Chapter 5
Cece
The moment my feet hit solid ground, a violent chill rips through me, crawling under my skin like something cold and invisible is clinging there.
My breath stutters instead of settling into a rhythm, and I try to latch onto it, to force myself to calm down, but the panic is already rising.
My arms are locked around him without me realizing it.
Too tight. Desperate. Like if I let go for even a second, I’ll slip right out of reality.
I peel my grip away inch by inch, hands shaking, and force my eyes open, terrified of what I’ll find.
He’s already watching me.
Our eyes meet for a moment before he looks away.
“You’re back home.”
I whip my head around, scanning everything too fast—buildings, concrete, empty space. My pulse trips over itself. The city sounds are faint, muffled, like I’m hearing them underwater. The sky is painted in that soft gold that only shows up right before sunset.
Evening?
How the hell is it almost nighttime again?
Nothing looks familiar. Nothing feels right. We’re wedged between two buildings I almost recognize, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
“This isn’t where I live,” I manage, my voice thin.
My thoughts are a mess, but whatever buzz I had earlier is completely gone. Or maybe this is what coming down feels like—from whatever I drank, from whatever that was. I look back at him, confusion sharpening into fear.
He meets my gaze again, his smile easy, softening the edges of his face.
And damn—what a face. Dark stubble along a strong jaw, sunlight catching in his tousled dark hair.
Rugged. Effortlessly handsome. There’s something ageless about him, too.
Mature. Confident. Like he’s lived through things no one should and somehow come through intact.
“You’re near the train station,” he says after a moment. “The station where . . .” He stops himself, voice trailing off like he doesn’t want to finish the thought.
I take a step toward him, barely trusting my legs.
“I have to be dreaming. I-I remember what happened, but it feels distant. Like a dream I can’t quite grab onto. I don’t understand what happened last night. Or how it’s already almost night again.” My voice cracks. “Where did we go?”
The desperation slips through no matter how hard I try to contain it.
He doesn’t answer right away. He looks up at the sky, golden hour warming his features. When he speaks, his voice is low and measured.
“I have to go now. Take care of that wound. Rest. You’ve been through a great deal.”
“Wait!” The word tears out of me, raw and unfiltered.
“I’m going mad,” I say. “Is what I saw real? I have all these memories, but they don’t feel real. Like a haze. What happened to us?”
He freezes at the edge of the alley, shoulders tensing.
My heart races, blood loud in my ears.
“Sorry, Cece,” he says without turning around. “I can’t speak of this anymore.”
Then he starts jogging away.
“Tell me your name,” I call after him, the words breaking through the stillness like a plea. “I feel like I should know it. Like I do know it. But for some reason I can’t remember.”
He stops.
Turns.
And for the briefest moment, he smiles. A smile that makes your chest ache, even if you don’t understand why.
“I’m Lucien.”
I nod, my throat tightening. “Thank you, Lucien. For . . . for saving me.”
A faint, crooked smile crosses his mouth. Then he’s moving again, disappearing down the side street until the last sliver of him vanishes from view.
I’m left standing alone in a city that looks familiar—
With a heart that suddenly doesn’t.
I don’t know how long I stand there after he’s gone. Ten minutes? An hour? Time feels useless now, like something that only worked before all of this.
Whatever this is.
Eventually, the sky darkens, the soft gold of sunset giving way to night.
The city moves on, oblivious to my confusion.
Horns. Footsteps. Distant chatter. A warm metallic scent rises from a subway grate, mixing with exhaust as a bus groans past. Then a wave of sweet, caramelized roasted nuts drifts from a food cart, softening the city for just a moment.
The world acts as if nothing happened. Like the last—I don’t even know how many hours—didn’t shatter my sense of reality.
I stumble out of the alley, arms crossed tightly around myself, and I walk until I find the familiar subway entrance. The same one as last night. Only now it’s just concrete and rust and indifference. The kind of place people pass without a second glance.
But I can’t unsee it.
The men.
The tracks.
The train.
Him.
I drop onto a bench across from the station, staring at the entrance like it might suddenly open up and explain everything. It doesn’t. What does happen is the real processing finally kicks in.
When he pulled us wherever we went—and then back again—I felt numb, like I was watching someone else move my body. But now, sitting here, my mind replays everything in perfect detail. My hands shake. My chest tightens. I can’t pull in a full breath.
It’s like my fear waited until I was “safe” before unleashing itself.
And now it’s crashing over me all at once.
Eventually, I make it home, though I couldn’t tell you how. I don’t know how long I sit there, staring, replaying everything on a loop, forcing my breathing to level out.
Maybe I took a cab. Maybe I walked. Who the hell knows?
Everything blurs together, like trying to remember a dream I was never meant to wake up from.
Now I’m here. In my apartment. New keys. Door locked. Curtains drawn halfway, like light might hurt more than help. I sit on my bed in yesterday’s clothes, dried blood flaking at my hairline beneath my fingers. Not enough for a hospital—but enough to prove something happened.
What exactly happened, I still don’t know. What it means, I have no idea.
I check my phone. Ten missed calls. A flood of texts from Kate. She’s probably worried about the break-in. Or whether anything was taken.
But I don’t know.
I haven’t even checked.
What felt urgent last night doesn’t anymore. Everything feels . . . different.
The break-in seems inconsequential now. What would I even text her?
Sorry I didn’t answer. Got pulled through a blinding white light by a stranger with impossible eyes who may or may not have dragged me into another world to prevent me from being run over by a train. Call you back when I figure out if I hallucinated the whole thing.
Yeah. No.
I walk into the bathroom. My reflection stares back at me. Same tired eyes. Same uneven eyebrows. The faint scar on my chin from falling off my bike in middle school.
I look like myself.
But I don’t feel like me.
It’s like something cracked open inside me, and now I’m holding it together with duct tape and denial.
“Lucien,” I whisper, testing his name like it might summon something—or at least prove he was real.
None of it feels small.
I felt it when I touched him. Something shifted. Not just in the air—but in me. Like I stepped across a threshold I didn’t know existed.
And the worst part?
I don’t know if I want to run from it—
Or run back to it.