Lucy ducked beneath a thick rope, then stepped over bundled drop cords. She almost tripped, grabbing the striped material of the nearby stage curtain to steady herself. I raised an eyebrow, frowning. One wrong move in our line of work wasall it took to eat pavement. My pack brothers and I survived our worst mistakes, walking away bloody and broken, but still alive. She was different. Even one of our milder, past crashes would kill her.
So, why hadn’t she given up yet?
Why wasn’t she breaking?
She’d endured us for more than a week.Eleven days. Three hours. Eighteen minutes.No signs of breaking. Either we were going soft, or Lucy was made of tougher stuff than any of us imagined. I leaned back against the cool metal railing of the stadium seating, unable to hear the din going on around me over the way my mind buzzed.
Lucy was nothing like we expected.
Fragile,yes. Weak,no.
True, she was flimsy looking on the surface, slight body and moonlight skin, but I’d realized over the last few days that the Omega was also formidable in an unseen way. I think part of me always realized that any person able to suffer a horrible illness and keep going must be strong. Yet, I’d willfully ignored that truth, because a woman like her could never stay with us. We’d eventually eat her alive.
Watching her explore the outdoor performance space—like a newborn babe, so wide eyed and innocent—only solidified those facts. Just by existing, the lovely Lucy was asking to be corrupted. I simply had to find the right method. So far, my grand plans had fallen flat.
I ran through the list of failed efforts to drive her away. If treated like a maid, Lucy scrubbed the entire house without complaint. If treated like a pet, Lucy simply let herself be yanked by the slip chain, heart necklace. If forced to look at endless, brutal footage of fiery crashes ending in mangled bodies, she simply watched. She’d actually enjoyed that I think, though she tried not to show it. In retrospect, what we’d done on purpose toLucy paled in comparison to Asher nearly burning her alive and Nitro using her for target practice. Maybe the right plan was no plan at all. Maybe each of us should play to our strengths. What the fuck was my strength?
Observation. Calculation.Manipulation.
Pushing off the railing, I prowled across the metal walkway beneath me. By the time I began descending the steps, Lucy was moving across the covered main stage, weaving between elaborate props. Her silvery hair—so ethereal it shouldn’t be real—glowed beneath the beams of intermittent spotlights. It caused a halo effect, making her look like a goddamn angel. Why were those stupid lights even on? It was broad fucking daylight, and even with a roof, the fucking stage wasn’t dark.
The answer was clear; the lights were on to make it impossible for me to look away from Lucy.
My heart skipped a beat each time she momentarily went out of view behind a contraption, and I didn’t know why that was happening or what it meant.Maybe I wasn’t ready to face the truth.
Occasionally, Lucy would pause to study a prop, tracing her fingers over the mechanisms. She stopped the longest at an escape illusion, turning the lock on the safe, opening the door slightly, and peering inside. I couldn’t help but imagine how she’d look if she were the performer. Thoroughly chained, her petite figure contorted into the tight space, each curve kissed by shadows. The image was tantalizing.
Lucy edged towards the opposite end of the wide platform. Her small hand wrapped around the black railing, and she took one step down. As she did so, a sharp yell from overhead pulled her attention upward. I followed Lucy’s gaze, finding one of the sky acrobats holding on for dear life. It was striking—the woman’s athletic body wearing the sparkling leotard, dangling from the red silk, against a cloudless blue sky. My first thoughtwas,I should take a picture.That would be a kickass shot for the house.My next thought was,She better not fall. It’ll stop set-up for hours.
When I looked back at Lucy, I found her frozen, both hands clamped over her mouth. I hated I was so far away that I couldn’t see the details of her face. I liked it when her eyes went impossibly wide and green. I liked it when her already pale face went a shade whiter. I liked it when she finally showed a little fear.
As if she could do anything to help, Lucy barreled down the steps and raced over to stand at the edge of a suspended safety net, watching the floundering woman—who was now trying to hoist herself back into the cradle of the looped material.
Exposed to the bright sunlight, Lucy became carved alabaster, like an artist had painstakingly etched her every detail. If not for the purple network of veins visible beneath, I might truly confuse her for a statue.
Fuck, she looked breakable. Downright consumable. And yet...
Wouldn’t breaking such a masterpiece be a damn shame?
The calculation of her survival ran through my head again, fracturing into every day, every hour, every minute, every second… and every damn moment she’d made me rethink my existence.
16,038 minutes of her face.
962,280 seconds of her scent.
I double checked my numbers.
1,440 minutes or 86,400 seconds in a day. 11 days. 60 minutes or 3,600 seconds in an hour. 3 hours.
And 18 minutes.I couldn’t forget to add these. Every single minute counted. So, I could be accurate. My precision had nothing to do with how I couldn’t forget any of my time with Lucy.
It made no sense that Lucy wasn’t screaming to leave us. All it would take is one phone call to Eros, detailing the lengths of our brutality.
My gaze traveled to and fro, between Lucy and the performers poised above her. The acrobat who’d been perilously hanging had managed to pull herself back into the safety of the silks now, and the boom operator was slowly lowering her closer to the net below. When the acrobat slid out of the aerial fabric and plummeted, Lucy’s arms flew up in surprise, hands reaching like she could catch her midair.
Stupid. Ridiculous.
Even if there was no net and Lucy was poised perfectly, our Omega would be crushed. She’d save no one, and harm herself.
