Chapter 129
The Pack
They found Lucian unconscious in his car, a few miles north of our Pack territory.
The car was seen by an early school bus driver, taking a backroad to avoid stoplights on his way to his morning pickup. It was parked on the side of the road where there was a small area to pull off and park.
Lucian was slumped over the steering wheel. When the driver called the regional police, he said the man might’ve been dead.
Lucian was still alive, and was taken back to his Pack’s hospital immediately. Besides a small bruise on his temple— possibly from the steering wheel— he was mostly unscathed. There were no signs of a crash, so presumably he had fallen over and passed out in the car.
He had no memory of how he got there.
Once he was given fluids, x-rayed for injuries or foreign objects, and cleared of all known toxins or drugs in his bloodstream, Lucian then slept for almost a day after he came back.
When he finally came to, his sister Tessa was in the room with him. She had been given special permission to visit her ailing brother, and had sat in her quiet vigil while he slept.
“You’re awake,” her resonant voice said from the side of the bed. “I wondered if you might slip away for good.”
She sounded sad, but was accepting of the mad workings of the universe. Tessa’s profession towards enlightenment in pregnancy should be studied.
“Water?”
Lucian’s voice croaked out from mouth, his tongue swollen and dry. He closed his eyes as he sipped through the straw, the hydration smoothing his brow.
“I’m sorry I worried you,” he said afterwards. “I must’ve gotten tired driving back, I didn’t sleep well the night before last, the bed was so…”
Lucian trailed off as he saw his sister’s face change.
“What?” He asked her.
“Lucian,” she said, leaning to take his hand, “you’ve been missing for a week.”
Dominic
I had been patient, but I could not wait any longer.
When news reached us that Lucian was found, unharmed but alone, the range of emotions hit me so fast that I threw a book across the room. The spine split on impact, chunks of pages hitting the floor like dead birds.
I sighed, and went to the hospital to meet the ambulance. It was clear that his first night back he would be useless, so I told Tessa to call me the moment he was awake and ready to talk. She looked wary of following my directive, but she nodded anyway.
When I arrived into the room, the two siblings were sitting close to one another. Their heads were inclined to keep their conversation between them, and I felt an odd mix of irritation and jealousy as I watched them. Even when I disliked these two, as an only child I would always be slightly envious of their bond.
And I would never in my life let them know that.
“Tessa,” I said loud enough to shake them apart. “Do you mind if I speak with Lucian, alone?”
She glanced at her brother, then held the arms of her chair to lift herself up.
“Anything you have to say to me you can say in front of her,” Lucian said, sitting up in the bed. He was on top of the blankets, meaning he was well enough already. “There have been enough secrets in this family already, I think.”
I nodded. “As you wish,” I said, taking the chair on the opposite side of Tessa. She eased herself back, resting her hands on her round belly in front of her. She didn’t have long to go before she would give birth. I hoped Mira would be back by then to see her through it.
“Alright, look,” I said to Lucian, knowing I needed him to trust me to talk to me, “I just want to know what happened.”
Lucian stared at me, so much searching behind his eyes. And yet it seemed to yield nothing, and it upset him. He looked like a little boy, like the younger version of himself from when we first met.
“I…don’t know.”
My hands made fists on my thighs. I felt heat rising, but kept my breathing steady.
“Just… tell me what you do know, anything you can remember.”
Lucian looked at Tessa, and her eyes softened to receive whatever grief he was feeling. She nodded and he looked back at me.
“Honestly, Dominic, I’m telling you the truth,” he said to me, laying out all his cards on the table. “I thought I passed out for a few hours coming back, not a full week. I don’t know where I was, or what I was doing, or what they did to me…”
His voice started to rise and his breathing increased. Tessa placed a hand on his arm and rubbed it gently to bring him back into his body.
“Take your time, Lulu,” she said quietly. I hadn’t heard her call him that since they were young. “Just breathe.”
Lucian regained composure. I was having a hard time staying mad at him.
“I was with Mira, I was,” he said, looking me in the eye. “We went to the Brooks compound, she talked with Rae. And then…that’s it. I woke up in an ambulance, and I don’t know where Mira is, and I messed up, I know I did, and I’m so sorry—“
A sob from deep in his chest stole the rest of his speech. I let him get through it.
“But how can that be? Did anything happen with Rae?”
“I don’t know! I was on the phone with Celeste, yes, talking about… I don’t know, and then Mira came back and then…”
Lucian trailed off again.
“And you really remember nothing else? You’re sure?”
His face twitched and his eyes darted around, then settled again.
“It’s all a blank, almost a blur but only in feelings,” he said, sounding perplexed by his own musings. “My body knows what happened, but my mind can’t catch up.”
“Well when it does, you let me know,” I said, starting to rise. “I’ll let you rest for now.”
At the door, one more question loomed before me.
“Did Mira give any reason for seeing Rae that day? She had just been there, and nothing seemed urgent.”
Lucian didn’t answer, but his bottom lip was quivering slightly.
“Was there another reason she left with you that day?”
My former-stepbrother didn’t answer. I felt the anger rising up again, all my hurt at losing Mira channeling into Lucian. He was to blame, he took her away.
“Lucian, answer me straight,” I said, walking back over to where he sat up in the bed. I put my hand to his side and leaned down so my face was inches from his. “Are you in love with my wife?”
He nodded, and his voice was a squeak.
“Yes.”
I slammed my hand into his pillow, and stormed out of the room.
