Not done yet

Not done yet
Lucas woke to the faint scent of wax and smoke.
For a moment, he thought he was still dreaming—the candlelight flickering against the wall, the shadow of movement nearby. His body felt heavy, drugged by sleep, his head pounding as if he’d been hit with something blunt.
Then—
“Lucas!”
A sharp voice sliced through the haze.
He blinked and saw Adelyn beside the bed, her face streaked with tears, her trembling hands gripping his arm.
“Lucas, get up! Please, get up!” she cried, her voice cracking in panic. “Something’s happened to Ethan—please—please come now!”
Ethan?
The name dragged him fully awake.
He sat up too fast, the world tilting. His skin felt clammy, the air around him thick with the remnants of burnt candles and something sour—wine, maybe. His memory was fogged; he remembered flashes of the night before. Adelyn’s perfume. The warmth of her skin. The way she’d whispered his name like she meant it.
And now—this.
“What are you talking about?” he rasped, rubbing his temple. His voice was hoarse, sleep-drenched. “What happened?”
Adelyn’s chest heaved. “He—he’s not answering me. I went to check on him and—just come!”
She pointed toward the hallway, her voice breaking.
Lucas stumbled out of bed, confusion threading through the hangover of lust and exhaustion. The world around him felt unreal, dreamlike, like he’d been dropped into a nightmare he couldn’t wake from.
Sirens wailed in the distance—growing louder.
He froze mid-step. “Adelyn… why are the police—?”
“Just come!”
Her urgency was enough to jolt him forward. He followed her through the dim corridor, the sirens outside swelling until they seemed to vibrate through the walls. Every footstep echoed louder than the last.
Then he reached Ethan’s room—and stopped dead.
The air was wrong here. Heavy. Still.
It took him a second to register what he was seeing.
Ethan hung from the ceiling fan, the rope taut against his neck, his body swaying ever so slightly with the draft from the open window.
Lucas’s breath left him in one strangled sound.
The room smelled faintly of alcohol and something metallic. The chair beneath Ethan was toppled over, the bedsheets tangled, one corner stained with wine or blood—he couldn’t tell which. On the bedside table lay a folded piece of paper.
“No,” Lucas whispered, stumbling backward. His pulse thundered in his ears. “No, no, no—this can’t—”
Adelyn screamed then, clutching at her chest as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Oh my God! Oh my God, Ethan!”
Her scream shattered the silence.
Within seconds, there was noise everywhere—the sound of boots, radios, and shouting. Police stormed in, weapons drawn, faces grim.
“Step away from the body!” one of them barked. “Everyone out of the room! Now!”
Lucas felt himself being yanked back by the arm, but his eyes stayed fixed on Ethan—his brother, his rival, the man who had always seemed so indestructible. The sight of him now, pale and lifeless, didn’t make sense.
Someone grabbed Lucas’s shoulders and guided him toward the hallway.
The world tilted again. The sirens outside still screamed, mixing with Adelyn’s sobs.
“Get them both out,” a detective ordered. “This is an active scene.”
Adelyn collapsed against the wall, trembling violently. Her mascara streaked down her cheeks, her hair disheveled, her blouse rumpled. “He—he was fine last night,” she gasped. “He was fine—he said he was tired, and then—” She broke into sobs again, shaking her head. “I don’t understand.”
Lucas couldn’t speak. His throat had closed up.
A paramedic brushed past him, muttering something about vitals, though there was nothing to check. The others moved around like ghosts—photographing, collecting evidence, sealing off the room.
Through the chaos, Jonah appeared.
His expression was unreadable—controlled, but beneath that calm exterior was something darker. Something burning.
He made his way toward Lucas and Adelyn, eyes flicking from one to the other.
“Both of you,” he said evenly. “Outside. Now.”
His tone left no room for argument.
They followed him down the hallway, out of the suffocating house, into the wash of flashing blue lights. Cold night air hit Lucas’s face like a slap. He swallowed hard, trying to steady his breathing. His mind refused to catch up.
“This doesn’t make sense,” he muttered under his breath. “He—he wouldn’t do that. Not Ethan.”
Jonah didn’t answer right away. He turned toward the paramedics as they wheeled a gurney through the doorway, the white sheet covering Ethan’s body. Lucas’s stomach lurched.
Adelyn broke down again, burying her face in her hands. Her cries sounded raw—convincing, almost too convincing.
Jonah finally spoke, his voice low. “The police will need statements from both of you. Until then, you’re to remain in protective custody.”
Lucas blinked at him. “Protective what? Why?”
“Because,” Jonah said carefully, “if this isn’t what it looks like, someone in that house was responsible.”
Adelyn’s head jerked up. “You think we had something to do with this?”
Jonah met her eyes without flinching. “I didn’t say that.”
Her lower lip trembled. “He was my fiancé. I loved him.”
Something flickered in Jonah’s gaze—so brief that Lucas almost missed it. But Adelyn didn’t. Her eyes narrowed for a split second before she turned away, hiding her face again.
Jonah looked back at the house. The police tape fluttered in the wind, pale yellow under the flashing lights. His jaw was tight, the muscle ticking as he stared at the dark window of Ethan’s room.
He knew.
He didn’t have proof—but he knew.
Ethan had been spiraling for weeks, haunted, paranoid, broken by something invisible that seemed to stalk him from within his own home. And now this—so perfectly staged, so convenient. A note, a rope, a closed door.
Jonah’s instincts screamed that it wasn’t suicide.
He glanced back at Adelyn. Her shoulders shook with sobs, but there was something oddly measured about it, as though each movement had been rehearsed, each sound calculated to perfection.
He forced himself to look away.
Not here. Not now.
He couldn’t let her see that he was suspicious.
“Detective?”
The voice belonged to a young officer, clipboard in hand. “We found a letter on the nightstand. Looks like a suicide note. We’ll have to verify the handwriting.”
Jonah nodded slowly. “Bag it. No one touches it until it’s analyzed.”
Lucas turned toward him, desperate. “He wouldn’t kill himself. You know he wouldn’t. He—he was scared, yes, but he wasn’t suicidal!”
Jonah’s gaze softened for the first time. “I know.”
Adelyn looked up sharply, eyes red. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Jonah didn’t answer. He signaled to another officer to escort them both to the car.
Adelyn hesitated, looking back at the house one last time. Her face was pale, her expression unreadable in the flashing lights. For a moment—just one brief moment—Jonah saw it.
The smallest curl of her lips.
It was gone as quickly as it came.
Maybe he’d imagined it. Maybe not.
“Detective?” the officer asked again. “Do we proceed with protective custody?”
Jonah nodded. “Yes. Both of them. Different locations. Don’t tell either where the other is being taken.”
Adelyn’s eyes widened. “Wait—why separate us?”
“It’s standard procedure,” Jonah lied smoothly.
She hesitated, then nodded, clutching her coat around her. Lucas looked disoriented, almost childlike, as the officers led them toward two separate cars.
Jonah stood there for a long time after they were gone, staring at the house that had gone quiet again. The candles inside were still burning.
Somewhere deep down, he felt it—the shift.
The pattern forming.
The threads tightening around them all.
Adelyn wasn’t done yet.