Vivian’s grip on the hoodie tightened as Lucas’s words settled between them, heavy and unshakable.

  “You said you saw him die.”

  The weight of it pressed against her chest, making it harder to breathe.

  She had.

  She had seen Vince collapse, had seen the blood, had seen the way his body crumpled under the weight of a hammer swing that never should have landed.

  She had watched it happen, frozen in place, useless.

  She hadn’t planned to say it aloud. She hadn’t planned to say any of this.

  But now she had.

  And now, Lucas was watching her.

  He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t speaking. He wasn’t reacting at all, and that was somehow worse than if he had.

  Her pulse pounded in her ears.

  Her mouth was dry, her breath uneven, but she forced herself to keep going because she had already started.

  There was no stopping now.

  “I got a call from Vince,” she murmured, her voice raw from holding in too much for too long.

  Lucas didn’t blink. He didn’t shift his posture. He didn’t react at all.

  But he was listening.

  She knew he was.

  The words scraped against her throat as she pushed them out, each one cutting her open a little more.

  “He was already drunk when I answered,” she continued, swallowing hard. “He kept saying Serena was gone. That he hadn’t heard from her in days. That it wasn’t like her.”

  The memory felt too sharp, too clear, like she was back in that moment, standing in the middle of campus, gripping her phone too tightly.

  “I asked if he called the police,” she said, forcing herself to take a breath. “He laughed. Said they wouldn’t care.”

  Lucas’s gaze flickered slightly—just for a second—but she caught it.

  She swallowed against the dryness in her throat.

  “He told me he should have done more,” she whispered, the words sticking uncomfortably in her chest. “That he should have protected Serena. That it was too late.”

  Her voice shook, but she kept going.

  “I got to Silver Key,” she said, her voice quieter now. “I found him in one of the private rooms.”

  Lucas remained completely still, but the weight of his silence made everything worse.

  “He was slumped at the table,” she continued, her pulse quickening as she relived it. “Surrounded by bottles. More than I’d ever seen before.”

  She could still see him there—his suit jacket thrown over the back of the chair, his sleeves rolled up, his shirt half-unbuttoned.

  He had always been put together. Always in control. That night, he had looked like a man who had given up.

  She pressed a hand against her stomach, trying to steady herself.

  “He kept talking about Marcus and Ray. Saying it wasn’t a coincidence.”

  Lucas tilted his head slightly, an almost imperceptible movement, but she noticed.

  She forced herself to continue.

  “And then the door opened.”

  Lucas’s focus sharpened instantly.

  Vivian inhaled shakily, willing her voice to stay steady, but the words felt heavy, dragging something with them that she couldn’t contain.

  “I turned,” she said. “There was a man in the doorway. I didn’t recognize him. Tall. Broad. He moved slowly, deliberately, like he wasn’t all the way there.”

  Her lips pressed together.

  “He had a hammer.”

  Lucas’s expression didn’t change, but the air between them shifted.

  “The first hit missed.”

  She could still hear it—the sharp whistle of metal cutting through the air.

  Her hands clenched into fists.

  “The second didn’t.”

  She swallowed.

  “Vince went down,” she whispered. “He tried to get up, but he couldn’t. He was already—”

  She stopped.

  The image wouldn’t leave her.

  The way his knees buckled. The way the blood smeared across his face. The way his eyes had gone glassy within seconds.

  Her voice cracked slightly.

  “And then he turned to me.”

  Lucas hadn’t moved, but she could tell his attention had narrowed.

  She exhaled shakily, trying to push the memory back, to keep moving forward because if she stopped now, she might not be able to start again.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “He was looking at me,” she whispered. “He was still holding the hammer. He started walking toward me.”

  Her breath was uneven, her chest tightening.

  “I couldn’t move.”

  She shook her head slightly, trying to dislodge the memory, but it had its claws in her.

  “I was just standing there.”

  She could still remember how her body had locked up, how her mind had gone blank, how she had thought—this is it, this is how I die.

  Then—

  “There was someone else there.”

  Lucas’s gaze remained steady, but she could tell he had caught it.

  Vivian’s stomach tightened, her muscles coiling as she forced herself to continue.

  “A guy,” she said, her throat dry. “He—he was there when it happened. He helped me.”

  Lucas’s silence stretched between them, heavier than before.

  “Who?” he asked finally.

  She wet her lips, the words catching in her throat.

  “Noah,” she said, barely above a breath. “Noah Fang. I—I knew him from class, but I didn’t know why he was there.”

  Lucas didn’t move, his face impassive, his posture unchanged.

  She kept talking, unable to stop now that the words had started coming.

  “He fought him. The guy—the one who killed Vince.” Her breath came quicker now, like she was reliving it all over again. “He tried to stop him, but he wasn’t strong enough.”

  Lucas’s jaw tightened slightly.

  She almost didn’t notice.

  She kept going.

  “They struggled. The guy had him pinned. He was going to die.”

  She felt it all again—the weight of the hammer in her hands, the sheer terror freezing her in place, the moment where she thought she was too late.

  And then—

  She swallowed, hard, her whole body feeling like it was sinking into something too deep to crawl out of.

  Lucas didn’t say anything.

  Didn’t move.

  Didn’t blink.

  The silence pressed against her, thick and suffocating.

  Then, after a long, drawn-out beat—

  “And so this Noah guy killed Vince’s killer?”

  Vivian froze.

  Her breath stalled, her pulse hammering painfully in her chest.

  She was supposed to say yes.

  She was supposed to confirm it.

  But she couldn’t.

  Because that wasn’t what happened.

  Lucas’s expression remained unreadable, but his posture changed slightly, his stance no longer as relaxed.

  Her lips parted, but no words came.

  She couldn’t force them out.

  Because she had killed him.

  She had killed Vince’s killer.

  Lucas regarded her quietly, taking in her silence, the way her fingers trembled, the way she hadn’t said a word when she should have.

  The pause stretched too long.

  And then, finally—

  His voice dropped slightly, lower, slower, hesitant—as if he wasn’t sure he believed it himself.

  “You killed him.”

  Vivian broke.

  Her breath shuddered, her hands shaking violently, her knuckles white from how tightly she gripped the hoodie.

  She shook her head once, too fast, too sharp.

  “I don’t—”

  The words strangled in her throat.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  She forced them out anyway.

  “I don’t remember doing it.”

  Lucas didn’t react.

  Didn’t blink.

  Didn’t say anything.

  And somehow, that was worse.

  Her voice cracked.

  “One second, I was frozen. The next, I was—”

  She stopped again.

  The hammer.

  The weight in her hands.

  The moment between nothing and too much.

  “I was just standing there,” she whispered. “And then… he was dead.”

  Lucas watched her.

  Still unmoving.

  Still impassive.

  But something in his gaze had sharpened, something calculating, as though he had just confirmed something for himself.

  Something she wasn’t sure she wanted him to know.

  Vivian’s hands refused to stay still, the tremors running through her fingers no matter how tightly she gripped the hoodie. The weight of the fabric pressed against her palms, but it did nothing to steady her. The unease had settled deep, burrowing beneath her skin, pushing against everything she had tried to suppress.

  She had been holding this in for too long. She had convinced herself that as long as she kept moving forward, as long as she focused on the next step, she could avoid the weight of it all crashing down on her. But standing here now, forcing herself to put words to everything she had spent days trying to forget, she realized she had never been in control of any of it.

  Lucas hadn’t moved since she started talking. He remained as still as he had been from the beginning, his breathing steady, his posture unchanged. But the longer she spoke, the heavier his presence felt. His silence pressed down on her, making it harder to breathe, harder to think, harder to convince herself that saying this out loud wasn’t a mistake.

  She had already told him that Noah was there.

  Now, she had to explain what happened next.

  “Noah—he cleaned up,” she said, her voice rough and uneven. “He wiped things down. The door handle, the table, the bottles. Everything he touched.”

  Lucas’s expression remained impassive, but there was a shift in the air between them. She couldn’t pinpoint what changed, but she knew he was paying even closer attention now.

  She forced herself to continue.

  “I thought he was helping me,” she admitted, her throat constricting around the words. “I thought—I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t realize until later.”

  Lucas’s gaze didn’t waver. He was watching her closely, taking in every word.

  “He wasn’t covering for me,” she murmured, the realization heavier now that she had spoken it aloud. “He was covering for himself.”

  She had known that for days now, but it still sat uncomfortably in her chest, sharp and inescapable.

  “He took me to a motel.”

  Lucas inhaled sharply.

  Vivian didn’t understand why. She didn’t ask. She couldn’t think past the memories pressing in at the edges of her mind.

  “He made me clean up first,” she continued, her voice quieter now. “Told me to shower. Made sure I scrubbed everything off. The blood. The smell. Anything that could have stayed on me.”

  Her fingers pressed into the fabric of the hoodie, holding onto it like it was the only thing keeping her from falling apart.

  “And then he gave me his clothes,” she said, forcing the words out. “Told me to change.”

  The memory burned.

  She had let herself believe, even for just a moment, that he was helping her. That he had taken her away from Silver Key because he wanted to protect her. That he had wiped down his prints, that he had erased his presence, because he had done it for both of them.

  But then—

  Vivian swallowed, her pulse picking up as she forced herself to keep talking.

  “Then he kicked me out.”

  Lucas remained unmoving, his face unreadable, but something in the silence between them had shifted again.

  She pressed her lips together, pushing forward before she lost her nerve.

  “He just told me to go home,” she whispered. “Like it was nothing.”

  She had done what he said. She had left. She had scrubbed herself raw in the shower a second time, even though she had already cleaned every trace of blood from her skin. She had sat in bed, staring at her phone, trying to convince herself she could act normal.

  Then—

  Vivian exhaled, her body tensing against the memory she hadn’t let herself linger on until now.

  “After the police interview,” she murmured, “I noticed something.”

  Lucas didn’t respond, just waited, his focus steady, unwavering.

  Vivian forced herself to speak.

  “The clothes Noah loaned me were missing.”

  She saw the moment Lucas registered the information. His fingers curled slightly before relaxing again, his breath leaving him in a slow, measured exhale.

  Vivian barely paused before she continued.

  “I went back to my dorm, but they were gone. I knew I didn’t throw them out. I knew I hadn’t touched them since I stuffed them under my bed.” Her throat tightened, her voice thinning under the weight of it. “Someone had taken them.”

  Lucas’s expression didn’t change.

  His presence remained steady, but there was something calculating in the way he watched her now. He was thinking through something, piecing things together in a way she didn’t understand yet.

  She didn’t want to know what conclusion he was coming to.

  She just needed to keep going.

  “That’s when I knew I needed answers,” she said, her voice quieter now, like speaking the words too loudly would make them impossible to take back. “I needed to find him. I needed to ask—”

  The words stopped abruptly.

  Her mind had snagged on something she hadn’t fully processed before, something she had overlooked in the chaos of that night.

  Her stomach twisted, her pulse climbing as the realization surfaced.

  Noah hadn’t just cleaned up.

  Noah hadn’t just wiped his own prints.

  Noah had taken something with him.

  Vivian’s breath came out unsteady, her body tensing as the weight of it sank in.

  “Noah took the killer’s phone.”

  Lucas didn’t move.

  His expression remained unchanged, but his stillness felt different now, heavier.

  Vivian felt her pulse quicken, her hands tightening around the hoodie as the full weight of what she had just said settled in.

  She had spent so much time chasing Noah for answers, but she had never let herself fully acknowledge what it meant that he had left Silver Key with that phone.