Chapter 2.5: Resulting personnel
1376 Words
He started waking up before the alarms.
He ran until the sky turned white.
He lifted weights he used to be scared of.
He read books he used to mock.
He ate bland, clean, and alone.
At breakfast, he greeted his parents with a soft “Morning.”
His mother barely looked up from her phone.
His father grunted through his toast.
They didn’t ask what had changed.
They didn’t care.
They were just glad the tantrums had stopped.
Lucien smiled. Not wide. Not fake.
Just right.
He went back to his room and opened his notebook.
No bullets.
Just thoughts.
“Discipline is control. Control is survival. Survival is the plan.”
He closed the notebook.
Set his alarm.
Tied Broon’s leash into a loop and placed it gently under his pillow.
Then, for the first time in years, Lucien slept deeply.
Not peacefully.
Not warmly.
Just deep.
And somewhere in the dark below dreams, something inside him grinned.
Six months, it was almost like a breeze. For every second, he trained both mentally and physically. It was all paid back to him.
When all this time passed,
The boy returned.
The halls hadn’t changed.
Same flickering lights. Same faded posters peeling off painted walls.
Same classrooms, with floors that echoed every footstep too loudly.
But Lucien Thorne —
He walked through the school gates alone.
No hesitation in his step.
No slouch in his shoulders.
Back straight. Chin up.
Eyes—calm, precise, unreadable.
Gone were the heavy bags under his eyes.
The hunched posture.
The half-chewed fingernails.
The nervous habit of pulling his sleeves down past his wrists.
Now he wore his sleeves rolled.
The forearms beneath weren’t bulky, but firm —
just enough definition to turn heads without looking like he was trying.
His face looked sharper somehow.
Like someone had taken a blade to all the softness and carved clarity into it.
He was taller. Not by much. But just enough.
There was no hoodie.
No hiding.
Lucien Thorne did not walk like someone returning.
He walked like someone reclaiming something that was always his.
It took two minutes for whispers to begin.
“Is that…?”
“No way.”
“Holy s**t, is that him?”
“The mute?”
“That’s Lucien. Lucien Thorne.”
People stared.
Not mockingly. Not fearfully.
Not yet.
They just… stared.
He passed through the crowd like fog through moonlight —
unbothered, untouched, somehow colder than memory made him.
Even the teachers did double takes.
Six months off school, and most assumed he’d come back limping —
shattered, slow, left behind.
He wasn’t behind.
He wasn’t anywhere they expected.
Because while the world moved on without him, Lucien never stopped.
He’d taken every single note Anthony and Christy passed him.
Studied quietly. Obsessed privately.
Learned formulas under dim lights, memorized essays while doing push-ups.
Math problems solved with a cracked knuckle still bandaged.
Poetry was dissected while the taste of blood still lived behind his teeth.
He hadn’t returned broken.
He hadn’t even returned repaired.
He returned reconstructed.
Anthony saw him first from across the courtyard and nearly dropped his bottle of Coke.
“Christy,” he hissed, elbowing her. “Look—”
She turned, followed his gaze—
and her jaw clicked shut.
There he was.
Lucien.
Same hair. Same eyes.
But nothing else about him was the same.
He was walking differently.
Like he didn’t belong to the ground anymore.
Lucien noticed them.
Didn’t wave. Didn’t run up.
Just nodded once. A clean, subtle nod.
And Christy — the same girl who once sat on his bed crying while he said nothing — felt something unfamiliar behind her ribs.
Not butterflies.
Not fear.
Tension.
A silent awareness that Lucien Thorne was not to be underestimated anymore.
The day passed like a myth.
He answered questions in class.
Not loudly, not shyly — just precisely.
He smiled once. A small, patient smile.
The same teachers who had dismissed him six months ago
now scribbled “brilliant,” “observant,” and “mature” next to his name.
Students whispered stories in the corridors.
“Didn’t he get arrested?”
“I heard he bit a guy’s face off.”
“No—he just blacked out. PTSD, right?”
“I heard he never stopped training. Six months, full-on monk mode.”
“Bro, that’s the guy who didn’t say a single word for like three years. Now he’s talking like he owns the room.”
Lucien heard all of it.
He didn’t react.
They didn’t need to know who he used to be.
They only needed to remember his name.
Lucien Thorne.
Good things doesn't last forever though,
The Big Bully was still living.
The One who talks with sharpness, not earned, but inherited through fear.
Whose words don’t sting — they infect.
And Rae Williams infected everything.
Her laughter echoed before her footsteps.
Her words were always one decibel too loud.
And her nails were always filed, sharp enough to cut with a gesture.
Six months ago, Rae was untouchable.
The Queen of Cruel.
Boys followed. Girls envied. Teachers endured.
And Lucien Thorne?
He was just another ghost she got to torment.
A shadow in the hallway to point at.
A name to chew up in private group chats.
He was perfect prey.
Until he disappeared.
Now he was back.
And Rae didn’t like it.
Not the way the boys looked when he passed.
Not the way Christy smiled when she saw him.
Not the way whispers about him were louder than hers.
She found him by the old water fountain during a break —
Alone, leaning back against the chipped concrete, head tilted toward the sun, sleeves rolled just enough to show the veins in his forearms.
Too calm.
Too composed.
She hated it.
“Look who's back,” Rae snapped, stepping into his view.
Lucien didn’t blink.
She scoffed. “Didn’t think they let dogs back into school. Guess they must’ve chipped you.”
Lucien slowly turned his head toward her.
His eyes met hers.
No tension.
No reaction.
Just a gaze.
The kind that says I see everything.
She smirked, hands on hips. “You think you’re hot s**t now? What, just ’cause you grew a chin and don’t piss yourself when
someone talks to you?”
Still, silence.
That burned her.
“Don’t act like we forgot. We all know why you disappeared. You lost your dog, lost your mind, went full psycho—”
Lucien cut her off, voice cold and casual.
Sharp enough to slice the sentence in half.
“Off topic but, at least my mom didn’t have to sell herself just to put food on the table at some point. When someone's dad decided it would be a good idea to abandon his family and live with his mistress abroad because he is filthy rich and powerful, he also didn't care about his family until his mistress decided to leave him, and he went back to his family puppy-faced.”
Rae froze.
The smirk died instantly.
Lucien stepped forward — not fast, not threatening.
Just… close.
Close enough that only she could hear the next part.
“And hey — my dad’s not rich.
So he can't have that luxury,
… Your mom still doesn’t know about the redhead, right ?”
Silence.
Pure, clean silence.
Rae blinked once — then again — like the words hadn’t landed yet.
Then she swallowed.
And stepped back.
The hallway wasn’t watching.
Not yet.
Just the two of them.
Just truth, twisted like a knife.
Her breathing shifted.
Faster.
Lucien didn’t raise his voice.
Didn’t grin.
Didn’t blink.
He just said:
“Words hurt, Rae.
You taught me that.
You should’ve taught yourself how to handle them too.”
Then he turned and walked away.
Left her standing there, exposed.
Like someone had shattered the glass shield she always wore.
She didn’t cry there.
Not in public.
But everyone saw her disappear into the washroom, and not come out until class ended.
Lucien didn’t look back.
Not once.
But deep inside, something flickered.
Not pride.
Just confirmation.
Rae Williams might have fallen prey to her own tactics.
One.
Just like planned.
- Writer
