Thirty-Four ◑ The Loss

“Do you know why this is, Lucille?” Keiran asked, slowly leaning towards her.

“No.” Lucille stepped back. “You’re being creepy.”

His eyes narrowed even more. “Creepy, or am I too smart for your tastes right now? You probably though I wouldn’t notice.”

“You think I did this?” She rolled her eyes. “Seriously?”

He shrugged. “Well, you seem to be under the impression that I’m controlling every aspect of your life. It makes sense that you’d want to get rid of me.”

On point. Keiran was actually on point with that statement, so much so that Lucille felt herself going red. Of course she wanted him to lose sight of her fate. Of course she wanted him off her back. She didn’t like the way he was meddling, the way he said he was ‘helping’ her. So far the only thing that she’d seen from his ‘help’ was the candle lighting up, which definitely didn’t count at all. She owed her life to him, yes, and she supposed that he’d probably ‘helped’ her in more ways than she knew, but she still couldn’t feel the impact of his revelation. Knowing that her life was constantly under his surveillance made her feel exposed.

So yeah, she couldn’t really say that the news had upset her. At the same time, however, it left a bitter taste in her mouth.

Surely this had to mean something. Surely this was a part of something bigger. She was yearning to ask, but she doubted he’d know, especially now that he was blocked from her life. Even if he knew, he wouldn’t tell her anyway.

It was probably best if she dealt with this with Agnes.

“Maybe it’s just some sort of a glitch,” she said dismissively, turning to leave. “Anyway, I have to go—"

“Come live with us,” Keiran interjected in a rush.

Lucille froze mid-step. “No.”

“Argh.” He looked up at the sky in frustration. “Look, lady, I don’t feel comfortable not knowing what’s going to happen to you. Dimitri has stopped watching over you, and I was unable to convince him to—"

“He does what?” Okay, she had enough with these nosy twins. “Stalking me was never a part of the deal! I do what you say and you leave me alone, remember? And now I find out that Dimitri has been watching me all this time?”

“Yes, that’s correct.” His lips curved into a smirk. “Till death do you part, he promised. It’s quite poetic, really.”

Till death do you part. The words grated her ears. And her heart. She found herself sinking into the memory again, losing her head over the pain and the shame and the inexplicable affection. . . .

“I’m out of here,” Lucille decided and headed towards the double doors leading down. “You can both fuck off.”

Keiran didn’t follow her. “My offer still stands, Lucille. You can live with me and lovely Dimitri, completely rent-free. You won’t have to worry about Agnes too. She’ll be gone pretty soon anyway, and I don’t want you to be alone.”

“What did you just say?” She wheeled around as soon as his statements made a touchdown in her mind. When they finally did, her heart began to hammer. Anger was pooling at the pit of her stomach. “What did you do to Agnes?”

Instead of answering, the god climbed on the ledge, smiled, and vanished in the blink of an eye.

Lucille wasted no time. She kicked the door open and descended the narrow stairs that led to the topmost floor of the hotel. There must be cameras all around, and anyone who watched might question her later on about what she’d been doing on the rooftop and now running around the hallway, but she didn’t care. All she gave a damn about was going back to their penthouse.

And she got there. She busted out of the elevator like a ninja, her face pale with fear. She expected to be greeted the moment she’d gotten in, but there was no single sound in the entire suite. No sign of anything. No movement.

Definitely no Agnes.

Tears welled in Lucille's eyes. "Agnes?”

Silence. Nothing but silence. She knew that she shouldn't be assuming the worst, but her chest was already filled with a heaviness that she couldn't explain. It only got worse when she stepped into the empty living room and heard only the clapping sound of her high-heeled shoes against the floor.

Agnes had promised to wait on her. And even if she hadn’t, it would be so unlike her to just vanish without even a text. Unless, of course, Keiran had really done something that would stop her from doing that.

Oh, Lucille would murder that weasel.

“Agnes?” she called out again, her voice shaking. She swerved into the kitchen and found an empty bottle of wine sitting on the counter beside a half-full glass. There was a bag of almonds torn open, its contents scattered across the surface of the granite slab and all over the floor. “Agnes!”

She wasn’t in her bedroom. Not in the closet, not in the study, not in the little garden that they’d set up in the balcony of their suite. Every second that passed added a new layer to Lucille’s desperation until she found herself weeping while throwing open large cabinets and looking under the couches, finding more and more unlikely locations for a person to hide in. Agnes’s number was on constant dial, and Lucille was on a constant unanswered state.

For a moment Lucille debated whether or not to call the cops, but all reasonable thoughts went flying out of her head when she noticed that her bedroom was open.

Lucille stared at the door, her heartbeat hammering at an irregular rate. Dread was trickling in cold rivulets down her back. A part of her brain was urging her to walk away and call the police, but a bigger part of it compelled her to barge inside. So, with a deep breath, she shouldered her way in.

Only to find it empty.

However, this wasn’t what made her blood freeze. It was the sight of the vault exposed. The vault that contained her candle, the one covered by a huge painting. That painting was resting against her bed now, its frame removed from the canvas.

The world had gone black for a millisecond.

Had the candle been taken? Did this have something to do with Agnes?

Lucille shrugged off her cape and rushed towards the vault, which was sealed shut. With shaking fingers, she typed in the code, but before she could finish, the elevator to their suite pinged open.