The echo of the message was still burning in my mind when she whispered my name. "He's alive," she said, her voice trembling with something that sounded like hope and fear tangled together. Her eyes caught the firelight ,wide, bright, desperate. Hope is dangerous in our world. Hope gets people killed. I kept my eyes on the fire instead. The screen had gone black long ago, but those words stayed with me like a scar. He's alive. Ravel was a test. Trust no one. I'd seen a hundred ghost transmissions in my career. Every trap looks like salvation until it closes around your throat. Still, the phrasing, the encryption, the code structure, it was Liam's. He'd built it. Or someone who wanted her to think he had. "Adrian?" I looked up. Elara was still clutching the dead phone like it might come back to life. "Could it be real?" she asked. "It's a signal," I said. "But a signal isn't proof." Her jaw set. "Then we find proof." The fire threw gold across her face, catching in her hair, and I had to look away before I forgot how to think. She wasn't her brother , she was worse. He had followed orders. She made them. We left before dawn. Fog sat heavy on the mountains, curling around the trees as we climbed toward the ridge where the signal originated. The path was rough, slick from rain. Elara walked ahead, stubborn as ever, one hand steady on her weapon. When the old communications tower came into view, she stopped. It rose from the fog like a grave marker ,tall, skeletal, and humming faintly with power that shouldn't exist. "I thought you said it was abandoned," she murmured. "I did," I said, scanning the shadows. "Apparently I was wrong." The hum of generators reached us. I motioned for her to follow, and she did, silent, focused. Inside, the air was thick with dust and static. The monitors flickered weakly. And then I heard it. "If you're hearing this, they found me.
Don't trust Ross. Don't trust Pierce. Trust only the signal." Liam's voice. Elara froze. I watched her hands tighten, the tremor in her breath. She moved toward the speaker, whispering his name like it might bring him back. "Liam…" Something about the sound was wrong. The rhythm was off, the pitch too even. I leaned closer, adjusting the dial. A second voice bled through the static ,slower, darker. "They're watching you, Elara." I didn't hesitate. "Down!" She barely had time to react before I grabbed her and dropped to the floor. A drone burst through the broken window, red light slicing through the room. I fired once. It spun, sparking, and crashed into the desk. Another followed. Then another. We ran. The tower's structure shuddered as explosions ripped through the base.
The shockwave threw us into the dirt outside. I covered her, feeling the heat lick the back of my neck. When the noise faded, the tower was a column of smoke. I rolled off her, breathing hard. "You good?" She nodded, chest rising fast, eyes burning with something sharp and alive. "They were tracking the signal." "Yeah." Her gaze locked on mine. "Then it worked." I frowned. "Worked?" "They wanted us to find this place," she said. "They wanted us to hear him." Her face was streaked with ash, her hair tangled from the wind and still, somehow, she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. "Maybe they wanted us dead," I said. "Then they should've tried harder." I should've laughed, but I didn't. I couldn't. I was too busy looking at her mouth, the faint smear of dirt across her cheek, the pulse at her throat. She stepped closer, voice low. "You're bleeding again." "Seems to happen around you." She smiled, small, dangerous. "Then maybe you should stop saving me." "I've tried," I said, and I meant it. She looked up at me through the smoke and fog, eyes steady and defiant. "Try harder." I didn't. I kissed her instead. It wasn't gentle. It wasn't planned. It was raw and desperate the kind of kiss that felt like survival and surrender all at once.
Her hands fisted in my shirt, dragging me closer; mine slid to her waist, grounding her against me. The taste of rain, the burn of adrenaline, the heat of her breath everything blurred. The world around us disappeared until there was only the sound of wind and her heartbeat hammering against mine. When we broke apart, both of us were shaking. "This is insane," she whispered. "This is real," I said. She didn't answer, but her eyes told me enough. She wanted to hate me. She couldn't anymore. Then something flashed in the corner of my eye, a blinking red light in the wreckage of one of the drones. I pulled away, crouching to examine it.
The lens was cracked, the feed still running static. I rewound it, the image coming into focus — Liam.
Alive. Bruised.
Looking straight into the camera. Elara gasped. "It's him." "Yeah," I said quietly. "But he's not free." She crouched beside me, trembling. "How do you know?" I pointed to the corner of the image , a hawk insignia burned into the background with two initials beneath it. N.P. Noah Pierce. Her expression collapsed. "No… Noah wouldn't he's my friend." "He's Ross's informant," I said. "He's been feeding them every step we take." She stood, anger shaking through her. "Then he's next." I straightened too, meeting her eyes. "Then we do it together." Lightning split the sky, bathing her face in white. I didn't think. I just moved.
The second kiss was hotter ,not desperate this time, but deliberate. A claim, a promise, a burn that went straight through both of us. She met it with equal fire, no hesitation. Her hands slid up my chest; mine framed her face, thumbs brushing her jaw. When we broke apart, breathless, the taste of her still lingered like smoke. "Guess we're past the part where you tell me to run," she said. "You'd never listen anyway." "Exactly." She smiled ,fierce, fearless, and turned toward the path that led down the ridge. I followed, blood still humming, heart still unsteady. Somewhere in the storm, a war was waiting. And I was done pretending I wouldn't burn for her.