Page 50 of Infamous

He shrugs. “Looks like you keep bad company.”

“Or bad company won’t take no for an answer.”

His jaw tightens. “Ex?”

“Yeah.”

He watches me for a long moment, long enough that the clatter of cups and murmured voices blur into nothing. The air between us hums with something I can’t name. When he finally speaks, his voice has softened. It’s quiet, steady, almost protective.

“You should probably file a police report,” he says. “So he’s not tempted to try that again.”

“He’ll go,” I answer, but the words fall flat, hollow. Even I don’t believe them.

The corner of his mouth shifts, caught somewhere between a smile and sorrow. Then he rises, effortless and sure. “I’ll walk you wherever you were going.”

I should refuse. Every instinct says to keep my distance. But there’s something about him - his stillness, his certainty, the way he stands like he’s built for danger and doesn’t fear it - that makes the wordnodissolve on my tongue.

He walks beside me with his hands in his pockets, each step unhurried, deliberate. He doesn’t ask what happened. Doesn’t dig for details. He justis… a quiet shadow keeping pace, as if the dark itself decided to take my side for once.

At the hospital doors, his hand hovers near mine but never bridges the gap. The restraint feels louder than touch.

I glance up at him, and something stirs. It’s an ache of recognition I can’t place. It’s like déjà vu, like I’ve known his silence before, somewhere far from this hallway and its fluorescent light. I try to remember where I’ve seen him before, but the memory evades me.

31

LUCIAN

Nadia walks beside me - small, self-contained, wrapped in her own quiet gravity. Time’s touched her, but it hasn’t bent her. Her spine is still straight, her strength the kind that doesn’t need to be loud to be undeniable. Even after Michael had his unwanted hands on her, even as fear still lingers on her skin. Every few steps, her shoulder brushes mine, light but sparking like a match. She doesn’t move away, and neither do I.

It’s insane, what we’re doing. She knows it. I know it. But neither of us cares enough to stop.

She tilts her head toward me, voice quiet but steady. “You know this is crazy, right? Walking the streets with a total stranger. I don’t even know your name.”

The corner of my mouth pulls. “Crazy, maybe. But you’re still doing it.”

Her lips twitch into something sharp. “Which probably makes me more foolish than brave.”

“Or maybe both,” I say, my tone low, even.

Her eyes cut to me, assessing, curious in that quiet,dangerous way. Then, with a tilt of her head and a voice too casual to be innocent, she says, “You could be a serial killer.”

I don’t soften the blow. I don’t hand her some plastic reassurance she won’t believe anyway. Instead, I let the words curl around us like a soft blanket.

“I could indeed.”

The silence after is a living thing. Her breath hitches, but I still hear it. Feel it. Her pulse thrums in the fragile column of her throat, visible in the streetlight. And still… she doesn’t veer away.

“Would you still walk with me if I were?” I ask, voice pitched low, intimate, for her ears only.

Her exhale shivers, but her steps don’t falter. “Apparently.”

Goddamn. This woman.

I stop myself from staring too long, drag my gaze back to the street. “Jude,” I tell her finally, because the truth—Lucian Cross—is a name she probably doesn’t want to hear. It doesn’t belong here. Lucian Cross died in a fire at Ford Pen while he was awaiting death by time. “Jude Mercer.”

She repeats it, barely above a whisper, rolling the name on her tongue.Jude.It sounds holy and unholy all at once when it falls from her lips.

We keep walking, and the city fades around us. Her perfume is faint but sharp, mixing with the night air - citrus and jasmine, a heady combination that’s supposed to remind me of sunshine and meadows, but instead reminds me of darkness. It tangles with me, sticks in my lungs. Every brush of her arm against mine ratchets my restraint tighter, until I feel it like barbed wire in my chest.