The wind was cold that night, not the sharp cold that bites the skin, but that strange, empty cold that makes the heart feel heavier than usual. The kind of cold that whispers that something is coming, whether you are ready or not.
Adanna remained kneeling on the ground long after Darian's shadow disappeared from the rooftop. Her fingers were still on the faint footprint he left behind, as if touching it would somehow make him real again. Her breath shook. Her heart felt like it was too full and too empty at the same time.
It couldn't be a coincidence and she wasn't imagining things. She knew that shape, she knew that voice, she knew that feeling that wrapped around her chest the moment she heard the whisper from the rafters.
A person can forget a dream.....a person can forget a memory but they can't forget the voice of the person they loved. Her hand slowly curled into a fist over the footprint.
"Darian…" she breathed again, softer this time, but filled with something she hadn't allowed herself to feel in months.
Hope....dangerous hope, because hope was a knife and hope could cut deeper than grief.
She pushed herself to her feet, dusting her palms on her jeans. Her legs were unsteady, but she forced them to move. She took one last look at the dark alleys where the figure vanished, then turned back toward the warehouse.
If she wasn't going to find him outside…
Then she would find what he left behind.
~Inside the Warehouse~
The moment she stepped back in, the silence felt different. Less empty, more alive as if the walls still held the echo of the almost-encounter.
Her flashlight beam cut through the darkness, and she moved slower this time, her senses wider, sharper. She walked toward the spot where she had heard the whisper first, beneath the rafters where he'd been hiding.
Her stomach fluttered with a strange mix of fear and longing.
She hadn't felt this since the night he died or.....the night she thought he died. She shook the thought off, climbing onto an overturned table to get a better look above. Her light swept across the ceiling pipes again. She didn't expect to find him still there, but she searched anyway.
Instead, she found something small near the beam where he had pressed himself earlier, something metallic reflecting light.... Her heart thudded and he stretched her hand up and grabbed it carefully.
A bullet casing...still warm.
Her throat tightened painfully. If she held it any tighter, it would crack in her palm.
He had been so close..... so close she could have reached him with just two more steps.
Her eyes burned as she whispered, "Why didn't you let me see you…?"
Her voice filled the silence like a lonely confession.... but she knew the answer. If Darian was alive and she felt it now more than ever then he wasn't just hiding for fun.
He was hiding because someone was trying to kill him.
Maybe the same people who tried to kill both of them that night...maybe worse.
Adanna climbed down, fingers shaking around the bullet casing. She tucked it into her pocket like something precious, because it was. It was the first real sign of him she had touched in months.
She walked to the center of the warehouse, stood there for a long moment, then said quietly....
"I will find you! Even if you don't want to be found yet… I will."
The words were strong but inside her chest, her heart trembled like glass.
Across the Rooftops, Darian sat on the rooftop two buildings away, his back pressed against the cold cement wall and his breathing was uneven, and he couldn't tell if it was from the pain in his ribs or from the way Adanna's voice kept replaying in his head. She had said his name like a prayer.
Like a wound...like a plea.
He covered his face with both hands, the roughness of scarred skin brushing his forehead, his body still hurt everywhere...the burns,the stitches,the knife wound in his side that kept reopening each time he ran too fast but none of that pain compared to what he felt when he saw her kneel on the ground looking broken and hopeful at the same time.
He didn't want that...he didn't want to be the reason she hurt again but he also knew this....
If she found out too soon... if she tried to help him now….. if she got close while the enemies he was tracking were still watching…
They would kill her! And he would rather die again than let that happen.
He took a deep breath, leaning his head back against the wall. The stars were hidden behind thick clouds tonight. The moon looked like a faint circle pressed behind dirty glass.
He whispered into the night...."I'm sorry."
The wind swallowed the apology but it was real.
He pulled out his radio device, the same one that crackled earlier and almost exposed him. He pressed his thumb against the side button and a distorted female voice answered immediately.
"Darian, status. Did she see you?"
He closed his eyes.
"Almost."
The voice sighed. "You're pushing too close, you should've stayed out of the building."
"She was walking straight into a trap," he muttered. "You expect me to just sit on a rooftop and watch her die?"
"Your priority is staying dead," the voice replied sharply. "As far as the world is concerned, you don't exist. If she realizes you're alive..."
"I won't let her die," he repeated, firmer this time. "I don't care what you say." and a heavy silence followed.
Finally the voice said coldly, "Then you better move fast because whoever left those clues to draw her to the warehouse… they're not done."
The radio crackled off and Darian clenched his jaw. He pushed himself to his feet despite the pain in his leg and limped to the edge of the roof and looked down at the warehouse, the place where he had watched the woman he loved kneel and whisper his name.
"Don't follow me, Adanna," he whispered, knowing she would....
"Not yet."
He vanished into the shadows.
Adanna didn't call anyone,she didn't report the sighting....she didn't even go straight home.
She walked in slow steps, each one feeling heavier than the last. The street was mostly empty, just a few flickering bulbs on power poles and distant sounds of generators humming somewhere in the night.
Her mind kept replaying the same things....
The whisper....the silhouette.....the footprint.....the blood...the bullet casing.
Her heart kept replaying something else...
His laughter.....his warmth....the way he used to call her "Adan" when he wanted to annoy her.
The way he held her face the night before the explosion and said,
"Don't worry. You're safe with me."
A lie...a promise... A truth.
She wasn't sure anymore.
Her phone vibrated suddenly, snapping her out of her thoughts. It was her friend, Mariam. Adanna hesitated before answering.
"Hello?"
Her voice was too soft. Mariam noticed immediately.
"Your voice sounds small. What happened? Where are you?"
"I'm on my way home."
"Did something go wrong? Your message said you were chasing a new lead."
Adanna closed her eyes. She couldn't tell her. Not yet.
"I… found something," she said quietly.
"What something?"
"Just… something."
Mariam sighed into the phone. "You're scaring me."
"I'm fine," Adanna forced out.
"You don't sound fine."
Adanna's throat tightened. Her steps slowed until she came to a complete stop beneath a dim streetlight. She stared at the ground as she whispered....
"I think I saw him."
Silence...long, sharp silence, then Mariam's voice dropped low.
"Adanna… don't do this to yourself."
"I'm serious."
"You're grieving. Sometimes the mind plays tricks."
"It wasn't a trick," Adanna insisted, her voice sounding defensive even to her own ears. "He was there.... I heard him, I saw his shadow.....his footprint was fresh and the blood was warm."
"Blood?" Mariam asked quietly.
Adanna swallowed. "Yes."
"Then maybe it was someone else. People get injured every day..."
"It was him."
She didn't shout it, but those words cut like a blade. Mariam stayed silent for a long while, then, very softly....
"And if you're wrong?"
Adanna blinked hard,her eyes burned.
"Then… I'll break again," she whispered."But I'd rather break than ignore what I saw."
Mariam exhaled shakily. "Okay, Come home first. We'll think after you rest. Just… come home."
"I'm coming."
She hung up, but she didn't move right away. She pressed her fingers to the bullet casing in her pocket and whispered into the night:
"I know you're alive.... and I'm going to find you, Darian. Even if you hide in every shadow."
~Somewhere in the City....The Watchers~
The warehouse wasn't as empty as Adanna thought.
A man stood behind the broken window frame she had climbed through earlier. He had watched her the entire time, watched her kneel, watched her run outside, watched her whisper to the night.
His lips lifted into a slow, cold smile.
"So she felt him," he murmured.
Another figure stepped out of the darkness beside him.
"Should we follow her?"
"No, let her go. She's useful now, she'll lead us straight to him."
The second figure frowned. "And if he doesn't show himself?"
The man's smile widened....
"He will. Darian always comes running when she's involved."
He picked up something from the dusty floor.... a tiny device the size of a coin. He wiped the dust from it carefully.
A tracker!
One Darian never noticed falling from his gear during his scramble across the rafters. The man twirled it between his fingers.
"Let's see how long he can hide now."
~Adanna's House.... The Night That Refused to End~
Adanna reached home an hour later. She locked the door behind her and leaned against it, letting her bag fall to the floor. Her legs finally gave up, and she slid down slowly until she sat on the ground.
The house was dark... quiet.....too quiet.
She should sleep..... she should rest and she should try to think like a normal person, but nothing felt normal anymore.
She stood up, walked to her room, sat on the floor by her bed, and pulled out her small notebook...the one she kept all her investigation notes in.
She flipped to a blank page and at the top, she wrote...
THINGS I SAW TONIGHT
Under it she wrote slowly...
1. Shadow of a man matching his height
2. Voice exactly like his
3. Fresh footprint
4. Warm blood
5. Bullet casing (Darian uses same type)
6. Someone was watching me
She stopped at the last one, because even if she hadn't seen anyone, she felt it.
Eyes!
In the warehouse... outside..... on the walk home.
Someone else was involved tonight....someone other than Darian.
She stared at the paper until her vision blurred.
Her chest ached.... her hand trembled again, Then she wrote one more thing....
7. He is alive, I know it.
Then she closed the notebook, She brought her knees to her chest, resting her forehead against them, and whispered:
"Why didn't you let me see your face…?"
No one answered.....but somewhere in the city, a man with scars and pain in his bones stopped on a rooftop and looked toward her neighborhood.
As if he heard her.....as if the bond between them still lived.
His whisper floated into the empty night...."Soon. I promise."
To be continued....