Chapter Text
Lexa didn’t know what exactly made her turn into this pub. Probably the same instinct as in the saddle: that moment before the turn, when you can still change your mind, but you’re already flying. The clock showed just past five, London outside the windows buzzing with grey unrest, and she walked in — too straight for this place, too cold. Nobody called out to her. Only in the far corner, behind a wooden column, someone lifted his eyes from his glass.
Oliver Wren was not the type to be surprised. He didn’t get up and didn’t break into a grin. He simply nodded, as if he knew she would come.
“What an honor,” he said when she sat down across from him without asking.
“Let’s not play at politeness,” Lexa said. “I need to clarify one thing.”
He slowly pushed his glass aside, wiped his fingers on a napkin. His eyes never looked away.
“Always glad for clarification. Especially the… unexpected kind.”
“A few months ago, you published a photo of Clarke,” she continued. “Leaving the gallery. Beautiful shot, yes. But now there are others. Ones that should never have surfaced.”
“And you think that’s my work?”
“I think you’ve always known more than you said. And you’ve never been a stranger to… a tasty exclusive.”
He sighed. Leaned closer, took his elbows off the table.
“Did you come to ask or to accuse?”
Lexa lingered on his face. Exhaled slowly.
“To ask. For now.”
“Then I’ll answer. No. Not me. Not my article, not my material, not my interest.”
She was silent, her gaze sharp as a scalpel.
“Listen, Lexa. I published photos that were on the surface. I caught looks, moments, context. But I never went under the skin. Not to those who were already at the bottom.”
“And what if that’s exactly how it looked?”
He shrugged. His face showed fatigue, not play.
“Maybe. But there’s a difference between playing and finishing someone off. I played with what she allowed. And she… allowed a lot.”
Lexa leaned forward sharply.
“You poked at her when she was still holding on. Now she’s almost drowned. And you’re saying you’re not to blame?”
Oliver froze for a moment.
“I’m guilty of the world’s thirst for blood. I just press the button.” He looked her straight in the eye. “But I’m not the one who leaked what you saw.”
Lexa didn’t react immediately. Then quietly, hollow:
“Did you like her?”
Oliver faintly smirked.
“Are you jealous?”
“No. I’m trying to understand why you followed her so closely.”
“Because she was alive. Not because she was Griffin. Because everything in her was cracking — and it was impossible not to hear it. But I’m not a monster, Lexa. It wasn’t me.”
Silence hung between them. In the beery air it seemed heavier than it should have been.
“You didn’t come here just like that,” he said more quietly. “You’re looking for something. You’re looking for someone. Not me.”
She looked at him intently, as if weighing:
“You know people. Those who know everything. Clubs. Galleries. Press. And the basement under the press.”
He nodded softly.
“You want me to look for someone?”
“I don’t want to,” Lexa answered harshly. “But I may have to.”
“Who?”
She didn’t answer. Just removed her hand from the table and stood. Oliver lifted his eyes.
“So it’s that serious?”
She paused, unmoving. And then he added:
“If a name, a face, a contact crosses my path — I’ll tell you. Personally. Even if later you say it was a mistake. But, Lexa…”
He leaned in slightly:
“I hope you know what you’re getting into.”
She threw back curtly:
“Too late not to know.”
And walked out without looking back.
The Porsche’s interior felt too quiet. The glass caught the glare of the late sun, thin as cuts, and for the first time in a long while Lexa caught herself thinking the road wasn’t salvation but a dead end. Usually movement was what allowed her to keep control: pedal, speed, the steady rhythm of the automatic. But today even the wheel felt lifeless, like everything else.
Oliver hadn’t lied. Or he pretended well. Or maybe it really wasn’t him. But then who?
Lexa clenched her teeth. The woman in the photographs appeared not once, not twice. Too often. Always next to Clarke. Like a shadow, like a temptation, like something that grew inside her quietly while everything else collapsed. Not a club friend. Not just a lover. This woman was… a role Clarke had now merged into.
“She’s so beautiful when she’s empty.”
A phrase Lexa couldn’t get out of her head from the moment she saw the first frame. An unknown voice off-screen. An unfamiliar hand on Clarke’s body. It was submission, and Clarke… didn’t resist.
No, she didn’t blame her. She couldn’t. But even in that there was something unbearably terrifying.
You let her slip away.
You were angry too long. Believed too long that things could still be controlled. Believed too long that pain would recede if you just didn’t touch it.
Lexa jerked the wheel around the corner without signaling.
The Griffin house was twenty minutes from here. Not the luxurious one in Sussex, the other one. Office-like. The father’s closed study that smelled of paper and fear. She knew: he wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t eating, wasn’t speaking to his wife. He was afraid too, but differently. Like a man used to solving everything through people and influence. And now couldn’t even find his own daughter.
“You were there. And still didn’t see.”
The thought jabbed her temple. Lexa clenched her fingers tighter on the wheel.
Even if it meant turning the city inside out, she would find this woman. The one who had taken Clarke under. She would learn her name.
And then let hell itself retreat.
Mr. Griffin’s office was in an old Kensington mansion, behind tinted windows and security that could never be mistaken for politeness. Lexa went inside without escort. They knew her name. That was enough for doors to open, even if she wasn’t a guest here. She hated this house. These corridors where fates weren’t of children but of deals. But right now she needed a man who knew how to hire predators.
The mansion seemed quieter than usual. No secretaries’ noise, no doors slamming. Only the hollow echo of her steps on the marble and a guard in the lobby with eyes that carried a little too much awareness. Lexa hadn’t asked for a meeting. She just called. They gave the time immediately. No questions asked.
He met her by the fireplace, as once in childhood — then with cold whiskey and a remark about discipline, now with the same whiskey and silence.
“I’m listening,” he said.
“I need a name,” she answered at once. “Or access to someone who can find it.”
He looked at her carefully. His voice businesslike, but his eyes gave away more.
“Is this connected to… what was sent to you?”
Lexa nodded.
“I don’t know who did it, but they had access. Not just to Clarke, but to the entire… system. Cameras. Locations. Moments. Places where she most likely didn’t even know she was being watched. Or didn’t remember what happened. — Lexa stepped deeper into the study. — This isn’t just a leak. It’s a threat.”
Thomas was silent, tilting his head slightly, then asked quietly:
“Does she know?”
“No.”
Hard. Without pause.
“And she won’t. Until I figure out who’s behind it.”
At last he went to the cabinet, poured himself whiskey. A second glass for her. She refused with a look.
“I’ll hand everything over to the private agent who was searching for her. He has resources. I’ll also connect another structure through the press office. Quietly.”
“I want full reports,” Lexa said evenly. “Everything he finds. Everything he gathers. Every connection this woman has. Her name, her network.”
Her fists tensed slightly.
“She isn’t random, I know it. I saw how she looked at her.”
Thomas looked at her again. There was something… paternal in that gaze. But not warm. Knowing.
“Is this personal?”
“Everything concerning Clarke is personal.”
He nodded slowly.
“I’ll do what I can. In return — you keep me updated. We both… want the same thing.”
“We want to save her,” Lexa said. “But I’m not sure we still can.”
He squinted slightly.
“And you still believe she can be saved?”
“I think she’ll decide that herself,” Lexa answered coldly. “The question is whether someone decides for her first.”
Thomas didn’t argue.
“The materials came to your phone?”
“No, a packet with files was dropped in the mail. Video on a flash drive, photos, cuts. All in one bundle. Personal. Compromising. Crushing. — She clenched her fingers. — It was done with intent.”
“And you want to reach the sender?”
“I want to know who needed to destroy her. So methodically.”
He asked no more questions, only pulled a card from the drawer and handed it to Lexa.
“He’ll contact you within a day. If he doesn’t, let me know.”
Lexa took the card without thanking him.
“I won’t let her disappear again,” she said. “Even if I have to burn down a couple of clubs for it.”
He didn’t smirk. Didn’t joke.
“Burn them if you have to.”
Lexa didn’t drive off right away. As if she needed time to gather herself again. Her fingers still gripped the card Mr. Griffin had given her — a thin rectangle of paper that seemed to scorch her palm. She put it in the glove box and started the engine.
First home, to change, to grab a couple of things. Then to Clarke.
She hadn’t decided in advance what to say. Not that she rehearsed — just… ran through possible phrasings. And all of them sounded unnatural.
“Want a little rest outside the city?”
“I thought some air might help you.”
“I found the place where you once smiled.”
None fit. Because the truth was something else: Lexa simply wanted to see her alive again. Or at least the person she could still become.
When she parked by the house, Clarke was already waiting. Standing on the steps, in a coat too thin for this weather. Hair tied back, face closed, a mask Lexa would recognize in any crowd. No emotion. No expectation.
She walked to the car silently. Lexa got out, circled the hood, opened the passenger door for her. Clarke got in without asking where.
Only when Lexa was already pulling away did she hear:
“For long?”
“A couple of days,” Lexa answered quietly. “If you want, we’ll come back earlier.”
A nod. Wordless.
“Where are we going?”
“To where once it was quiet,” Lexa said.
Clarke didn’t reply, just looked out the window while the city slowly fell away behind them.
Ravenmoor emerged between the trees suddenly, as if it had grown out of the damp earth in the last few minutes. Wet elm branches, an endless gray avenue, old lanterns barely visible through the mist. And beyond it all—the house: stone, austere, embedded in the hillside like a beast lying in wait. Lexa slowed the car and cut the engine before either of them said anything.
Clarke didn’t ask why they were here. She knew. Her body remembered this place not as home, but as something that once warmed her and could now burn. She stared through the windshield in silence, as if waiting for the building itself to speak first.
“I thought you wouldn’t bring me here again… after everything,” she said at last, quietly, as if in passing.
“So did I,” Lexa answered without moving. “But sometimes memory returns to where it was brighter.”
“Was it brighter here?”
“Then, yes.”
Clarke didn’t reply, only opened the door and stepped into the chill; the smell of wet stone and pine needles hit sharp, like a jab beneath the ribs. She brushed her fingers down the hem of her coat as though trying to wipe something off. Or maybe to recall how it had been that day when she came with coffee, with a smile, with defiance. When everything still held together by unspoken words rather than their absence.
“You were training with August then,” she said, climbing the steps. “I caught you in the arena. You looked at me as if I were a ghost. Only later I realized it was a compliment.”
Lexa smiled, barely.
“You said you wanted to ruin my morning and feed me human food.”
“Yes. And you, if I remember, tried to convince me that August read Latin and despised bourgeois pastries.”
“He really does despise them. That hasn’t changed.”
“But we have.”
Lexa stayed silent, simply unlocked the door and let Clarke inside. The smell hadn’t changed: old floorboards, cold ash in the fireplace, books, black tea. The kind that never leaves. Only now, for some reason, it didn’t soothe but rang in her temples.
Clarke glanced around. Her eyes didn’t linger, as if she wasn’t searching for anything of hers here anymore.
“The blanket is still there,” she noted.
“I didn’t put it away.”
“How touching.”
Lexa said nothing.
Clarke went to the window and paused a moment. Beyond the glass: only forest—dark trunks, tangled branches, damp grass, still in December grayness. The lake couldn’t be seen from here, it lay deeper in the woods, beyond the turn where the path dipped down. But Clarke remembered it by feel. Remembered the creak of boards by the water, the mist lying across it in the mornings, the scent of spruce and something almost enigmatic, but magnetic.
“The lake’s still there?” she asked without turning.
Lexa lifted her gaze from the fireplace.
“I think so. It’s not the kind that goes away.”
“You used to say you’d drown Americans in your icy witch lake. For trespassing and too-white teeth.”
The corner of Lexa’s mouth twitched.
“I still might, if needed.”
Clarke smirked faintly, but as if through effort.
“And now, it seems, you could drown there yourself.”
The words hung in the air not as a jab, but as a statement. Not cruel. Just plain.
Lexa looked at her. No offense, no defense—only weariness. And understanding.
“Maybe that’s why I brought you here. So I wouldn’t have to.”
Clarke said nothing. Still stared into the woods, as if out there beyond the horizon was something that could tell her more than any person.
“I don’t feel anything here,” she said at last. “No memory, no comfort, no wish to stay. Just… empty.”
“That’s a feeling too,” Lexa said quietly. “Sometimes it’s the first one before something else comes back.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll stay with you until something does. Or until you tell me to get the hell out.”
Clarke finally turned. In her gaze was something that hadn’t been there for a long time. Surrender. And an acknowledgment: she was still here. Even if unsure why.
“I don’t know how to just… stay with anyone anymore.”
She fell silent for a moment, and the shadow of a smile touched her lips.
“Thank you for not pushing.”
Lexa gave the smallest nod.
“It’s the only thing I want to know how to do.”
They went out to the lake in silence. The path, overgrown with damp pine needles, still knew their steps. Somewhere far off a bird cried, but the air was too dense for sound; fog drifted between the trees, and it felt as though every breath echoed inside the chest. Clarke walked slightly ahead, hands in pockets, coat collar up, hair slipping from her hood, her whole figure on the edge of vanishing.
When they reached the clearing, the path dipped down and the lake opened between the branches. Ice at the edges, thin, nearly transparent, frosted over. The water black, dense, not a ripple. Silence pressed down.
Clarke froze, as if her body couldn’t go further. As if something inside had suddenly struck against something invisible. Lexa saw it at once, in the tightness of her shoulders. In the tremor of her fingers at her thigh.
Clarke took a step and stopped. Another, and nearly stumbled.
“It’s all right,” Lexa said almost soundlessly, stepping closer but not touching. “We can go back.”
“I…” Clarke exhaled. “I’m fine. Just…”
She looked at the water again. The same smell hit her face as back then. Spruce. Wet leaves. Frozen earth. Something shifted inside. Sharply.
The world began to recede.
Not completely, but at once, as if someone turned down the sound, then the light, then gravity. Her knees went weak, breath shallow. A roar in her ears, as if she had plunged underwater. And darkness again, memories in fragments: a flash of light, the sound of a fall, someone screaming her name, the smell of blood, stone crunching under her shoulder blade, and a voice. A woman’s. Very close. Unfamiliar.
“You’re so beautiful when you’re empty.”
Her chest wouldn’t rise. Her body wouldn’t obey. Panic surged like black water with no bottom. Everything shook.
“Clarke, quiet. It’s okay. I’m here.”
But she couldn’t hear. She crouched down, curling inward. Her hands trembled. Her lips turned blue. Breathing jagged, as if a knife were lodged in her throat.
Lexa crouched beside her. No words, no touch. Just there. Gave her space, and only after several seconds gently laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Look at me.”
Clarke couldn’t, but the voice reached her. Slowly, as though through water.
“You’re here. I’m here. Do you hear me?”
The faintest nod.
Lexa rested on one knee to be lower.
“Look at the forest, the trunks, the leaves. It’s all real. And I’m not going anywhere.”
Clarke drew in air in a ragged gasp. Tried to straighten, couldn’t. She hugged herself—like she was freezing, like that might keep her from falling apart.
“I… I don’t feel alive,” she breathed. “Like this isn’t… mine.”
“It is yours. But it’s already past,” Lexa answered. “You made it to the shore, you’re not in the water anymore.”
Silence.
Clarke jerked her gaze up—eyes red, lips trembling.
“I don’t know who to be if not broken.”
Lexa looked at her steadily.
“Then start with the fact that you’re here now. With me. With yourself. That’s already enough.”
Clarke looked away, exhaled slowly. Still clenched her fingers, but her breathing grew steadier, as if something had retreated. Not gone, but given her a reprieve.
She leaned forward, pressed her hands into the moss, bowed her head. Just breathed. Asked for nothing, explained nothing. Lexa didn’t move. She only stayed.
They walked back in silence.
The forest seemed wider, softer. The air thicker. The path longer than before. But step by step they went, not hurrying, not breaking it. The lake stayed behind, but its shadow still followed. It couldn’t be shaken off, but it could be carried.
Clarke didn’t look back. She walked beside her, leaning slightly forward, as if carrying the evening inside her chest.
At the porch she stopped first. Climbed one step. Then another. Lexa just behind. Saw her hand reach for the doorknob almost by instinct, as in the past. As if home.
Inside it was already warm. The fireplace burned dim but steady. Shadows from the fire crept across the floor. Lexa took off her coat and hung it, without glancing back. Clarke stayed in the hall, her gaze roaming the room as though searching for something to hold onto.
“I’ll make tea,” Lexa said, and went into the kitchen.
Clarke didn’t follow. Stayed. Then slowly walked into the living room. Stepped onto the rug like into water. Brushed the arm of a chair, as if testing: could she stay. Stood by the fireplace, stretched her hands to the flame. The scent of tea, wood, old pages. Everything was in its place.
When Lexa returned with cups, Clarke was already sitting in the chair. Fingers around her knees. Back slightly tense, but her eyes calmer. Only weary. Not afraid.
“Black. No sugar.”
“Thank you.”
Clarke took the cup, their fingers barely touching.
“It’s still the same tea?” she asked softly.
“Yes. The same one, your favorite, remember? With that hint of pretentious snobbery.”
“I only wanted to seem like someone you’d want to keep.”
“I already did then.”
They both fell silent, only the crackle of logs in the fireplace filling the room. Clarke sipped, then set her cup on the armrest.
“Sometimes I feel like if I start talking, I won’t be able to stop. Everything will spill out. And I’ll break.”
Lexa didn’t answer. Only shifted forward a little, closer. Without a word, she set her cup on the floor, leaned her elbows on her knees. Caught her gaze.
“Maybe. But you’re already sitting. Already here. And as long as you’re breathing—you’re whole.”
Clarke didn’t look away right away. Ran her finger around the rim of her cup.
“It’s all so frightening.”
Lexa tilted her head. No rehearsed words in response. Only reached for the blanket beside her, unfolded it, and without asking draped it over Clarke’s shoulders. A gesture that wasn’t “I’ll stay,” but “I see you’re cold.” Not “I’m here,” but “I’m not leaving.”
Clarke shrank under the fabric, but didn’t push it off.
“Do you have anything sweet?”
Lexa raised a brow.
“Sweet?”
“Yes. Last time you hid lemon cookies in that old teapot, and ate them in the library behind your books so you wouldn’t have to share.”
“I neither confirm nor deny.”
“Bring them,” Clarke said, burrowing into the blanket. “Well, if they haven’t fossilized by now. I think this is the first time in a month I feel like I can eat something… other than myself.”
“Even if they have—I’ll bring them. Just don’t complain.”
Lexa stood, quiet, almost soundless.
And Clarke didn’t move. Stayed in the chair, wrapped in the blanket, with a cup in her hands and the fire crackling steadily in the fireplace. Without defenses, without running. Not because someone held her. But because she didn’t have to.