CHAPTER 43: ELLIOT

Cassian’s footsteps echoed too loudly in the empty stairwell each one a drumbeat against his ribs, each breath too shallow, too fast. The air smelled of polished wood and distant perfume, but all he could taste was fear. His palms were slick with sweat, his throat dry as dust. He slowed as he reached the seventh-floor hallway silent, carpeted in deep burgundy, lit only by the occasional wall sconce casting long, trembling shadows that seemed to reach for him.

Room 73.

The number glowed faintly in brushed steel, cold and indifferent. Cassian stopped in front of it, heart hammering like it wanted out of his chest, like it knew something he didn’t. He could still turn back. Run. Scream for Aiden. Text Leonel. But then he remembered Lucian’s eyes at the party cold, betrayed, furious and the quiet threat coiled beneath every word he’d ever whispered

"You don’t know how fucked up the shit I’ll do to you all."

He took a long, shaky breath. Gripped the handle. Turned it.

The door opened without a sound.

Inside, the room was bathed in dim amber light from a single floor lamp in the corner. Heavy velvet curtains framed a floor-to-ceiling window, the city glittering far below like a sea of fallen stars. And there standing with his back to the door, hands buried in his pockets, shoulders rigid as stone was Lucian.

He didn’t turn. But his voice cut through the silence like shattered glass.

"You’re late." A pause. "It’s 9:10."

Cassian swallowed hard, stepping inside and closing the door softly behind him. The click of the latch felt final. "It’s just ten minutes," he said, forcing a nervous laugh that cracked at the edges. "Come on."

Lucian finally turned.

His face wasn’t twisted in rage not exactly. But his eyes were sharp, burning, his jaw clenched tight like he was holding back a storm. He looked less like a predator and more like someone who’d been waiting too long for an answer that never came.

"Ten minutes?" Lucian echoed, voice low now, dangerous in its quietness. "You think this is about punctuality, Cassian?"

Cassian shifted his weight, arms crossed like a shield over his chest. "Then what is it about?"

Lucian took a step forward. Then another. Until only a few feet separated them. The air grew thinner, charged with something electric and suffocating.

"It’s about you choosing them," Lucian said, voice cracking just slightly, raw with something that sounded too much like grief, "over me. Again."

Cassian flinched. "and so what it’s not like you are more special then them" he says in a shakky voice

"You were with them," Lucian said, voice tight, raw. "Laughing. Leaning in. So wrapped up in your little world you didn’t even notice the time." He took another step, close enough now that Cassian could see the pulse beating in his throat. "I was ready to come down here at 8:45. But then I saw you smiling at something Aiden said, letting Leonel brush your hair back like it was nothing. Like it was yours."

Another step. Cassian didn’t retreat. Couldn’t.

"I stood there," Lucian went on, voice dropping to a whisper, "watching you for fifteen minutes. You didn’t look up once. Didn’t feel me staring. And when you finally did?" He let out a shaky breath, eyes glistening. "You looked at me like I was a ghost."

He was close now close enough that Cassian could see the hurt beneath the anger, the flicker of something broken in his eyes, something that didn’t belong to the Lucian he thought he knew.

"You used to lean into me like that," Lucian murmured, voice thick with memory. "You used to see me."

Cassian blinked, confusion cutting through his fear like a knife. "What are you talking about? I never -"

"Don’t," Lucian cut in, voice sharp as a blade. "Don’t pretend like we were nothing."

"I’m not pretending," Cassian said, firmer now, though his hands trembled at his sides. "I never liked you. Not like that. We never even had a real conversation just you showing up, watching me, saying things that made my skin crawl." He shook his head, voice breaking. "You’re remembering someone I wasn’t."

Lucian’s expression twisted not with rage, but with something worse disbelief. Pure, aching disbelief.

"You really don’t remember, do you?" he whispered.

Cassian’s breath caught.

Before he could ask what that meant, Lucian reached out slow, almost gentle and brushed his thumb along Cassian’s jawline, just once. Then his fingers slid downward, cold and deliberate, to the top button of Cassian’s red shirt.

With a slow, practiced flick, he unfastened it.

The fabric parted just enough to reveal the hollow of Cassian’s throat, the faint pink lines still healing along his collarbone marks left days ago, after Lucian had cornered him on the balcony.

"Hey -" Cassian grabbed Lucian’s wrist, pulse spiking. "What the hell are you doing? I don’t get it none of this! You keep talking like we had some history, like I owed you something -"

Lucian didn’t pull away. He just stared down at him, eyes darkening like storm clouds rolling in. Then, voice low and edged with venom, he said:

"Remove your hand... if you don’t wanna get hit straight in your fucking face."

The words didn’t just echo they unraveled him.

His breath stopped.

His vision blurred.

Suddenly, he wasn’t in Room 73 anymore.

He was seventeen.in his past life Rain pounded against the windows of a dim, mold-scented apartment. The power had gone out again. His hands were shaking as he gripped the wrist of a much taller boy his roommate’s older brother, the one who’d been "watching over him" since his parents left for good. The one who’d started "joking" about how pretty he looked when he cried. That night, he had been alone. And the guy had pinned him against the fridge, breath reeking of whiskey and cigarettes, saying those exact words:

"Remove your hand if you don’t wanna get hit straight in your fucking face."

He had let go.

And the next thing he knew, he was on the floor, lip split, ribs aching, sobbing into the damp carpet while the guy laughed and walked away.

Now, again coming back to room 73 standing in this quiet hotel room, his fingers trembled on Lucian’s wrist. The grip loosened unwillingly, instinctively just like it had all those years ago.

Lucian’s lips curled into a smirk. "Good. At least you know your place."

He finished unbuttoning the next button himself, pushing the shirt aside just enough to see the fading bruises along Cassian’s shoulder the ones from the balcony, the ones Lucian himself had left. His expression softened not with remorse, but with something possessive, almost tender.

"Oh," he murmured, tracing a fingertip over the pale marks like they were sacred. "They’re almost gone." He looked up, eyes gleaming with something dark and intimate. "You don’t know how much I had to hold back my anger when I saw them. Knowing someone else had touched you... hurt you... before I could."

Cassian couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. His body remembered what his mind had tried to forget.

Lucian leaned in, close enough that his breath ghosted over Cassian’s ear. Then, softly, deliberately, like unveiling a secret only they shared, he whispered:

"Do you remember me now... Elliot?"

The name struck like lightning.

Cassian’s world flipped.

His knees nearly buckled.

"W-what did you just call me?" he choked out, voice raw with disbelief, eyes wide with terror.

Lucian pulled back, studying him with a mix of amusement and triumph, like he’d just won a war no one else knew was being fought. "Elliot," he said again, slower this time, savoring each syllable like it was honey on his tongue. "My sweet, quiet Elliot. The boy who used to hide in the library after school because he was scared to go home. The one who let me walk him home every Friday... until you vanished."

Cassian’s chest heaved. "That’s not -my name isn’t -"

"Awh," Lucian cooed, reaching up to cup Cassian’s face, thumb brushing his cheekbone with terrifying gentleness. "Did my bunny get scared hearing his real name?" He smiled, but there was no warmth in it. Only ownership. Only certainty. "Don’t worry. I also came into this world. I was so lost then guess what I found you. And this time... you’re not disappearing on me again. like you did in that room although I dissapeared too but that doesn’t matter "

Cassian stared at him truly stared and for the first time, he saw it not just a stalker, not just a rival.

But the man from his past.

The one who’d walked him home every Friday after school, who’d held his books when his hands shook, who’d whispered, "You’re safe with me," right before he started demanding payment in silence, in obedience, in fear.

His breath came in shallow gasps.

Because Lucian wasn’t just here.

He’d always been.

And Cassian had never really escaped.