Lucas stepped further out into the hallway with the phone still pressed to his ear, Tony's voice slipping through the speaker like poison wrapped in silk. The corridor around him was washed in dim hospital lighting—those long, humming fluorescents that made every shadow feel longer, every silence heavier. The scent of antiseptic hung thick in the air, colder than the night outside.
"I don't need to run, Lucas."
Tony's voice slid easily into the quiet. "You'll come to me. Willingly."
Lucas's jaw tightened until pain radiated up into his temples. His gaze cut back through the glass panel in the door. Erica lay still on the hospital bed—too still, too pale—like someone who'd been drained of light. Only the soft rise of her chest and the rhythmic blip of the heart monitor proved she hadn't slipped away.
He stared at her as if the sheer force of his focus could protect her. It couldn't.
Tony went on, his tone smooth, emotionless.
"And the only reason that fragile little girl is still breathing… is because I let her. My influence is already inside her."
Lucas felt his stomach drop, a heavy, dark plunge that tightened every muscle in his body.
"A single thought from me," Tony murmured, "and she'll never wake up."
Lucas didn't breathe.
His fingers dug into the phone. The hallway felt like it was shrinking, the walls creeping closer, the air thickening with dread. Behind the glass, a nurse made a notation on a chart, completely unaware that a monster's voice had just laid its hands on Erica's life.
Then Tony whispered, playful, almost cheerful:
"Here—let me show you."
The heart monitor beside Erica's bed jolted violently.
Spiked.
Dropped—so fast it was like the floor had been yanked out beneath her life.
Flatlined for a half-beat that stretched into eternity.
The sound of the line—thin, high, merciless—stabbed through the hallway.
Then it shot back up again, chaotic, desperate.
Inside the room, Erica's mother let out a strangled gasp, stumbling toward the bed. A nurse rushed in, another followed. Urgent voices, quick orders, hands flying across equipment. One nurse reached for Erica's wrist. Another adjusted leads and wires. Her mother's palm hovered helplessly above Erica as if she could shield her daughter from what she didn't understand.
Erica, unconscious, gave no sign she felt the cold fingers of death brushing past her.
Lucas's eyes squeezed shut. The rage inside him—feral, primal, animal—slammed against its cage. It wanted to break free. It wanted violence. It wanted Tony.
But Lucas forced it down. Forced himself still.
"…What do you want?" he said, the words carved from restraint.
Soft, delighted laughter crackled across the line.
"There it is," Tony purred. "Sense at last. I'm sending the address. Come alone. Try anything clever… and her death is on your hands."
Click.
The line went dead. The silence that followed was suffocating.
Lucas stayed where he was for several long seconds, unmoving, a statue carved from rage and dread. The heartbeat in his ears drowned out everything else. He slowly lowered the phone, his hand trembling once—just once—before he locked it down again.
He pushed open the door and stepped back into the room.
Malia and Isaac turned toward him instantly. They'd been tense before; now they were alert, reading him with the precision of people who knew him well enough to understand when something had gone horribly wrong.
One look at his face told them more than any explanation could.
"Lucas?" Isaac asked, cautiously.
"Look after her," Lucas said quietly. His voice was steady in the way of someone standing on a cliff with wind threatening to knock them off—too steady, too controlled. "Both of you."
Malia's brows narrowed. She stepped forward, sensing the danger coiled beneath his calm. "What happened—?"
"I'll handle it," Lucas said, the words final, immovable.
Malia tried again, her mouth opening with another question, another refusal to be left in the dark—
—but then Lucas looked at her.
The expression he gave her wasn't angry. It wasn't harsh. It was something else entirely: calm, hollow, sharpened to a deadly point. A look that said Don't follow. Don't interfere. Don't make this harder.
Whatever Malia had been about to say dissolved on her tongue.
Lucas drifted closer to the bed. Erica lay there, small and pale beneath the white hospital sheets. Her breathing was shallow but steady. Her lips held no color. Her eyelids didn't flutter. A nurse adjusted the IV line with a practiced hand. Her mother, tears drying on her cheeks, smoothed Erica's hair with trembling fingers. She murmured something—soft, tender, a mother's prayer.
Lucas stared for a moment longer, memorizing every detail, letting the sight of her anchor him even as it tore him apart.
He turned away abruptly before the anger fractured his composure.
He walked out of the hospital room and into the hallway, his steps methodical. He passed nurses, patients, visitors—none of whom noticed the storm hidden beneath his unreadable expression. Outside the hospital doors, the night air hit him like a slap. Cold. Sharp. Real.
Lucas descended the concrete steps, crossed the parking lot, and reached his car. He slid inside, shut the door, and leaned back just long enough to let out one slow breath—one that carried both fury and fear.
The phone buzzed.
The address Tony sent glowed on the screen. A location Lucas didn't recognize. Remote. Empty. It radiated danger so plainly it might as well have been written in blood across the display.
Lucas started the engine anyway.
The car hummed to life, headlights cutting through the darkness. He pulled out of the lot, merging onto the quiet road, the lights blinking in the distance like distant stars.
He drove into the night with a calm that wasn't calm at all—silent, coiled, every nerve sharpened to a blade. The monster who threatened Erica, using her life to get to Lucas.
And now he was driving straight toward him.