"You better start talking, Lucas," I told him. All of the silence between us had been suffocating.
"I'm so happy you're alive, Mia," Luc said to me eventually.
"Are you sure about that?"
The comment was a verbal slap and Luc shrunk back slightly. "Mia, I'll always be glad you're alive. Always."
He put his hands on my hips and pulled me so that I stood between his legs. As Luc rested his forehead against my stomach my hands found his hair. Luc's hand trailed to the edge of the sweater I wore and lifted it gently, but I pulled it back down.
"Please," Luc said.
The way he looked at me made me stop. He pushed my sweater up again until he could see the scar on my side. I closed my eyes. The skin was twisted and pink and I didn't want to see Luc's reaction to it or know what he thought. Perfection was something I never strived for, but this would place me at the other end of the spectrum. My eyes snapped open when I felt Luc's lips press against it gently. He pulled away and let my sweater drop before his arms were around my waist.
"Are you mad at me?" Luc asked.
"I'm furious," I told him, not bothering to sugar coat it. The truth was that I was more than just furious. I was overwhelmed and elated and terrified that he would leave me again.
Luc's grip loosened and he pressed his forehead against my stomach. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."
My hands were back in his hair and my fingers ran through the locks.
"I should never," Luc said. "You should never have gone through that. It's my fault and I know that you're going to want nothing to do with this or me, Mia. I know but God, I've missed you."
Luc's fingers dug into me now as he held on for dear life. I stroked the back of his neck, unable to respond to him because of the lump in my throat. He thought I wanted nothing to do with him but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
"When I thought I could lose you..." Luc choked on the words and I tugged his face up to look at me.
I never thought I would see Luc cry. Everything about him led me to believe he was incapable of that level of vulnerability. Even when he had come home having ended someone’s life, he was withdrawn, but now I watched as his eyes filled and began to spill over. I wiped them from his face and Luc caught my hand and kissed the palm and then my wrist.
"I can't do this," Luc said and dropped my hand from his grasp. He pushed me back and stood from the bed, running his hands through his hair. He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. "I should never have let it get this far."
"You don't mean that." The words tumbled out from me. I hadn't known what to expect when he came back home, but I felt like I couldn't keep up with him. Luc seemed as lost and confused as I was.
"Mia, I can't do this with you. If anything were to happen to you... Do you understand?" Luc held my upper arms and looked down at me with such intensity that I had to fight to keep eye contact.
I placed my hands on his chest and said, "I'm not Isa."
Luc closed his eyes tight and took a moment before looking at me again. The silence stretched between us before he spoke again. "She was like a sister to me. Isa, she was Dante's cousin, around your age. She'd visit us in the summers."
I didn't say a word, worried that if I replied he would close up again.
"Mia, I couldn't do anything to save her. I wanted to. I wanted to save her so badly. For me, for Dante, for Stefan. We barely knew anything back then. Just starting to learn and pick it up properly. Didn't even see them coming when they shot her."
Luc dug his palms into his eyes again and I pulled them away.
"She saw it coming before we did and pushed me out the way. She didn't think twice about what it meant for her. That was Isa."
“I’m so sorry.” It was a whisper that felt like it was swallowed by the room. My apology felt insignificant against the weight of the memory.
I felt my heart break for all of them. Luc had walked around with that burden on his shoulders for years. For a short moment, I was surprised that he and Dante were as close as they were considering the loss. The depth of that love and loyalty ran so deep that not even Isa's death had shaken them.
"I won't let you be a part of all this," Luc told me clearly. "I won't let anything happen to you."
"You can't make those decisions for me," I retorted.
"I killed for you, Mia. Do you understand that?" Luc asked me. The dead look that chilled my insides was back in his eyes. "I would do it again in a heartbeat. If anyone so much as came near you with ill intention I would kill them, and I wouldn't think twice."
I had watched the scene unfold that day. I saw the way Luc had stalked after Marco and fired his gun without hesitation. Each shot was a shot to kill. It should have terrified me that Luc was capable of everything the rumors said but instead I wanted him close to me. I should have been horrified that this man could kill without a doubt plaguing his mind.
