Page 9 of Infamous
Billie
6
LUCIAN
Ialmost let the call go to voicemail. Almost.
I was busy - buried inside a faceless woman, her nails raking down my shoulders while I chased a high that had nothing to do with her and everything to do with wanting another distraction. Another way to drown out the noise in my head long enough to forget who I was. To forget the weight of burdens I was too young to carry.
But then I saw her name on the screen.
Billie.
I froze. Before I could think, I tore myself free, shoving the woman off the bed so hard she cursed, and I answered. Because I’d made Billie a promise once - to pick up every time she called, no matter what. And I never broke promises to her.
“Lucian?” Her voice cracked. Small. Fragile. Nothing like the firebrand I knew - the girl who used to chase after me through the streets with scraped knees and wide, unshakable eyes, swearing I was invincible.My hero,she used to call me. But that night, she sounded breakable.
“Lucian, can you come get me? They’re… they’re acting weird again. They’re doing lines. Too much. I don’t feel safe. Please?”
Her breath came fast, frantic, like an animal trapped in a cage too small to move around in. Panic scraped down my spine, every muscle tightening to strike at ghosts I couldn’t yet see.
“I’m coming.” My voice was already changing to a low, guttural sound. A promise, a threat, something to reassure her. “Send me your location and stay the fuck put. You hear me, Bill? Stay.”
I ended the call before she could answer, because I couldn’t stand another second of terror bleeding through her voice.
My feet slammed into my boots, laces hanging loose as I bolted for the door. The world narrowed to one truth: Billie needed me. And nothing else - no woman, no vice, no distraction - mattered beyond that.
The hotel wasn’t far. It should’ve been five minutes. Ten, tops. But the city hated me that night. Every light turned red. Every car crawled, refusing to move. My fists hammered the steering wheel until the horn screamed, until my throat was shredded from yelling at faceless drivers who’d never remember me.
By the time I swerved into the hotel’s drive, twelve minutes had been carved out of me, and I already knew what waited. The crowd told me before my eyes did. A knot of strangers was gathered tight, faces pale and hungry, phones raised like vultures eager to capture another tragedy. The kind of stillness that only came when death lingered close.
And then, I saw her.
She lay sprawled on the pavement like a discarded doll, her limbs bent at unnatural angles. The streetlight poured down over her, a spotlight for a horror show I couldn’t walk out of. Her blonde hair was sticky with blood, strands tangled and glistening, fanned around her head like spilled silk. A white T-shirt clung to her frame, translucent in the winter air, plastered to skin that would never flush with warmth again.
I stumbled forward, legs refusing to work, until my knees cracked against the asphalt beside her. The sound that ripped out of me was raw, feral, the howl of a man being gutted alive. My hands hovered uselessly before I forced them down to her ribs, searching for something. Heat. Breath. Proof that she was still mine to save.
But there was nothing. Only the sickening give of broken bones beneath my palms.
Her lips were parted, teeth streaked crimson, and in my head, I heard it; her whisper, her last breath shaping my name. Calling for me. Believing I’d come. I was supposed to protect her. Always. It was a promise I made. And I wasn’t there.
The world tilted. My vision fractured. Every breath burned like ice in my lungs. Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance, useless, too late. Just like me. I’d fucking let her down.
The cold spread, crawling through my veins until I was nothing but frost and rage.
Above me, the hotel window gaped open, a black mouth swallowing the night. Curtains flapped in the wind, mocking me with their careless sway. That was the room she had fallen from. The room that held her absence. The room that held the echo of her last terrified breath.
And through the haze of grief crushing my chest, I heard her so-called friends. Their voices floated from somewhere in the crowd, shrill and frantic, yet too smooth. Too rehearsed.
She jumped…
She was high…
It wasn’t our fault…we tried to save her…
Pretty little rich kids with white powder crusted beneath their noses and guilt dripping off their tongues. Their faces blurred, but I could still hear their laughter; it was sharp, bright, echoing inside my skull. The laughter they’d spilled while she spiraled. While she called me. While they let her fall.
I knew what they’d do. I could already see it. They’d smear her name until it was unrecognizable, paint her as reckless, fragile - just another party girl who couldn’t handle the ride. And the cops? They’d nod, jot it down, close the file. Because that’s how it always went. Money talked, power smoothed the edges, and the truth was buried under clean, white lies.
