Page 2 of Infamous
Every shadow moves wrong. Every whisper feels aimed.
My body moves on autopilot. My keys are in my hand, my breath is shallow, eyes darting to every passing car. I can still hear the anchor’s voice looping in my head, crisp and calm like she’s announcing the weather:Prime suspect in the Ghost killings identified as Lucian Cross.
The words brand themselves into me in a way that I can never scrape off.
By the time I reach my building, I’m trembling. I can’t tell if it’s from the cold or the kind of fear that burns from the inside out. My hands fumble with the keys. The lock resists, like it knows I don’t belong here anymore.
When the door finally gives, I slam it shut behind me. The echo feels too loud, like a detonation in an empty room. I lean against the door and slide down until I’m sitting on the floor, knees to my chest. My phone buzzes on the counter, again and again and again. But I don’t even pick it up to see who it is.
My mind keeps playing reels of us. His hands in my hair, his sleepy smile, his warmth pressed against me, and I keep searching those moments for somethingoff.Some flicker in his eyes, some tremor in his voice that might’ve warned me. But there’s nothing. Just love. Or whatever version of love a man like him is capable of.
I crawl to the TV and turn it on.
His face fills the screen again, only this time it’s paired with footage of police cars and yellow tape. Around a crime scene in the forest.
“Lucian Cross, a 28 year old stock trader, has been identified as the serial killer known as Ghost…” I mute the television before I break something. The silence that follows feels like punishment.
I don’t remember how long I sit there, watching his frozen image stare back at me. Replaying private moments, digging for a moment in time when I should have see what was happening right underneath my nose.
The apartment smells like him - soap, cedar, the faint trace of his aftershave clinging to the pillowcase. I grab it and press it to my face until my throat burns.
I ask myself how someone’s scent can still be so gentle when their name has become a headline.
The world outside has already decided he’s guilty. Which means I’m guilty by association.
Guilty of loving him.
Guilty of not knowing.
Guilty of breathing in a world that now sees me as a side note in someone else’s nightmare.
They’ll never understand what it’s like to love someone who becomes a headline. Because pain like this doesn’t bleed where people can see it.
It festers in the quiet. It gnaws. And it whispers the one question I can’t silence…if the world is right about him…then what does that make me?
BREAKING NEWS
ANCHOR:
“Good evening. We begin tonight with breaking news in the case that has gripped the city for months. The investigation into a string of brutal murders attributed to the elusive figure the press has dubbed Ghost has finally come to an end.
Police have now released the name of their prime suspect. Twenty-eight-year-old Lucian Cross, a self-professed day trader, has been formally identified as the man authorities believe is responsible for at least six murders spanning the past eighteen months.
The killings, marked by their meticulous nature and lack of forensic evidence, have baffled detectives and terrified the public. Until now, the serial killer known as Ghost has been elusive, almost supernatural in the way he left no trail behind. Tonight, however, police claim they finally have their man.
Cross, considered a mathematical genius in financial circles, has been described by friends and colleagues as ‘driven,’ ‘polished,’ and - perhaps most jarringly - ‘harmless.’ His handsome, boyish face and quiet demeanor have left many struggling to reconcile the image of the young man with that of a calculated serial killer.
Complicating matters further is Cross’s personal life. He has beenin a long-term relationship with university student Nadia Reed, who, by all accounts, was set to marry Cross next Spring. Tonight, those close to her say she is ‘shattered’ by the news, blindsided by the allegations that the man she loves is now accused of being one of the country’s most notorious serial killers.
Authorities, however, are keeping their cards close. Police will not reveal what evidence led them to issue the warrant for Cross’s arrest, nor will they comment on how close they are to locating him. For now, speculation runs rampant, and the public is left to grapple with the unthinkable: that the smiling young boy next door could, in fact, be the faceless predator known only as Ghost.
We’ll continue to follow this story as it develops. Stay with us.”
2
NADIA
The ring on my finger burns like it’s searing into my skin. We were supposed to get married. We were supposed to have a future, a life, a home filled with laughter and children. Not this. Notthis.
