Page 4 of Infamous

I lunge for him, my fists clawing at his shirt like I can anchor him, like I can tether him back to the future we once promised each other. “Then we run,” I sob, desperation tearing every word. “Lucian, we can leave. Tonight. Right now. New names, new city, new life. Please, please, let’s just leave this town.”

His hands close over mine. They’re warm, strong, but instead of pulling me in, he peels me away, finger by finger, until I’m grasping at nothing. His voice is low. Final. Deadly.

He says it quietly, like he’s afraid the words might break me faster if they come too loud.

“What sort of a future would that be for you, looking over your shoulder at every turn?”

“What are you saying?” My voice cracks open. “We can leave. We can go now, Lucian. We canrun.”

His eyes don’t move. They’re carved out of grief and resolve. “The police will be here soon, Nadia. I just came to say goodbye.”

The sound that rips out of me doesn’t belong to a person. It’s animal. A wounded, dying thing. “No!”

I slam into him, fists useless against his chest, nails draggingdown his shirt. I want to hurt him, make him bleed like I’m bleeding. My body convulses around the pain, and all I can taste is salt and metal and heartbreak.

He grips my wrists, not to stop me, but torememberme. His touch trembles like he’s holding something already gone.

“I never meant to hurt you,” he says, voice shredded and low. “You were the only good thing that ever happened to me.”

“Then stay.” It’s a prayer now, barely a sound. “Please. Just stay.”

He looks up, like maybe the ceiling can give him the strength I can’t. His throat works, his jaw flexes, and I see the war inside him tearing itself apart.

But the silence that follows is final.

“You’ve already killed me,” I whisper, and then louder, shaking. “You’ve alreadykilled me, Lucian! You might not be the monster they think you are, but you’re mine - you’re the one who’ll murder me a thousand times over. Every time I close my eyes. Every time I wake up and you’re not there, you’ll be the death of me!”

The ring on my finger burns, cuts off the air. It’s not a promise anymore. It’s a shackle. A cruel joke forged in gold.

He steps back. The light catches the edge of his face, the rest swallowed by shadow. And in that darkness, it hits me. This isn’t just the end of him.

It’s the end ofus.

3

LUCIAN

The news broke faster than I thought it would. Faster than I was ready for. I thought I had time. Time to move the pieces, time to control the narrative, time to shield her from seeing me like this. But the city moves like vultures, feasting on blood the second it’s spilled. Now my face is everywhere…on TVs in every bar, every café, glowing on cracked phone screens passed between shaking hands.

Lucian Cross. Prime suspect.Ghost.

Their monster.

And when I push through the door of the home we share, it’s waiting for me here too. That cursed voice on the television, my name dripping from the anchor’s lips like poison, over and over, each repetition hammering another nail into the coffin of who I used to be.

And Nadia - my Nadia - is staring at it. At me. Eyes wide, body trembling, her whole world collapsing in real time.

I want to reach for her. To wipe away the tears already streaking her face. But those tears are for me, because of me. And they’re wrecking me more than any bullet ever could.

I tell her no. I tell her it isn’t true. That I’m not the manthey’re painting me as, not the faceless predator they’ve conjured for the city to fear. I swear it, my voice hoarse, my heart clawing for her belief.

But my body betrays me.

The tremor of my lip, the crack in my mask, the fracture I can’t patch over fast enough - it all slips through. And Nadia sees it. Of course she does. She’s always seen through me, straight to the marrow.

And now she sees too much.

When she asks if I’ve killed, I can’t lie. Not to her. Not to the only person who ever looked at me and saw more than a man, more than the ghost whose name will eventually tremble on people’s lips.