Page 21 of Twisted Trails (Rogue Riders Duet #2)

CHAPTER TWELVE

Alaina

I wake up with a scream trapped in my throat.

It doesn’t make it past my lips—only a choked gasp does—like the dream carved straight through my lungs.

My heart is pounding, my skin is clammy, and everything aches like the past is still living under my skin.

For a second, I’m nowhere, in a void filled with flashes of screams, IV lines, and Dane’s broken voice.

Then the soft glow of the night-light steadies me, and the shadows stay where they belong.

I’m at Luc’s house.

My body remembers now.

I reach for my phone on the bedside table. It’s 2:04 a.m., and a quick glance confirms I’m alone in bed, which feels strange after yesterday.

After Luc pulled Mason into his room, and I walked in on them tangled in that something that made my chest ache, we all ended up in one bed for a while. Just lying there, breathing, Mason in the middle, me at his back, and Luc at his front. It felt so safe.

Then élise called out that dinner was ready, so we went and ate. We laughed a little and pretended that everything outside this house didn’t exist for a few hours.

And after that, everyone went to their own rooms, even though part of me wanted to crawl between those two boys and never move again. I wanted to sleep curled against one and wake up tangled in both, like that’s the way things are supposed to be.

But it’s not supposed to be like that. Right?

I close my eyes and see it again, Luc, sitting on the bed, Mason in his lap, holding him like they were about to kiss.

Maybe he was comforting him, but it looked a lot like what Luc did to me.

That night in Austria when I shattered on the gym floor and he gathered me up like he wanted my broken pieces.

He made me feel like I was something special, that what I had with Luc was this rare, wild thing, but maybe I’m just another person he holds when they fall apart.

The ugly, insecure part of me claws to the surface, whispering that I’m easy to leave, easy to replace. But then— thank God —my brain fights back. The sane part.

Luc showed up for you, even after everything. Even after you lied to him, pushed him away, and hurt him. He stayed. He still stays.

And who the hell am I to talk?

After what happened with Finn, and with the way Mason has been taking up space in my chest, under my skin, since long before I admitted it.

I stare at the ceiling and whisper the only thing that makes sense right now.

“Fuck.”

I can’t stay here, not in this bed, and sure as fuck not alone in my head.

So, I get up slowly, pulling on a pair of sweatpants over my boxers and leaving Luc’s oversized shirt on.

It still smells like him, lavender, and sun-warmed skin.

I pad through the hallway, careful not to wake anyone, since the house is so quiet it hums.

When I’m in front of Luc’s door, I don’t knock so I won’t wake him, just open the door and peek in.

His room is dim, but I can see him splayed out on top of the covers, wearing only his boxers.

His hair is a mess, and his legs are everywhere.

He looks like sin and sleep, and my heart trips over itself.

There’s no one else in the bed. No Mason. Not even Toulouse.

It’s just Luc.

Relief floods through me harder than I want to admit as I shut the door gently behind me and cross the room. He doesn’t stir as I sit beside him, lean in, and then slide down slowly until I’m curled next to him, close enough to steal his heat.

He startles at the shift, his body tensing just for a moment before his eyes blink open and lock on mine.

“ Petite? ” His voice is a low rumble, thick with sleep. “ Est-ce que ca va? ” I look at him questioningly, and he switches to English, his voice clearer now. “Are you okay?”

I shake my head. “I had a bad dream.”

“I’m sorry,” he says instantly, reaching out, his knuckles gliding down my cheek, soft as breath.

“Can I stay?” I whisper.

“Of course you can.” He pulls me to him, mindful of my fingers, his arms wrapping around me. “What did you dream about?”

“I don’t know. It’s just… everything.”

He exhales. “Yeah. It’s a lot right now.”

I nod.

“Do you think you can sleep again?”

“No. But it’s fine. You can go back to sleep, I just… I want to be here with you.”

“You know what?” He pulls back with a little gleam in his eyes. “Let’s get out of here.”

I blink up at him. “What?”

He tilts his head and presses a kiss to my lips before sitting up and rolling off the bed. Grabbing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, he tugs them on and turns to me, hand outstretched. “Come on.”

I stare at his hand before sliding my good one into his, and he pulls me to my feet.

“Where are we going?” I whisper as we sneak barefoot through the house.

“I have a surprise for you. I was gonna take you tomorrow night, but I think now’s perfect.”

I glance at my phone again. “Luc. It’s after two in the morning.”

He grins. “Exactly.”

We pull on our shoes and head to the garage, and I watch him grab a duffel bag from the floor. It’s stuffed with what looks like a blanket, maybe some snacks, and who knows what else. He tosses it into the back of the tiniest, rustiest yellow car I’ve ever seen.

I let out a snort. “ This is the surprise?”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “Hey, I offered to buy Maman a new one, but she told me she’d disown me if I touched her baby.”

I laugh, and for the first time since the nightmare, something inside me releases.

“ Mad e moiselle.” He opens the passenger door with a dramatic flourish. “Adventure calls.”

I smile and glide into the car because I’d follow that boy anywhere, even in the dark.

Luc slides in as I pull on my seat belt, and he turns the key with a dramatic flourish that does absolutely nothing. Finally, the engine sputters once, coughs like it’s been smoking for forty years, then finally turns over.

“I don’t have a car, okay?” He glances at me with a sheepish grin. “I’m more the two-wheels kind of guy.”

I smirk. “So get a motocross bike like Mason’s.”

“That’d be fun.” He chuckles. “For sure.”

“You’d probably kill yourself.”

As soon as the words are in the air, I freeze, and my stomach drops.

Shit.

Luc goes quiet for a beat, but then he laughs, soft and a little crooked. “Yeah, that possibility is there.” He puts the car in gear and glances at me. “We’ve gotta drive a little, is that okay?”

“Sure.” I clear my throat. “It’s fine.”

The tires crunch quietly as we roll out of the garage and onto the road.

“ Maman said she told you about my dad.”

I startle and glance at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know if you wanted me to know.”

Luc turns toward me and smiles. “I want you to know everything about me, Petite . I was just waiting for you to be my friend so I could share my deepest, darkest secrets.”

I huff, looking out the window, trying to bite back the ache in my throat. “You were always my friend. I was… the problem.”

“Yeah,” he says lightly. “I know that now.” There’s a beat of silence before he continues, “My dad, he was a lot like me.”

I glance back at him, and he’s watching the road, but his voice has changed to something more distant.

“Or rather, I’m like him. He was loud, funny, charismatic. Everyone loved him. He did weird shit all the time. Adrenaline junkie, I think I got it from him. ”

“You think ?” I echo with a raised eyebrow.

Luc smirks. “Okay, fine. I know . I always wanted to be like him so much so, I jumped from roofs when I was a kid, only to show him how fearless I was. I tried so hard, until I realized I was already way too much like him.”

“What do you mean?”

Luc exhales through his nose, fingers tightening slightly on the wheel. “I mean, I get it. What he felt. Why he couldn’t stay.”

My stomach sinks again. He doesn’t say it directly, but the weight of it is heavy enough to fill the whole car.

“How come?” I ask quietly.

“Because the highs…” he starts, then falters. “The highs are so high. And the lows… fuck, they’re like a black hole. I need the highs to keep me from falling too deep into the lows.”

I nod slowly. “I-I think I get that. At least a little.”

The feeling after races, the blood pumping, the wind, the rush , and then the drop. The quiet and the hollow when nobody is cheering or watching anymore, but I always had Dane and Finn there to fill the silence afterward.

“And I get you.” Luc glances over at me again. “I’m struggling too. I’m not saying it’s the same, or that my pain’s bigger or worse than yours, but I get it. Maybe not all of it, but I can imagine.”

I look at him, at his profile lit by the dashboard, jaw tight, eyes tired but open. He’s not trying to fix me, just trying to say he’s here in it with me.

Luc is struggling, and maybe I knew that somewhere deep down, but hearing it makes me want to hold all his sharp edges in my hands, even if they cut.

It also forces me to acknowledge the truth that I have figured out for myself.

“You know…” I say, voice quiet, “… it got a lot better since you came into my life.”

Luc glances over. “It did?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“Same, before you, I had no one.”

I scoff. “What are you talking about? You’re Luc-fucking-Delacroix .”

He gives me a crooked smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“No. Luc-fucking-Delacroix is the brand, ma Petite . That’s not me.

It’s the guy people want to take pictures with, the one they name-drop or want to be seen with.

Not because they like me , but because they think they’ll get something from it.

Fame by association. I never had someone I could talk to, not the way I do with you. ”

My heart aches for him, and I want to say it’s not true that, of course, he had people. But I know that feeling too well to pretend it’s not real.

“What about élise?” I ask.

“Sure, I had her,” he says softly. “But I never told her about the lows. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to drop that weight on her.”