Chapter eight: Next day

Serena’s POV

 I barely said a word the rest of the day. By the time morning came, I was still sitting in the same silence when Lucas started getting ready to leave.

“I’ll be back pretty late today,” he said, sounding more like he was begging than informing. “Please eat something. Don’t skip your meals.”

“What about the phones?” I asked, pressing my fingers together to keep them from shaking. “How do you plan to get them back?”

“I’ll handle it, Serena. I promise. But I need to go now.” He turned away, already half out the door.

“Can I come with you?”

He froze. “You’re not ready to go out there.” His voice dropped, careful but firm. “You’re going to run into people you don’t want to see. Faces you’d rather forget. And—”

“I’m not staying locked up in this room.” My voice didn’t rise, but it cut through him anyway. “I’m mourning my son. My life. The woman I was before all this. But I’m sure Liam would’ve wanted… something more than me sitting here doing nothing.”

Lucas paused with his hand on the door. His shoulders tensed like he was trying to pull air into lungs that didn’t want it.

“Serena,” he said quietly, “Liam would’ve wanted you safe. That’s it. That’s the only thing he ever cared about.”

I swallowed the knot in my throat. “Safe is not the same as trapped.”

His jaw flexed.

“I’m not asking to chase anyone down,” I continued, voice low, steady. “I just… I need to be where things are happening. Sitting here, waiting, pretending I’m made of glass—I can’t do that anymore.”

Lucas turned fully, finally meeting my eyes. I could tell he hated what he saw. The exhaustion. The grief. The stubbornness that grief always births.

“You’re not ready,” he said again, softer now. “Out there is messy. Loud. Cruel. People will stare at you. Whisper. Some of them will act like they know what happened to your son better than you do.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Some of them will ask questions you don’t want to hear.”

“Then let them,” I whispered. “Let them stare. Let them talk. My son died, Lucas. I refuse to disappear just because the world expects me to.”

He exhaled slowly, like he was trying not to slam his fist through a wall. “You think I don’t get it? I do. But I also know what it looks like when a grieving mother walks into a war she can’t even see coming.”

“Then show me the battlefield,” I shot back. “Because pretending I’m not part of it is insulting.”

That hit him. Square in the chest.

His eyes softened, but there was a frustration underneath it—one built from fear. Fear he wasn’t even bothering to hide anymore.

He stepped closer and cupped the side of my face. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t soft. It was grounding. Like he needed to make sure I was real.

“You’re hurting,” he said. “And hurt people make reckless decisions.”

“I’m not reckless,” I murmured.

“No,” he said, thumb brushing my cheekbone. “You’re desperate. And that’s worse.”

I blinked hard to keep the tears from climbing back up my throat.

“Lucas,” I whispered, “I can’t sit in this place smelling like grief. I can’t look at these walls and remember every second of yesterday. I need to move. I need to breathe someplace that isn’t soaked in pain.”

The silence stretched between us, tight and fragile.

Then something shifted in him. A tiny click. A surrender he didn’t want to give but couldn’t fight.

He lowered his hand. “You don’t leave my sight.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“You don’t talk to anyone unless I say so.”

“Okay.”

“And the second I tell you to get back in the car, you don’t argue.”

I raised a brow. “Lucas—”

“Those are the terms, Serena.” His voice deepened. “Non-negotiable. You come with me, you follow my lead.”

I swallowed hard before muttering a “Fine.”

He studied me, searching for any sign I was lying. When he didn’t find one, he finally nodded.

“Get dressed,” he murmured. “We’re leaving in fifteen.”

My heart pounded, not with excitement but with purpose. Fear. Anger. All twisted into something that looked a lot like strength.

As he turned to leave, I called after him softly.

“Lucas.” He stopped.

“Thank you, thank you really, without you, I wouldn't be..."

He didn’t look over his shoulder when he answered.

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “If this goes wrong, I’m the one who dragged you into it.”

Then he walked out, the door closing behind him with a quiet click.

I walked back to my room, and changed into the only pair of clothes available, not good enough but—

"How does this look?" I asked, staring T his face.

"It looks good for a first day, I'll get you more on our way back tonight," He said and held his hands out for me to take them, making me still.

"What? You're not coming?" He asked, while he looked at me like he was harboring something underneath stoic glare and taut jaws.

I slipped my hands into his while he led me to the car already parked outside.

"Remember our deal Serena, you know you could see your husband, your step sister all out there, I can't control that, but you need to control yourself," He said, and I nodded in response.