Lucas didn't sleep well after Marcus Vane's call.
He lay in bed staring at the ceiling, his phone on his chest, the conversation playing over and over in his head. Marcus's smooth voice, the way he said David's name like it tasted bad, the warning about consequences and the wrong side of history. People didn't talk like that unless they meant something by it, unless they were planning something. Lucas had grown up in a neighborhood where people talked around things instead of saying them straight and he'd learned to hear what they meant underneath.
Marcus meant trouble.
He grabbed his phone around three in the morning and started searching. Vane Clan, Marcus Vane, Vane family history, anything he could find. The public records were clean, too clean, the kind of clean that meant someone had spent a lot of time making sure nothing ugly showed up. Charity events, business partnerships, government contracts. Pictures of Marcus smiling at galas, shaking hands with officials, standing beside his father like he was practicing to take his place.
Lucas kept digging.
He found a forum, old and mostly dead, where people talked about the clans the way people talked about celebrities. Gossip, rumors, things that couldn't be proven. Buried in the threads, a comment from someone who claimed to have worked for the Vane family twenty years ago. Said they'd been different back then, quieter, less public. Said something happened around the time the Phoenix Clan fell apart, something that changed them. Made them hungry for power in a way they hadn't been before.
The comment was from a deleted account. The name of the poster was gone. But the words stayed.
Lucas stared at the screen until his eyes burned.
---
Erica found him at the park the next morning, sitting on a bench, coffee cold in his hands, dark circles under his eyes.
"You look terrible," she said, sitting beside him.
"Been doing a lot of that lately, people telling me I look terrible." Lucas handed her the coffee. "It's cold. Sorry."
Erica took it anyway, held it between her hands. "What's wrong?"
Lucas told her. About Marcus's call, about the warning, about the things he'd found online in the middle of the night. About the feeling he couldn't shake that something was coming, something worse than clan politics and rivalries.
Erica listened without interrupting, which was one of the things Lucas liked about her. She didn't fill silence with noise, didn't make him explain himself faster, didn't do anything except sit there and let him talk until he was done.
"You think Marcus knows something about David's parents," she said when he finished. "About what happened to them."
"I think he knows something. I think his family knows something. And I think whatever they know, it's why they're sniffing around now, why they're making offers, why they're warning me to stay away from him." Lucas ran his hands through his hair. "David's been keeping something from us. I can feel it. He's got that look, the one he gets when he's carrying something he doesn't want to share. And I don't care if he's ready to tell me or not, I need to know what it is so I can help him."
Erica was quiet for a moment. "You think he doesn't trust you?"
"No. I think he's trying to protect me. He's always trying to protect me, even when I don't need protecting." Lucas looked at her. "You've been watching everyone since this started. You've been in the background, seeing things, hearing things. What do you know?"
Erica met his eyes, her expression unreadable. "I know there's a lot about David Ashborn that doesn't add up. I know his awakening was wrong, too bright, too big, and the records the government released don't match what anyone who was there actually saw. I know the Moon Clan's been digging into his past and someone tried to kill Kaito for it. And I know that yesterday, after training, David went somewhere he didn't want anyone to know about."
Lucas sat up straighter. "How do you know that?"
"Because I followed him." Erica's voice was calm, matter-of-fact. "You left the estate before him. I stayed behind to talk to one of the guards about something, and I saw him walk out through the gardens instead of taking the front gate. He looked like he was going somewhere he didn't want anyone to know about. So I followed."
Lucas stared at her. "Erica."
"He went to the old market. The one in District Seven. He met someone there, an old woman, in a teahouse. They talked for maybe an hour. When he came out, he looked different. Heavier, like he was carrying something new." She paused. "He had a box with him when he went in. He didn't have it when he came out."
Lucas sat back, his mind racing. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"Because it wasn't my secret to tell. Because he's your friend, not mine. Because if he wanted you to know, he would have told you." Erica's voice was gentle in a way he'd never heard before. "But you asked. So now you know."
They sat in silence for a long moment, the park slowly filling with morning, the first joggers appearing on the paths, the first dogs being walked, the first normal people starting their normal days.
"I'm not going to confront him about it," Lucas said finally. "He'll tell me when he's ready. That's how it's always been with us."
"That's mature."
"Don't sound so surprised." He almost smiled. "But I'm also not going to sit around doing nothing while people like Marcus Vane circle around my best friend. So here's what we're going to do."
Erica raised an eyebrow. "We?"
"You know things, Erica. You've got connections, information, ways of finding out what people want to keep hidden. I'm loud and obvious and people don't take me seriously. So while I'm being loud and obvious, you can be quiet and find out what the Vane family is really hiding." Lucas met her eyes. "We work together. We watch each other's backs. That's what people do when they're in this together."
Erica studied him for a moment, something shifting in her expression. "You're smarter than you let people think."
"I'm a lot of things people don't think I am. Keeps them guessing." He stood, stretched, tried to look like he hadn't been up all night. "You in?"
She stood too, her compact frame somehow steady despite the weight of what they were talking about. "I'm in."
---
David showed up at the Moon estate an hour later looking like he hadn't slept either.
Lucas didn't ask. He just handed him a pastry from the bag he'd grabbed on the way over, the same kind David always ate, the one from the shop near his apartment. David took it without comment, ate it without tasting it probably, and Lucas pretended not to notice.
Becca was already in the training facility when they arrived, running through forms with her shadows, her movements sharp and controlled in a way that said she was working off something she didn't want to talk about. Lucas saw David watch her for a moment, something complicated in his expression, before he stepped into the facility and started warming up.
They trained harder than usual that day. Becca pushed them both, David pushing back, Lucas in the middle doing what he did best, being the thing that didn't break no matter how hard they hit it. By midday they were all exhausted, sprawled on the floor of the facility, staring at the ceiling.
"This is the part where we talk about what's actually going on," Lucas said, because someone had to. "The part where you tell us why you look like you haven't slept, Becca tells us what her family found out, and we figure out how to deal with it together."
Becca turned her head to look at him. "You first."
"I went digging into the Vane family last night. Found some old forum posts from someone who claimed to work for them twenty years ago. Said they changed after the Phoenix Clan fell apart. Got hungry for power in a way they hadn't been before." Lucas kept his voice casual. "Then Erica told me she followed you to the old market last night, David. So maybe we all start talking now."
The silence stretched.
David sat up slowly, his face unreadable. "You followed me?"
"I followed you," Erica said from the doorway, stepping into the facility for the first time. "You were acting strange and I wanted to know why. Now I know some of it. Not all of it. But enough to know that whatever you found last night, it's connected to everything else that's happening."
David looked at her, then at Becca, then at Lucas. For a moment Lucas thought he was going to shut down, go back to the silence and the secrets and the careful walls he'd built around himself. But then something shifted in his expression, something that looked like surrender.
"I found out who my parents were," he said quietly. "I found out who killed them."
The room went very still.
Lucas sat up too, his heart pounding. "What?"
"My mother's handmaiden found me. In the market. She'd been hiding for eighteen years, waiting for me to awaken, waiting for me to be strong enough to know the truth." David pulled something from his pocket, a small crystal that caught the light. "My father left this behind. It's a memory crystal. It showed me something he built before he died. A vault. In the Expanse. He said there's something inside that people have been looking for since the clan fell. Something they killed him for."
Becca moved closer, her eyes on the crystal. "Who? Who killed them?"
David looked at her, and Lucas saw something in his face he'd never seen before. Rage, cold and controlled, held in check by something stronger. "Ten people. Including Marcus Vane's father. And someone else, someone who's been protecting them for eighteen years. Someone inside the system."
Lucas's blood went cold. "Inside the system? Like government?"
"Like Director Chen. The woman who talked to us after the awakening. She was there, Lucas. She was there when I awakened and she's been watching ever since. She helped them get away with it." David's voice was steady, too steady. "Kaito found out. That's why they attacked him."
Erica stepped forward, her usual calm replaced by something sharper. "What's in the vault?"
"I don't know. My father didn't say. But whatever it is, it's what they've been hunting for eighteen years. And I need to find it before they do."
Lucas sat there, all the pieces clicking into place. The Vane offer, Marcus's call, Kaito's attack, David disappearing into the market. It was all connected, all part of something bigger than any of them had realized.
"So we find it first," he said. "We find this vault, we get whatever's inside, we figure out what it does and why everyone's been killing each other over it for two decades." He looked at David. "And then we go after every single name on that list."
David met his eyes. "You believe me."
"I've been your best friend since we were kids, David. You saved me from those bullies and I've been following you ever since." Lucas grinned, felt it crack the exhaustion on his face. "You think I'm gonna stop now?"
For a moment, something flickered in David's expression. Relief, maybe, or gratitude, or just the knowledge that he wasn't carrying this alone anymore.
Becca moved to stand beside him. "My family's resources are yours. Whatever you need."
Erica nodded. "I'll keep watching. Keep listening. Figure out what Chen and the Vane family are planning."
David looked at all of them, at the people who had chosen to stand with him, and something in his face shifted. The walls he'd been holding up since the awakening, since the market, since his father's journal, they finally started to come down.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "All of you."
Lucas clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't get sappy on me. We've got a vault to find and some murderers to catch. Plenty of time for feelings later."
David laughed, actually laughed, and for a moment everything felt almost normal.