Page 24 of Infamous

For a split second, I’m back in the courtroom - reporters snapping pictures as my knees hit the floor.

“Did you know what he was doing?”

“Did you ever suspect?”

The question slices through me. Exhaustion burns away, leaving fury.

I turn, face the nearest camera head-on. “Enough.”

My voice shakes, but the word hits. The shouting stumbles to a halt.

Then another voice cuts through.

“Why no relationship since his arrest?”

“Still in love with him?”

My lungs seize. The words scrape raw. I want to screamyes— yes, I loved him. I still do.

But they wouldn’t understand. They want their narrative: the naïve girl who didn’t see it coming, or the complicit whore who did.

But I was neither. I was just a woman who loved a man theworld turned into a monster before the truth ever had a chance to breathe.

The questions rise again, jagged and fast, pelting me until all I hear is static.

I shove forward, elbows out, pushing through the wall of bodies. Someone grabs my arm - I tear free, the sting burning my skin.

Tears come hot, cutting through grime and exhaustion. My chest hurts. My breath saws out of me in short, sharp bursts. Each step feels like ripping links from a chain. But the truth sticks to my ribs. They’ll never stop calling me the Ghost Bride. And I’ll never stop being haunted by Lucian Cross.

15

LUCIAN

There’s another letter.

She sends them all the time.

The sight of it guts me before I even touch it. Her handwriting — fuck. Those curves. The way she presses harder on the downstrokes, leaving a faint groove like a fingerprint. My name written like a prayer. Or a curse. Like I’m still the man she fell in love with, not the headline they turned me into.

Every line cuts. Every word flays.

I want her to stop. To live. To build something that isn’t made of the rubble I left behind. But she won’t.

Her letters remind me of everything I destroyed - and everything that refuses to die.

I know I shouldn’t open it, but I always do. The envelope burns against my palm. I tear it open, because I’ve never been able to resist her - not then, not now.

Her words spill out. They bleed onto the page. She writes with fury, with grief sharpened to a blade. But beneath every slash of ink is the same thing that’s been killing us both since the start - love. Relentless. Undeniable.

She writes about the life we planned. The mornings thatnever came. The bed that still waits for me. She tells me how the world has reshaped her - men, noise, motion - yet none of it was enough to erase me. To eraseus.

Each sentence hits like confession, like penance.

She says she hates me. I know she doesn’t. Hate dies easy. Love doesn’t.

For ten minutes, I let myself drown in her words. I pretend I’m not behind bars. I make believe that she’s still mine and it’s only a matter of time before we find each other again.

Then it fades. Reality snaps back - hard, cold, and merciless.