling just gave us... Charles Vane..."
She swallows hard, the realization finally spilling over her lips like a death sentence.
"He is Vane's son. If Charles is your father... then the man who is stalking me, the man who’s obsessed with me, the man I... I thought I was starting to understand..."
She stops, her voice failing, but she doesn't have to finish. The world tilts on its axis. The air in the café vanishes, replaced by a vacuum of pure massacre.
He isn't just the most wanted serial killer in the city. He’s my blood. He’s the brother I never knew I had, and he’s currently holding the woman I love as his psychological plaything.
"He's my brother, step brother," I whisper, the words feeling alien, disgusting.
Madeline is staring at me, her eyes darting across my face as if searching for a version of me that isn't connected to the nightmare currently unfolding.
"Wait," Madeline says, her voice barely a thread.
She pulls her hand back, her fingers trembling against the edge of the table.
"Lucy... how did you know who he is? The Arbiter. I never told you it was actually him.”
I let out a dry laugh that tastes like copper. I lean back, the adrenaline finally starting to override the nausea.
"Mali, did you really think I was just sitting at home knitting while you were disappearing into thin air? You’re my best friend, my only family.”
I reach into my bag and pull out a crumpled folder of printouts. Blurry CCTV stills, police scanner transcripts, and dark web forum threads I spent three nights straight navigating.
"I did my research," I hiss, my voice dropping as a group of teenagers laughs at a table nearby.