I’ll Save You Too

I’ll Save You Too
Lucy’s POV

It doesn't make sense at all.

Isn’t he some kind of possessed person? Like a demon from the beyond just like granny said? 

Why the hell did he need to use drugs to keep me in check? Don’t they have powers and all that…mind control, telepathy, floating candles, the whole Hollywood package? 

Hold on. What the living fuck am I even thinking about right now?

The ridiculousness of my own thoughts almost made a hysterical laugh bubble up, but it died in my throat the second I looked at Detective Reyes’s face. She was still watching me with that careful, assessing expression, waiting for the next crack in my composure.

“How do you know he’s been feeding me drugs?” I asked, my voice thinner than I wanted. “Ethan would not do that to me.”

Even as the words left my mouth I tasted the lie. I remembered the perfect mornings…the way time had melted…the way I had woken up almost every morning sore and foggy and somehow always still in bed when the clock said hours had passed. The way my body had thinned and my mind had softened until reality itself felt optional.

Reyes didn’t blink. “Aside from the toxicology report the doctor just confirmed…large, sustained traces of those compounds in your system…your mental state alone supports it. The memory gaps. The inability to track time and the obvious physical deterioration. It all tracks with prolonged exposure.”

My fingers tightened around the rosary until the wooden beads creaked. “Are you sure Ethan is the murderer? That he's responsible for all this? He’s… he’s harmless. Maybe he gave me those drugs because he was scared I might leave him. That doesn’t make him a killer. Andmaybe…Justmaybe…someone set him up as the murderer. Did you think about that?” I rambled on.

I wanted to scream the rest of it…He’s possessed, something is wearing him like a coat, the man you knew is still in there…but the words stayed locked behind my teeth. 

Say something like that and they would look at me the way they already almost did…like a woman who had finally lost the last of her grip. They would lock me up in a psychiatric ward, sedate me again, and Ethan would be alone with whatever lived inside him.

What if he's scared and confused right now?

Reyes’s expression didn’t soften. “Some of the items belonging to the victims were found in the storage unit inside your apartment. Personal belongings like jeweleries, scarves, phone cases, hair clips, you name them. And every single one of them carried Ethan’s fingerprints. Clear as day.”

Suddenly, a flash hit me so hard I almost flinched. Me, standing in the hallway in one of his oversized shirts, telling him I needed something from storage. An image of his easy smile flashed inside my head as he stood in my way and said... “I’ll get it for you, baby. You shouldn’t be stressing yourself. Just rest.” 

The way he had always steered me back toward the couch or the bed, gentle hands on my shoulders, and his voice always warm. I had thought it was care. I had thought he simply didn’t want me to stress even for a second. 

All along he had been hiding the trophies of dead women in the dark little room I never bothered to enter?

Reyes kept speaking, almost to herself now. “This is as much a shock to his captain as it is to you. From the report, Ethan has always been a good cop...his favorite even. Solid record, quiet, and dependable. So why all of a sudden did he turn into this monster?”

The word monster landed like a slap.

“He’s not—” I started, then stopped. My hand fell to my stomach without conscious thought, palm pressing against the thin hospital gown. 

Grandma’s final warning echoed again. Remove the thing inside you before it roots too deep. But what if the child was innocent? What if it was still half Ethan…the real Ethan…and I tore it out of myself like it was nothing? 

The thought made something protective and fierce rise in my chest. This child is a piece of Ethan…a proof of our love and devotion. I had to be careful. I couldn’t just… erase whatever we had made together. 

I looked at Reyes and forced the words out carefully. “If you all know Ethan so well, why can’t you give him the benefit of the doubt? Maybe it’s not all what it seems to be.”

Reyes stared at me with a deadpan, almost suspicious intensity that made my skin prickle as she ignored my words completely. “I’m wondering why he didn’t kill you,” she said slowly. “That’s the part that doesn’t fit. His pattern is clear…young women, isolated, drained, organs removed. So why keep you alive? Why drug you and play house instead of finishing the job the way he did with the others and move on to the next victim?” 

She trailed off, eyes narrowing as some private thought clicked into place and she pulled out her phone. “Speaking of body parts… Didn't Officer Ethan have surgery about four months ago? I think I saw that in his report.”

I heard it clearly. Surgery. Four months ago and suddenly, the room seemed to tilt.

What surgery? I had never heard him mention any surgery. Maybe that was when it happened. Maybe that was the moment the thing crawled inside him and made a home. 

But if it was four months ago… that meant he had already been possessed before he ever walked into my life. Before the scandal. Before the nights that left me shaking and scared and desperate for him.

So it wasn’t even the real Ethan who had approached me on that terrible day when the internet was calling me every filthy name it could invent. It was whatever lived behind his eyes now. The thing that had worn his face and his voice and his gentleness like a perfect mask.

So I’ve been fucking a demon?!

The monitors above my bed started beeping louder as my thoughts spiraled. My heart slammed against my ribs hard enough that I could feel it in my throat and my pulse raced in frantic spikes.

“Lucy…your vitals are climbing—” one of the nurses said sharply as two of them rushed back into the room. 

Hands checked the IV line, adjusted the oxygen, pressed cool fingers to my wrist. Someone called for another dose. The bright overhead lights flared as they worked to stabilize me, voices overlapping in practiced urgency.

Through the haze of movement I saw Detective Cole return. He stood next to Reyes, head tilted, speaking low and fast. 

I could only catch fragments, but I pieced them together anyway. No leads on Ethan’s current location. Another body was found minutes ago…a girl in her late twenties, same method of disposal, same missing organ.

Reyes lowered her voice further. “You read his report…right? What surgery did he get back then? Can you remember?”

I felt the newest medicine sliding into my bloodstream, heavy as it began pulling me under. 

The edges of the room began to soften and just before the darkness pulled me under, I saw Cole’s brows furrow, then his eyes widen in sudden, sharp remembrance.

“Kidney transplant,” he said out loud.

Both detectives left the room in a hurry, their footsteps already fading down the hallway as the sedative claimed me.

Kidney transplant.

He had a kidney transplant… and now he kills women and takes their kidneys? Does that make sense?

The thought followed me down into the dark like a cold hand closing around my ankle.

No. I have to get to the bottom of this and I will save Ethan. I will help him clear his name because he is the first person after Grandma who ever treated me with real tenderness…even if some of that tenderness was calculated, even if the hands that held me were not entirely his. I will do it for our child. For the tiny evidence that something pure still exists between us.

‘Ethan, wherever you are… I’m coming. I’m coming to find you. I’ll save you…Just like you once saved me.’