Chapter 36 Beckett
Beckett
The cave had gone quiet. Too quiet. Elara sat across from me, her knees drawn up, knife balanced across them like a second spine. Even at rest, she was coiled, dangerous.
I should’ve kept my eyes on the entrance, but instead they kept finding her in the flicker of moonlight spilling through the narrow crack above us.
Her braid was half unraveled, her face smeared with dust and blood.
She looked nothing like the diamond-edged woman Hydra had paraded through their circles.
She looked real.
And that was somehow harder to face.
“You don’t sleep, do you?” she asked, voice cutting through the silence.
I shifted, checking the rifle beside me. “Not when I’m on watch.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Her eyes narrowed, sharp even in the dark. “You carry it like I do. The things you’ve seen. The things you’ve done.”
My jaw tightened. “We all carry it.”
Her laugh was quiet and bitter. “No. Some of you bury it. Pretend it doesn’t rot under the surface. You… you wear it like armor.”
She wasn’t wrong. And for reasons I didn’t understand, I didn’t want to lie to her.
“Armor keeps people alive,” I said.
Her gaze held mine, unflinching. “And when the weight of it crushes you?”
The question landed too close. I looked away, into the dark. “Then I keep moving. There’s no other choice.”
Silence stretched. I expected her to push, to pry—but instead she let the quiet linger before she spoke again, softer this time.
“Hydra made me into something I didn’t recognize. I thought if I played the part long enough, I’d forget who I used to be.” Her hands clenched tight on the knife, knuckles white. “Sometimes I think I have.”
My chest tightened, something hot and sharp tearing through me. “You’re not what they made you.”
Her eyes flicked up, searching mine like she didn’t believe me.
“You fought for us tonight,” I said, voice low, steady. “That wasn’t Hydra. That was you.”
For the first time since I’d met her, her mask slipped without being ripped away. I saw the woman underneath—the fear, the guilt, the fragile thread of hope she tried to smother.
“Why do you keep saying that?” she whispered. “Why do you keep looking at me like I’m worth saving?”
The answer was simple and damning. “Because you are.”
The air between us snapped tight. She stared at me like she didn’t know whether to believe me or run. Then, slowly, her grip on the knife loosened. The blade slipped from her fingers, clattering softly to the stone floor.
In that sound, I heard the truth: she was letting me see her. Not the weapon Hydra built. Not the mask. Just her.
And I knew I’d kill anyone who tried to take that away again.