Page 14 of Infamous

I sat in the dirt until my legs went numb, until the foreststopped moving, until the only sound left was the pulse of my own blood in my ears. For the first time since Billie died, the silence didn’t feel empty.

It just felt like home.

9

LUCIAN: THE SECOND VICTIM

Stacy had been easy. Too damn easy.

She’d asked for it — typed her own death wish and hit send like it was a thrill. Thought monsters were a kink, not something that could eat her alive. She thought I was pretending. I let her believe what she wanted to believe. Then I showed her what pretending costs.

It was quick. Clean. The kind of silence she once used to smother Billie’s cries.

Rita was different. She didn’t chase attention. No photos. No bait. Just quiet fear she called safety. It wasn’t.

I watched her for months. Learned her routine, her comforts, the moments she forgot to be afraid. Her version of safety smelled like money — velvet lounges, good wine, polite men with dead eyes. She wanted to be wanted, not hunted. So I became what she wanted.

That night, I waited in one of her haunts. Dim lights, bourbon in my hand, a suit sharp enough to buy trust. The kind of place that believed bad things only happened elsewhere.

By then, I’d changed everything that tied me to the past — lighter hair, blue eyes, a trimmed beard, and a smile borrowedfrom a man who hadn’t held his sister’s body in the street as she lay dead in a pool of her own blood.

Rita arrived in red silk. Reckless. Perfect. Two drinks in, her mask started to crack.

I watched from the corner. Stacy had been fire — wild, fast, gone. Rita was ice. Controlled. But ice breaks if you press long enough, and I was the pressure.

Men crowded her, all charm and ego. She smiled, listened, waited for a spark. When her eyes met mine, she found it.

I gave her what she was looking for — the man who looked safe but wasn’t. Steady eyes. Easy laugh. I bought her a drink, listened, made her believe she was seen. That’s always the trick: don’t chase. Let them arrive.

By the time we left, she was tethered to me. Her arm slid through mine like it belonged there. She thought she’d chosen me. Belief makes the best leash.

Her laughter followed us into the night, too bright for what waited in the dark. She tossed her hair — a move she’d rehearsed a hundred times — and for a moment she looked untouchable.

But women like her never are.

They walk through the world like it owes them safety. They wear confidence like armor, mistake desire for protection. They think being wanted means being safe.

I waited for the moment she’d stop looking over her shoulder. That’s when the mask would slip. That’s when the fear would start to bloom — quiet, real, unstoppable. Because the dark doesn’t care how careful you are. It doesn’t roar. It whispers. It waits. By the time they realize they’re not untouchable, it’s already too late.

That’s the truth Rita never saw coming. The world doesn’t revolve around women like her. It devours them.

From a distance,the boat looked like salvation — a floating palace carved out of darkness. The hull sliced through the water with predatory grace, lights soft enough to lie, reflections gentle enough to disarm. Inside waited champagne, silk cushions, and the faint, chemical sweetness of perfume. A trap disguised as luxury.

To her, it was indulgence — another night of power, of stories to brag about later.

To me, it was a coffin with an ocean for a grave.

She stepped aboard like she owned the world. Red silk clung to her body, heels clicking against the deck in rhythm with her arrogance. Her laughter spilled into the night, bright and hollow.

“God, it’s beautiful,” she said.

Her eyes shone greedy in the light, full of want and oblivion. She looked at me the same way — mistaking control for safety, danger for desire.

I watched her. The careless way she set her glass down, the way her shoulders relaxed. The little tells of someone too used to being untouchable. Those were the moments I waited for — when the rich forgot they could bleed.

The boat groaned beneath us, ropes creaking, metal humming. The ocean pressed close, black and endless. Everything was ready. Every hatch sealed. Every exit mine.

She traced the railing with her fingertips, smiling at the reflection on the water like it was a mirror instead of a mouth waiting to swallow her whole. She didn’t know that silence can turn on you — that sometimes the quiet isn’t peace. Sometimes it’s a thing waiting to annihilate.