ADANNA P.O.V (point if view)
The first thing Eden gives me is silence....not peace, just silence. It's the kind that rings, the kind that follows an explosion when your ears are still trying to remember how sound works. The system retracts slowly, like it's afraid to tear something important on the way out. I'm still standing when the interface disengages.
Barely, my knees lock, my palms are slick with sweat. The white room tilts, then steadies, and the faces across from me are no longer composed.
They are panicking.... red alerts bloom across the walls like spreading blood.
"No," the woman whispers. "Shut it down."
A man shouts outside the door, another voice answers. Too many voices, too fast.
I taste metal. Eden is gone from my head now, but what it left behind is worse knowledge. I know which accounts just emptied themselves. I know which names are being erased in real time, not by me, but by men turning on each other.
The Syndicate doesn't collapse cleanly, it fractures.
"You did this," the woman says, her voice shaking. "You've destabilized....."
"You were already unstable," I interrupt, my throat raw. "You just hid it behind power."
She steps toward me, eyes sharp again, desperate. "You don't understand what you've unleashed."
I think of Darian on the floor, shaking, bleeding because they pushed him too far.
"I understand exactly," I say. "That's why I didn't hesitate."
Gunfire cracks somewhere down the corridor and the lights flicker.
The woman's control finally breaks. "If you leave this room," she says, almost pleading now, "you won't survive the fallout."
I meet her gaze, exhausted but steady. "Neither will you."
I turn away before she can respond, because if I don't leave now, my legs will give out and because I need him.
DARIAN P.O.V (point of view)
They think I'm finished and that's their mistake. I push myself up from the concrete floor slowly, every muscle screaming like it's been flayed. My hands shake and my vision swims. Eden didn't leave gently, it ripped pieces out of me and stitched new ones back in.
But I'm standing and the moment I do, the old instincts snap back into place.
Noise above me, footsteps, panic and the Syndicate is eating itself alive.
Good!
I pull the burner from my pocket.... cracked screen, blood smeared across the edge and scroll through contacts I swore I'd never use again.
Old debts.....old blood.
"Darian?" a voice answers, wary, already afraid of what saying yes might cost him.
"I need extraction," I say. "And I need eyes inside."
There was a pause, then a breath. "You burned the board."
"I lit the match," I correct. "They poured the fuel."
There came another pause and time, it was longer.
"Send coordinates," he says finally. "You've got maybe fifteen minutes before the counterforce locks the area down." I hang up
Fifteen minutes is a lifetime if you know how to spend it.
I move through back corridors I memorized years ago, shoulders hunched, every step deliberate. Men run past me without looking twice with panic erases patterns.
That's when I feel it.
Adanna!
Not through Eden but through something older. The pull in my chest sharpens, undeniable, she's close.
ADANNA P.O.V (point of view)
The corridor smells like ozone and gun oil.
I brace myself against the wall when my legs finally betray me, breath coming in shallow bursts. Every nerve feels rubbed raw, like Eden peeled me open and left me exposed to the world.
I shouldn't move but move anyway, around the corner....and there he is.
Darian stands at the far end of the hall, blood drying at his temple, jacket torn, eyes burning with something fierce and alive and entirely him.
For a second, neither of us moves, then he's walking toward me.....then he's running.
I don't remember leaving the wall. I don't remember my feet hitting the floor. I only remember his hands on my face, his forehead pressed to mine like he's checking that I'm real.
"You're here," he breathes, voice breaking. "You're alive."
"So are you," I whisper, fingers clutching his jacket like if I let go, he'll disappear again.
He laughs once.... a broken, disbelieving sound, then pulls me into his chest hard enough to knock the air out of me.
I don't complain.
I bury my face in his neck instead, breathing him in Oil, rain, blood and home.
"You shouldn't have done that," he murmurs into my hair. "You shouldn't have gone into Eden."
"You shouldn't have gone in alone," I shoot back, my voice shaking. "You almost died."
His arms tighten. "I would've, if it meant keeping you out."
I pull back just enough to look at him. "I didn't do it for the Syndicate."
"I know," he says softly. "You did it for me."
The way he says it, like it scares him...makes my chest ache.
Alarms scream suddenly, closer now.
Reality crashes back in.
"We don't have long," he says. "They're regrouping."
"Let them," I reply. "They can't undo what Eden exposed."
He studies my face, thumb brushing under my eye where tears threaten. "You're not okay."
I huff weakly. "Neither are you."
"Fair."
Then, because danger has always sharpened truth between us, he leans down and kisses me. It's not gentle but desperate.
Our mouths collide like we're trying to anchor each other to the world. His hand slides into my hair, holding me there, like he needs to feel me breathe to believe I'm real.
I kiss him back just as fiercely, pouring everything I didn't say into it... fear, love, anger, relief.
When we break apart, foreheads touching, we're both shaking.
"Whatever happens now," he says, voice low, steady despite everything, "you don't face it alone. Not ever again."
I nod, swallowing hard. "Same."
DARIAN P.O.V(point of view)
We don't leave quietly.
Explosions echo through the lower levels.... controlled, surgical. Someone is burning records, someone else is running.
The Syndicate is done pretending it's unified. I guide Adanna through a service stairwell, my body instinctively shielding hers, even though she's proven she doesn't need it.
Outside, the night is chaos.
Vehicles screech. Drones scatter. Men shout orders no one is listening to anymore.
My contact's van rolls into view like a ghost.
We're almost there when my comm buzzes.
Unknown channel.
I answer anyway.
"Darian," a familiar voice says.
Azaan.
Alive. Of course he is.
"You think you've won," he continues calmly. "But you've only exposed the rot. Power doesn't disappear, it moves."
I glance at Adanna, her hand tight in mine.
"Then chase it," I reply. "We're done playing your game."
Azaan chuckles. "You and the girl just declared war."
I smile grimly. "No, We ended one."
I cut the channel.
The van door slams open. We climb in, breathless, bruised, alive.
As the vehicle pulls away, I look at Adanna... really look at her.
She's exhausted, dangerous, luminous.
Eden didn't respond to her because of code.
It responded because she chooses people over power and that terrifies men like Azaan.
She leans her head on my shoulder, eyes closing for just a second.
"Darian?" she murmurs.
"Yes."
"If this doesn't stop… if they come for us again..."
"They will," I say honestly.
She nods. "Then we don't run."
"No," I agree, pressing my lips to her hair. "Next time, we're ready."
Outside, the city burns quietly... not with fire, but with truth and somewhere deep in the dark, Eden watches.
Not as a weapon but as a witness.
To be continued.....