Chapter 83 Elara
Elara
The world outside was all fire and fury, but inside the warehouse, the silence was deafening.
We slipped through the service door, our boots whispering over concrete littered with shell casings and broken glass.
The air smelled of oil and smoke, sharp and heavy.
Somewhere beyond the walls, gunfire echoed like distant thunder—but here, for the first time in what felt like forever, there was only the two of us.
Beckett swept his rifle across the corridor, then lowered it. “Clear,” he murmured.
I pressed a hand against the wall to steady my breathing. My pulse hadn’t slowed since the first explosion, but it wasn’t fear anymore—it was anticipation. I could feel the fight waiting, like a shadow crouched just ahead.
Beckett turned, his face streaked with soot, sweat glinting along his jaw. “You holding up?”
“Ask me after we’re done,” I said, forcing a shaky smile.
He huffed a quiet laugh, just a breath of sound. “That’s fair.”
The dim emergency lights flickered, painting everything in red and shadow. He moved closer, scanning me the way he always did—like he was counting the seconds I was still standing.
“You don’t have to go in there with me,” he said.
“Don’t start.”
“Elara—”
“No.” I stepped closer, my hand on his chest, the warmth of him cutting through the chill. “We started this together. We end it together.”
His eyes caught mine in the red light, and for a moment, the war outside didn’t exist. There was just the sound of our breathing, the thud of his heartbeat under my palm.
He lifted a hand to my face, brushing away a streak of ash with his thumb. “You make it sound easy.”
“It’s not.”
“I know.” He smiled faintly, the kind that reached his eyes just enough to break something open inside me. “But it’s the only way I know how to live anymore.”
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved. The weight of everything unsaid pressed between us—the fear, the promise, the impossible hope that we might actually walk out of this.
Then he leaned in, forehead against mine. “If anything happens—I want you to know I love you.”
I cut him off with a whisper. “If anything happens, then it happens to both of us. I love you too much not to stand next to you.”
The lights flickered again. Far off, we heard the heavy groan of metal—doors opening deeper inside the warehouse. Viktor’s trap breathing to life.
Beckett pulled back, rifle in hand, eyes cold again. “It’s time.”
I nodded once, the tremor in my chest shifting into steel.
“Together?” he asked.
“Always,” I said.
And side by side, we walked toward the sound of our fate.