Chapter 1.

"Hey, Linda. "

The softness of Chloe's voice helped her eyes open fully, taking in the morning light pouring from the window. She had just slept; but God was she exhausted again.

"Maze told me you were attacked yesterday", Chloe continued, visibly worried." How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been ran over by a truck," she sighted. "But the doctors are confident. I just have to lay still. "

Concern was written all over Chloe's face, but also something else she seemed hesitant to show. Anger.

"Is there anything I can get you? Movies, books? "

"Thanks, but I don't think I can keep my eyes open long enough". Indeed, they were fluttering shut again. So exhausted.

"Linda." Chloe's voice was suddenly very serious, the anger more apparent now. "Who did this? Maze wouldn't tell me anything. "

Linda shifted a bit, uneasy.

"It's… a bit of a blur", she lied. "Probably some random burglar?" Her voice was certainly higher of about an octave or two, and she hadn't meant the last thing as a question. Chloe's eyebrows shot through the roof: her friend was such a bad liar. "Have you seen Lucifer?" Linda continued, in a very obvious attempt to change subject. "He was supposed to drop by this morning. "

Chloe pondered whether to insist or not for a bit, but her friend was weak, and she really didn't need the stress. They'd have time to come back to that subject later, when she'd be healed.

"No. He's being Lucifer again. He left me a text message last evening about telling me everything and not hiding anymore, and then he hid. He wasn't at the precinct this morning."

She was obviously annoyed, but mostly at her own surprise. She thought she had somehow made peace with his odd behavior and his shenanigans after he had come back from Vegas, yet when she heard his voicemail she had waited expectantly. For nothing. Again.

Linda perked her head with interest at these words, smiling. So Lucifer had decided on telling her, at last. This promised to be really interesting. Earth-shattering. She hope she'd be well enough to help her friend; suddenly, she resented being strapped to this bed.

"Well, I'm sure he'll come around" she said tentatively, eyeing her friend carefully. "Please come back to me when you've seen him, okay? If you need to… talk. "

"You know what this is about, right? "

"Well, yes" sighted Linda. She hoped Lucifer would come clean soon. That she could stop to pretend around Chloe.

The detective carefully considered her for a moment, before resting a hand on her cheek and getting up. Whatever it was that Lucifer was hiding, or not, given the amount of fucked up stuff he was already disclosing to her freely she'd probably need to talk to a therapist if he said anything more.

"I will", she promised.

§

"Hem, Chloe? "

The Detective extracted her face from the sea of paperwork the blowtorch case had generated. Nobody liked it when you shot the prime suspect. She felt like the amount of bureaucracy, paperwork and effort of the trial and conviction that could have been was somehow a non-reducible, living thing that had been thrown on her to care for after her suspect's death.

Not to the least of her worries, Lucifer hadn't shown up yesterday at all, nor today. He had no reason to, as they had no new case; yet she felt a pang of concern and worry. She wasn't sure if it was still her place to actively look for him, and he probably just needed space from her pushing, but she would have like to know he was okay.

Ella was facing her, fidgeting with a file, voicing her worries.

"Have you seen Lucifer since the last case?" She seemed unusually uneasy.

"No, why? "

Her face blanched visibly. "I think there is something you should see right now".

"So I was looking at the video surveillance from Johnson's case", Ella continued as they arrived in the lab. "You know, the supermarket that got robbed near the hospital yesterday. They thought the couple might have come to check on the place before, so I had a look at the video surveillance from two days ago. I spotted something odd on the background – here, look."

The quality of the video on her screen was pretty bad, but the entrance of the hospital on the other side of the road was well lit and a dark silhouette could be seen exiting. Another approached. The first one fell.

Her worry started to expand like a gangrene, paralyzing. But really there was no reason too. It could have been anyone.

"That's really odd, she said in a forcibly calm voice, did you check the hospital surveillance?"

"It just came in", said Ella dreadfully, putting it on screen. And really, she had that look on her face, and Chloe just knew.

Lucifer was clearly visible exiting the building in his roughed up cloths from the day, talking to the phone, making faces.

Getting hit and being dragged away.

Chloe's breath hitched in her throat, and worry flooded her.

Lucifer was taken.

She had traced his phone, which had ended in a dumpster near the hospital. She had put a BOLO on him, and got every available detective in the precinct to look after him. (That one hadn't been so hard, given the unsurprising number of past lovers among them). She had told Maze, which was on the hunt for him and probably worth a good number of her colleagues. She was doing everything she could, and more. But there was no way she could shake the guilt of losing 48h of his kidnapping, just because she didn't have faith in her friend.

By the end of the day, they still didn't had any lead. No demands. A whole bunch of enemies, but none with a real motive to kidnap him now. She had been on the scene, checked the plate of the vehicles that went off the parking lot around the time of the attack, run down way too much of them, to no avail. She had tried to talk to Charlotte Richard, but the woman was an oblivious wall, and it really made no sense at all. It way as if Lucifer had been dragged out of camera, then disappeared. She was losing her mind over this.

"I'll get Trixie tonight, but you should head home," said Dan softly, pressing her shoulder. "We've hit the wall here. Maze and Amenadiel could have more news."

He was right, but she was as reluctant to leave as if she was abandoning him again. Reluctant to admit they had nothing and she had no idea how to look for him. Was her brain clouded up from oxygen deprivation? She felt like she hadn't breath since Ella showed her the video.

§

She fought tears the whole way back home: not just tears but any thoughts, any emotions. Every thought menaced to lead her to a break up and she couldn't let herself do that just yet. Her door was opened ajar when she arrived, and she passed by Amenadiel leaving like a fury. She rushed in, hopefull.

" Maze, what happened? Did you find anything?"

The demon had her back to the door, shoulder crunched, knives in hand, visibly furious.

"Not really"

"What was that, then?" asked Chloe, dubious. It didn't look like the giant pool of nothing she had found.

"Well I certainly have a good idea of who did this." Chloe's eyes widened. "This literally reek of their family. It's definitely one of Lucifer's sibling who did this, no mistake, probably as his dad's order. As to why, where he is, and whether he'll be allowed to returned, I have no idea." Her voice was wavering and she sounded surprisingly sad, and resigned, and the thought made Chloe shiver.

"His family did this?" Realization was drowning, not really surprising, but not less horrible. Every time she thought Lucifer's family couldn't really be worse, it was. She suddenly thought of the scars on his back and the little comfort the lead had given her vanished. "Well can't Amenadiel do anything? Contact them? Get them to release him? "

"That's exactly what I said!" Shouted Maze, furious. She took a deep breath. "I don't think Amenadiel is on our side anymore. His dad apparently told him he was the favorite, and now he's his little soldier again." She sneered. "He doesn't even want to hear me!"

In pure anger, she threw her knife in the middle of the living room wall, and waltzed to her room. Unable to hold anything anymore, Chloe burst into tears.

Her breakdown only lasted for a short while, but Maze caught her while emerging from her room. Under the blur of tears, Chloe saw her promise something about Amenadiel's ass, and leave. But she couldn't stay like that. She had things to do, leads to search: Lucifer was taken somewhere, and if this was indeed his family's doing, then it was more than time they answered to justice. Settling again with the deadfull pictures of her case and her lapd computer, she started looking.

A short knock came from the door. She rushed: Maze had been gone for hours, maybe she had finally convinced Amenadiel? This was their best chance. That bonkers family was maddeningly impossible to track.

Lucifer was there. Shirtless, burnt and crackled like an old parchment, all smile.

- "Hello, Detective! Sorry I'm late, I got hold up a bit. You look horrible, is everything all right?"