Seraphina
"Kael, get up." His breathing fell in a shallow rhythm as I felt his pulse. He was still alive, but for how long?
"Alexa, where are we headed?" The AI voice of Alexa rippled through the car speaker.
"We are headed to Zone Three." Zone Three? Where the hell was that?
Kael muttered something I couldn't quite understand.
My attention shifted to him once more. "Hang in there, we're getting you somewhere safe."
A smirk appeared on his lips before he managed to lift his face to meet my eyes.
"Ironic coming from you. That's usually my line."
"Shut up, Kael. If you talk too much, you might lose more blood." He stirred as if he hadn't heard what I'd said.
"Hold tight, Princess. I'm only bleeding. I'm not dead yet. Plus, this is only a minor wound. Once we get to somewhere safer, I'll take care of it."
"Alexa, change route. Take us to the White House."
He spoke again to the Ai unit with a rather commanding tone.
"Noted. Destination changed to the White House."
Immediately, the car swerved off the street and drove through an entirely different path.
The men that had been chasing us were suddenly behind.
I had a feeling in my gut that they were all eliminated, and once again the nausea that had been threatening to come out suddenly rose from my throat, but I had to swallow it with disgust.
Now wasn't the time to puke.
I turned and faced Kael once more. His eyes were closed, and he looked like he was trying to hold onto whatever was left of his consciousness.
"Quit staring at me like that, Seraphina. Like I said, I'm not dead yet. It would take more than one bullet to end me."
"Stop talking, Kael. You shouldn't even be talking about death in this state, seeing that you look desperately close to it." He grinned mischievously before fully opening his eyes.
He kept his gaze on mine. His expression was intense; I felt the air disappearing from my lungs.
I couldn't turn my eyes away either, and we just sat there, staring at each other.
Kael had saved me today. If all things had gone in the wrong direction, I would have been dead by now. Both of us. His gaze dropped from my face, and I breathed out almost immediately.
Maybe I should call Bridget and inform her of what happened, but I wasn't in the right frame of mind to speak to anyone else. A cold feeling rose up in my chest. If I had died today, I would have gone alone.
Not in the sense of being dead, but in the reality that I had no one to mourn my death. I was completely and utterly alone in this world.
Warm hands grabbed mine, and I turned to see Kael looking at me with a worried expression on his face.
"Everything is fine, Amorcito. We survived. Don't think about anything else." The way he spoke to me in that reassuring tone, even though he was the one in pain, made me almost shed a tear.
I managed a smile before turning to face the window. I could see the city come alive from the warm protection of the car.
We were way past the chaos and were slowly approaching the buzzing parts of the city.
Agrevia had grown and advanced in the past years. It was a good thing, and no matter how much I was paid, I would never go back to those times.
Women were barely respected and were treated like garbage. Take the life of a woman, and it's the same reaction you'd expect when one killed a cow.
Women were gravely marginalized, and if they ever tried to stand up for themselves, they were brutally assaulted and, in very common cases, killed.
I only lasted this long because I was born into royalty. I shuddered at the thought of what could have been my own reality.
"We are here." Alexa's voice barked from the car's sound system. I stirred up, trying to take in our surroundings.
We were at the supposed White House, and by God, it was the finest building my eyes had ever seen.
The so-called White House wasn't what I expected. It wasn't white at all—more like a soft shade of ivory, smooth and clean, the kind of building that looked too quiet to belong in a city still bleeding from chaos.
Tall glass panels caught the faint glow of the moon, and the air here felt… untouched.
What was this place? The gates opened by themselves after Alexa muttered an indecipherable sentence, which I guessed was some secret code.
As we drove through, I noticed a fountain at the center, water dancing around a marble statue of Cupid.
It was beautiful, almost unnervingly so. The calm here didn't feel natural; it felt controlled, like every inch of the place was built to make you forget the world outside.
The quietness of the environment was a sharp contrast to the chaos we had witnessed.
I was going to ask Kael where this place was when I saw a tall blonde walk out of the building. Her gaze was intense, and it was clear that she was trying to keep it together.
She stopped in front of the car, and her mouth moved. Almost immediately, the car doors opened by themselves.
Blondie rushed to the door, and her face contorted with worry as she rushed towards Kael.
"What happened to you?" She reached for him, and Kael showed no restraint or an atom of resistance. For some very strange reason, I wished we were back in the chaos and not here.
"I'm fine. Take care of Seraphina," Kael mumbled.
As if she just noticed my presence, her eyes darted between me and Kael.
"Who's this?" she asked in a suspiciously heightened tone.
"Stop asking stupid questions, Cleo." He turned to me before speaking again. "Get down, Seraphina. Cleo will show you where we'll be staying until this whole thing clears."
Absolutely fucking not. There was no way I was staying in the same environment with this woman.
Plus, I had so many questions, and I needed answers immediately.
As if reading my mind, Kael replied again, "I'll explain everything, I promise. Once I take care of this wound, I'll come meet you. You're safe now, Seraphina." He said my name in a breathless whisper.
Blondie's face looked red, and a weird feeling appeared in my stomach. Whatever this was, I hope I make it out of here alive.