Until I Die

Chapter 27 Hurricane

Hurricane

Men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.

Iwent to him every night, just like I promised.

Sometimes, his smiles came easily. Other times he’d crawl into bed, desperate and reckless, long after I’d fallen asleep.

He’d kiss me awake and use my body to erase the memories of whatever had happened, the things he’d been forced to do.

I always offered what he needed, whether it was hard and fast or excruciatingly slow.

Every day, as the days grew shorter and the nights colder, the risk he took heightened. Each new piece of information had to be catalogued and scrutinized so it couldn’t be traced back to him.

I wanted to hide from it all, but now that I’d returned to headquarters, Lucas’s paranoia over my safety intensified, and he redoubled his efforts to make me a competent fighter.

In our training room one evening, he handed me a throwing knife. “They’re spreading false information now.”

I held it by the blade the way he’d shown me, flinging with a snap of my arm. It bounced off the wall like all the others, landing on the carpet.

My shoulders fell. “What did I do wrong that time?”

“You’re putting too much force into it.”

I sighed, wiggling my shoulders. “So they’re trying to ferret you out?”

He shrugged, handing me another knife. “I’m staying ahead of it for now.”

Another toss. Another knife on the floor.

“But?” I lifted an eyebrow

“I’ll slip up eventually, Soph.”

My heart cracked a little more each time I imagined him taken from me. His downfall was coming, and he gripped me tighter and tighter every night.

He crossed the room to scoop up the knives.

Dark waves fell into his face as he bent forward, and he tossed them away with a sharp jerk of his head.

It said something that the NSF’s soldiers weren’t keeping to the strict military grooming standards—just another small clue that they were falling apart, all thanks to him.

It was like waiting for a hurricane. The storm grew more powerful as it inched toward us, and I had no way to evacuate. No wish to. I sat helpless, prepared to drown.

When the December executions arrived, Lucas was up to play hangman, and he turned silent in the days leading up to it.

Sitting at the kitchen table the night before, he stared blankly at the wall.

“Lucas?” I slid a hand over his shoulder, trying to spark some life into him.

His eyes lifted, face blank.

“What can I do?”

A slow breath expelled from his lungs. “I’m just so tired.”

My throat ached. Tears slipped from my eyes. I hugged him close.

As requested, I didn’t watch, but he came home haunted by darkness and jerked awake six times that night.

The sixth time, he squeezed me tight. “I thought I’d be dead by now. Why am I still doing this?”

“Because I need you. We all need you to help end this.” I kissed him hard and gripped him as if he could be ripped from my arms any second.

Because he could.

He’d backed himself into a deadly corner, and I sensed the ties that held us together fraying. He never said it, but a bleak and biting sense of hopelessness ate at him. No good options remained for him. Everything would hurt until the end.

At night he’d bolt upright and freeze, reaching until his hand closed around some piece of me.

“Shh,” I’d say. “I’m right here.”

And every time, his tourniquet-tight grip would tug me as close as possible. As the nights passed, his embrace grew so rigid it hurt, threaded with filaments of desperation and fear.

The new year had dawned before Theo presented me with a signed statement of Lucas’s absolution. Provided he continued to offer aid and didn’t undermine or hinder the Defiance, he was granted a pardon from war crimes.

“I’m only doing this for you, Sophia. Williams doesn’t know.” Theo pressed the document into my expectant hand. He didn’t let it go. “I love you, Soph. I hope you understand that. I never wanted any of this for you.” He released the paper.

I studied his brown eyes, the lines creasing his forehead. “Thank you for this, Theo. Can I trust it’s real?”

He sighed. “I’ll do what I can, but if you two are smart, you’ll steer clear of Nia Williams.”

I didn’t tell Lucas. Fancy piece of paper or no, if I stood between him and the Defiance, they’d slaughter me to reach him, and Lucas knew it.

When I wasn’t with Lucas, I kept busy in the hospital wing. After hearing my cover story, Zara had examined my leg, her gaze clouded in confusion over who had treated it. “It looks better than what I could have done,” she said. “Who did you say took care of you again?”

“I didn’t,” I said. “It was someone at Safe House Green.”

The notch on her brow only deepened, and she peered closer at my leg, then into my eyes. “Sophia.”

I flinched.

“You weren’t really at Safe House Green, were you?”

I swallowed and said nothing.

She nodded. “Please tell me you’re safe.”

“I’m safe,” I whispered. “It’s just…classified.”

At that, she released a sigh, and we returned to our shifts.

Devon asked repeatedly where I went every night. I finally took him aside to explain.

“Classified?” he said, eyes wide.

“Yeah. Theo’s orders.”

He gripped my shoulder. “But you’re okay?”

“I’m okay. I promise.”

Since the summer, my involvement with Jayden had dwindled to nothing. He’d tried to sleep with me twice, but he’d been rebuffed both times.

After the third time, he frowned. “Something wrong, Sophia?”

“I just don’t want to anymore.”

He sighed, defeated. “Alright. Yeah. It was fun while it lasted, though.”

“Yeah.”

“Friends then?” He gave me a smile.

I paused. “Friends?” We’d never been friends…

“Yeah, girl.” He brushed my cheek with his thumb. “I’ll take what I can get.”

I blinked in confusion. “Sure. Friends.”

Adam continued to throw me his big grins, but he rarely approached. The lingering glances we exchanged made me think he was just waiting for the maelstrom to hit. Of all my friends, he was the one who seemed to understand my predicament the best.

I was certain he knew.

He just didn’t know who.

Following the completion of Lucas’s plan to cut NAO supply lines, the eastern and western Hunter forces divorced.

Rumor had it that the Security Restoration Campaign was failing, and the fighting had pushed all the way to the eastern seaboard.

As Lucas predicted, Haynes turned his attention to the civil war.

He wanted us gone.

We wanted this over.

The aggression escalated. Tension overtook headquarters, like we walked on tightropes that could snap at any second. Soldiers marched into missions and never returned. Safe houses fell on both sides. Civilians lost their lives trying to flee the urban battlefields.

“I just want it to end,” I whispered into Lucas’s chest while he held me one night in January.

“I know, sweetheart.”

Why did there have to be such pointless hate? I told him about my forest, and when panic clawed at my lungs, he’d murmur into my hair, “Tall trees. Warm rain. Smell of cypress.”

It usually helped, but every day the disquiet would rebuild. Men and women came back from missions with fear and anguish on their faces. I treated their bodily injuries, but I could do nothing for the wounds in their minds. Even if the war ended, another would begin—the fight to heal.

Scars existed deep inside all of us—the unhealing wounds of lost faith, broken integrity, bone-deep fear. We’d been so bright and shiny at the beginning, full of life and conviction. We had no idea. None of us had suffered. None of us had known genuine terror.

Good triumphs. That’s what we told ourselves. And we believed it, too.

So stupid.

Now we only wanted to survive, and some of us didn’t even want that.

Medics struggled to keep up with the injuries, and most days we held each other while we sobbed our failures onto a sympathetic shoulder.

I lost my own share of patients, and I numbed myself to their deaths as best I could, but I sometimes vomited up my dinner from anxiety.

Zara would always hold my hair back, and when she asked if I wanted to talk about it, I never had the words to explain.

“It’s alright, Sophia,” she said. “I get it. Can I give you a hug?”

Her hugs reminded me of Mom.

Lucas was the rock I stood upon, but as he gave more information, the rock crumbled.

We held each other with brutal force, leaving behind fingerprint bruises.

The fear of loss sharpened, like a knife poised at our throats, caressing while it cut.

I sensed it every time we touched, with each deep look into each other’s eyes…

The end drew near.

A heavy snow fell in late January. Trapped for days, Lucas assured me no missions would take place in such weather.

“Sometimes I think I’d sacrifice myself if it meant ending this war,” I whispered to him as we lay under cover of darkness.

His fingers danced absently over my skin. “I’d sacrifice ending this war if it meant saving you.”

I turned toward him, but his eyes were closed, as if that admission wasn’t shocking. He’d just said I mattered more to him than anything else. How could he say that like it was nothing?

His fingers moved.

Down. Right. Curve. Curve. Diagonal.

Always the same pattern, seemingly random, but my heart thudded as I connected the motions to familiar symbols.

These touches weren’t absent at all.

They were letters.

L-U-C-A-S-S-C-O-T-T

He… He was signing his name on my skin.

Thrills of electricity shot down my nerves, chased by warmth. How long had he been doing this? I replayed the dozens of times he’d touched me like this. When had it started? When had he grown possessive enough to sign his longing into my skin?

Why did I love it so much?

The NAO thought women a subspecies, and living under that regime made me crave independence above all. I never thought I’d want a possessive man, but there I was, needing to be possessed by him. I wanted to be his on a deep, biological level. It was a basic instinct of survival.

Stay with him. He loves you more than himself. He will keep you safe.

The world had gone mad.

Darkness reigned over us.

But the connection between me and Lucas glowed, a tenuous light of hope. As his fingers traced his name across my skin, I wished those letters could be seen, that some part of him could mark me permanently.

Because I feared—I knew—the light wouldn’t last. Hope never amounted to anything, and he walked the fine edge of a knife that grew thinner every day. Eventually, he’d fall, the slice fatal.

I scooted closer, nipping his shoulder. My hand pressed over his heart. “Can I have this?”

A tiny smile materialized as he nodded. “Whatever’s left of it.”

I kissed his chest. “It’s all in there. Maybe a little damaged, but I can fix it.”

“I’m sure you’re stubborn enough to try.”

We fell asleep wrapped in each other, and the next morning, I floated in the nebulous world between sleep and consciousness. He played with my hand, his finger dragging over each of mine, from knuckle to tip. At my middle finger, he paused, and something caught around it.

I blinked my eyes open as he slid a gold band onto it. His sister’s ring. He twisted it twice before meeting my eyes.

“You wanna wear that for me?” His voice was husky from sleep.

I melted into the earnest desire in his eyes. “For how long?”

“As long as you want to.”

I touched the band, following the delicate filigree before matching his gaze once more. “Why?”

“I don’t want anyone else to have it.” His fingers laced through mine.

My fragile heart finally shattered.

He didn’t want it to end up in the wrong hands. After his death, he wanted his sister’s ring to stay with someone he cared for.

“Lucas—”

“I know, Sophia. Just…don’t.”

Tears burned my eyes, but I held them back. “I’m scared.”

He touched my face, drawing his thumb down my jaw and throat. “You don’t have to be scared. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

“I’m scared for you.”

Mouth tense, he didn’t answer.

“I don’t want to be alone,” I whispered.

His eyes squeezed shut. “We’re all alone.”

I gripped him, the sheets bunching beneath us. “I’m not alone now. Stay with me. Forever.”

“Until I die. That was the deal.”

My hand swiped at the defiant tears. “That isn’t g-good enough!”

His voice thickened. “I’d give you anything, Sophia, if it were possible.”

“It is, Lucas.” I sniffled. “We could hide.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know!” The desperation clogged my throat.

“Don’t do this. Breathe, sweetheart.”

I couldn’t.

“Breathe!”

My fingers clawed into him, but he was used to wearing the marks from my hands.

“Now, Sophia! Breathe.”

A bit of air made it in with a gasp, and then I was breathing too fast. He kissed my forehead.

“I don’t want to lose you,” I said through my choking tears.

He tried to soothe me, but terror had me in its claws.

I could already imagine the pain of his loss, and I wasn’t certain I’d survive it again.

His would be worse than the others. Before him, I hadn’t known this sort of love, hadn’t believed it existed.

It was possible to survive losing it. People did it all the time.

They loved. They lost. They moved on. I didn’t want to be one of them.

My fatalistic desire was to die with him.

What was the point of living when everyone else died?

Savage and painful, I kissed him like it was my last chance. I would’ve been perfectly happy to fade into him, even if it hurt to do it.

Tasting the salt of my tears on his lips, I fought my way on top of him. We grasped each other, clawing to get closer. I straddled him, and he sat up. As I sank down onto him, I shut my eyes to revel in it. My arms wrapped around his neck while his hands clutched my hips, guiding the rhythm.

We were usually careful. Even in our most desperate moments, he’d been sure to protect me from consequences.

But we weren’t careful that morning. I climaxed with a hard shudder, and his fingers gripped me, driving himself deep as he came inside me.

I didn’t care. Reckless as always, I wanted every bit of him and any repercussions that resulted. When it was done and we both panted in the afterglow, he pressed a kiss to the rapid pulse at my throat, and I stared at the gold glinting on my finger.

His kiss on my skin. His seed in my womb. His ring on my finger. This was the last will and testament of Lucas Scott.

I gave in to the tears