Written in 55 minutes.

---

Monday, October 22, 2000

Luke’s: Back Hallway

He drugged Elizabeth at one of those damn raves—

Emily pushed past Elizabeth, rushing between Jason and Sonny before her brother had a chance to a respond — maybe even before he a had chance to absorb what Sonny had written. “It’s not what you think! Nothing happened!” She gestured towards the hallway where Elizabeth was still in the shadows. “Tell them!”

Sonny scowled, and Jason blinked, looking back. Elizabeth made a face, then came forward a few steps into the dim lighting of the back entrance. It was a bit of wasted space, just enough room for deliveries to be piled on delivery day, but not used for much else.

“What is he talking about?” Jason demanded. He was looking at Emily when he asked it, but then looked at Elizabeth, confused and maybe a little bewildered. “What happened?”

“I did get drugged at one of the raves we went to when we were trying to find out what happened,” Elizabeth admitted. She twisted her hands in front of her. “But Lucky—they realized it. And Lucky took me home. Nothing happened to me. Nothing worth getting angry or—” She looked at Sonny, tilting her head. “What happened to Emily is bad enough, isn’t it? Why do you need to throw me into it?”

“Yeah,” Sonny drawled, but he wasn’t looking at Elizabeth when he answered it, his eyes on Jason. “It is. Look — it’s nothing personal. We’re just—” He gestured at the space between himself and Jason. “Having a disagreement. You girls should just go on home—”

“No. It was one thing to hand this over to my brother, but I’m not going to sit around and let you run my life,” Emily cut in, her eyes flashing with impatience. “You had no right to get involved in any of this, Sonny. None! I asked my brother for help. This isn’t about you. Or that Sorel guy! If it was, Zander would have already flipped. Isn’t that what you said? If he had anything to give, he’d give it. Well, he doesn’t. All he has is lies—”

“Em—” Elizabeth touched her shoulder, and Emily sucked in a shaky breath, her cheeks hot, stained with tears. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” she repeated. “Sonny’s just trying to help. Not well,” she said, throwing Sonny a dark look and to his credit, Sonny looked away. “That’s all we’ve been trying to do for months, right? No one asked for this to happen,” Elizabeth said, turning back to the two men. “We just went to party to have some fun. I don’t appreciate everyone treating us like we did something wrong or like we’re too stupid to have a say. Maybe we should have told you from the start, Sonny, or when Jason came home. I’m not denying that. And yes, our plan was convoluted. And dangerous. But it almost worked. And we did manage to get the body out of that motel and into Zander Smith’s trunk without getting caught. We did that. Without any help.” She folded her arms. “Don’t tell me either of you haven’t had a plan go wrong at the last second.”

“That’s not what any of this is about—” Sonny started to say.

“You got lucky—” Jason said at the same time. “Anything could have gone wrong—you could have been caught—”

“No, Liz is right. I’ve told you that I should have come to you. We’ve said it over and over again, and I did what I was supposed to do, what you wanted me to do. I realized it was still a problem, and I came to you,” Emily interrupted. “Now the two of you are treating our problem like it’s some kind of…” She gestured, unsure exactly how to describe the argument she’d over heard.

“A pissing contest,” Elizabeth supplied, looking at Jason with an arched brow. “You’re fighting over making this problem go away like there’s…there’s a trophy or something at the end of it. There’s not. I don’t care who saves the day, and neither should you. Just figure it out. I’m going home.” She looked at Emily. “You ready?”

“More than. I’m sick of every single man in this building,” Emily bit out. “That’s the last time I go to anyone but myself or you for help.” She shoved past her brother and went out the back door.

“Emily, wait—” Jason started to follow her, but Elizabeth blocked him from the door, thrusting her arm across the door frame. “Elizabeth—”

“I’m not done yet.” Elizabeth looked at Sonny, still standing in the shadows. “Emily might not know what’s going on here, or what you tried to pull, but I do.”

“Elizabeth,” Sonny began, in that careful, patient tone, but she shook her head.

“I know what I heard. And I know enough about what’s wrong between the two of you to tell you that I’m not interested in being someone else you fight about. Carly might enjoy being in the middle, but I don’t. Nothing happened to me that night. I felt a little woozy and silly, and Lucky took me home. I was safe,” Elizabeth stressed. “You don’t get to use me to hurt each other.”

And then she was gone, the door slamming behind her.

Jason nearly went after her, but he didn’t even know what he’d say, how to untwist her last words until she took them back. He grimaced, then looked back at Sonny. “You gave me a job to do,” he said after a moment. “Sorel was my job to handle. Because of my sister. And yeah, because it involved Elizabeth. You and I made an agreement to split it that way. So we’d avoid what’s happening right now. You making decisions for me. Deciding you know what’s best.”

Sonny tilted his head to the ceiling, scrubbed both hands over his face. “Yeah. Okay. Okay. You’re right. I—I did. I guess—” He looked at Jason. “I should have talked to you. But Lucky came to me. And I thought maybe — Luke and I were friends once. One of the best I’ve ever had. His kid wanted my help. I didn’t think — and he didn’t tell me you were already involved at first. Not until I’d already put things in motion.”

“Would it have mattered?” Jason demanded.

Sonny made a face. “I want to tell you yes, because that’s the right answer but I don’t know. But I’m sorry. For not finding out or even talking to you, because it’s your sister and you’re right, you were supposed to be handling it. I’m sorry for that — and for trying to dig at you about Elizabeth. That was a low blow, and unfair. I’m sorry,” he repeated when Jason said nothing in response.

“You’re sorry,” Jason said, “but it won’t stop you from doing it again, will you?”

He didn’t wait for an answer.

Hardy House: Driveway

It was on the drive home that Elizabeth wondered why no one else had come across the scene at the back of Luke’s — why Lucky or Nikolas hadn’t overheard and gotten involved. It wasn’t like them to stay out of it—

She got her answer when she turned the corner to her block, and recognized a car at the curb of her grandmother’s house — and a familiar figure sitting on the stoop of the house.

Elizabeth parked her grandmother’s car in the drive way, contemplating remaining in the car. If it had been Jason somehow beating her home so that they could hash out what had happened, she wouldn’t have hesitated.

But it wasn’t Jason or even Emily.

And she hadn’t been alone with Lucky in a week.

Elizabeth got out of her car, but not before checking that her phone was within reach in her purse, and her keys clutched in her hand, the long jagged edge facing out. The defensive mode was second nature to her — she rarely went anywhere alone without knowing her exits and having some sort of weapon at hand. Keys and cell phones were her best friends. Easy to hide and unassuming to anyone who saw her.

But she’d never had to be on her guard around Lucky before.

“I didn’t think you’d get out of your car.” Lucky climbed to his feet. She couldn’t quite see his face — the porch light was on its last legs, the dim light only casting shadows onto his features, once so beloved to her. She could trace them in her sleep, and had spent months sketching and painting his face just from memory.

Elizabeth remained at the hood of her car, leaving six feet between. “I nearly didn’t.”

“You haven’t returned my calls. I tried to stop by—”

“Gram knows I don’t want to talk to you.”

Lucky made a face, looked away. “She never did like me. I guess helping her granddaughter run away didn’t help.”

“That was a long time ago, Lucky. Neither of us are those people anymore.” Elizabeth curled her hand into a fist, the edges of the key digging into her palm. “Say what you have to say, and then go.”

“Is this really how you’re going to end this?” he wanted to know. “Barely talking to me, not giving me a chance to fix it? After everything we’ve been through, after what I’ve gone through to come back to you—”

Tears burned, and she swallowed hard. “I’d have done anything for you. Followed you anywhere. But you made it very clear that you wouldn’t do the same for me—”

“I was going to leave everything behind and go to New York with you!” Lucky cut in. He took a step forward, and she stumbled back, nearly falling into the car. “We’d have been out of here if it weren’t that fire—”

“Don’t. Don’t—” Elizabeth forced herself to take a breath. “And then I’d be alone, in that city, with a man who only loved the broken pieces of me.”

Lucky scowled. “Are you still hung up on that? I wasn’t thinking, okay? You were changing everything, and talking about this job like you’d wanted it all your life, and I was confused. You were—”

“It’s not the job. It’s not. It’s—” Elizabeth closed her eyes, shook her head. “It’s not just the job. It’s the way I felt when I tried to explain it to you. What I thought I could find, the way I thought it might—I don’t know—I just needed to know. I needed to know if I could ever be that girl again — reckless and throwing my whole heart at something, rushing headfirst at something I wanted—”

“You mean selfish, not thinking about how it would effect anyone around you? How it would affect me, right?” Lucky cut in, and she pressed her lips together. “I went through hell, you know that? All those months, locked up inside my head, clinging to the thought of you, knowing that all I had to do was keep trying, and I’d be able to find my way back to you—and you threw me away because I thought you should think twice about job where we’d never see each other?” He scoffed. “Good news, Liz. You’re that girl again.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks. “You don’t understand. You just don’t, and you’re not even trying—”

“I’m so sorry that I couldn’t come back and be perfect,” he snarled. “That I couldn’t live up to whatever perfect picture you had in your head. I’m so sorry I was brainwashed and used like a weapon in a fight I never asked to be part of it. I’m sorry that’s inconveniencing you, and stopping you from taking phone calls for Chloe Morgan. I didn’t mean to get kidnapped and ruin your life. You know what? You’re not even worth it. Have a nice life.”

He stormed past her, down to the curb, and a moment later, the engine roared to life and he was gone.