Chapter 41
ELLA
Iwake to empty air.
The first thing I feel is the cold. The kind that crawls under your skin and sets up camp in your bones.
The unfamiliar ceiling of the safehouse is dark, the smell of damp concrete heavy in the room. I try to sit up, but my head swims with a thick, unnatural fog.
I shouldn't be this tired. I only closed my eyes for an hour after we arrived.
My hand reaches out before my brain’s even online—searching for warmth, for the little rise and fall of his breath beside me.
There’s nothing.
The sheets are twisted. The travel crib I set up is empty.
My heart starts pounding so hard I think I can hear it echo.
“Vex?” My voice comes out rough, too soft at first. Then louder. “Vex!”
No answer.
The blanket’s on the floor, crumpled like he dropped it mid-dream. I touch it. Cold.
My throat goes dry. The taste of copper floods my mouth as I spin toward the door—half-hinged, splintered down the middle. Forced.
They got in while I slept. They drugged me.
Oh, gods.
I don’t remember standing up. I just move.
“VEX!” I scream again, tearing through the next room. Nothing. My pulse is in my ears, drowning everything else out. I rip open the storage crates, the ones I packed myself hours ago, half-expecting to find him hiding, playing, something.
Empty.
Everywhere I look, it’s empty.
My hands shake as I slap the comm unit to life. Static. No connection. Someone’s jammed it. I rip the panel open, wires spilling like guts, and start rerouting by instinct—nothing. The interference is too deep. The bastards left nothing to trace.
I run for the terminal. Pull up the data logs. Gone. Every line of security feed, every ping, every trace of entry. Deleted like they were never there.
“Vex,” I whisper again, but my voice breaks halfway through his name.
The walls feel too close. The air’s too thin. I can smell ozone—burnt circuitry and a sickly sweet chemical tang. My head swims.
Gas. That’s how they did it.
I grab the comm again, punch in Takhiss’s frequency. The signal doesn’t even blink. Dead line.
“Come on,” I snarl. “Come on, answer me.”
Nothing.
I try again. Harder. Louder.
“TAKHISS!”
Silence.
I try my father next. No response. The line rings once, twice—then cuts.
The world tilts sideways. I’m on the floor before I realize I’ve fallen, knees slamming into cold tile. I can’t breathe. My hands are trembling so bad I can barely keep them on the keypad.
Gone.
He’s gone.
My baby’s gone.
I choke on a sob, clutching at the air like I can pull him back from it. My throat burns. My nails dig crescents into my palms. I can’t think, can’t plan, can’t—
Then something clicks.
Clint.
The name bursts through the fog in my skull like a flare in the dark.
Clint Rogers.
If anyone can find a ghost in this kind of chaos, it’s him.
I drag myself up by the table edge. My vision’s still swimming, but I force the backup terminal online—old, clunky, analog-coded so it can’t be jammed remotely. I slam in his contact string from memory.
The console spits back a warning—long-range encryption unstable—but I don’t care. I override the limiter.
Static floods the line.
“Clint… Clint, it’s Ella,” I rasp, words tumbling out between ragged breaths. “Vex is gone. They took him. They forced the door—logs wiped—signal jammed. I need you. I need Aces High. Now.”
I hit send before the system collapses under the interference. The console sparks, blue light searing my eyes, and then goes black.
That’s it. Message sent or lost—I don’t know.
I stand there in the dark, shaking, my breath loud enough to fill the room. The only sound left is the storm outside, wind howling through the cracked windows like it’s mourning for me.
I stumble toward the travel crib again, because I can’t not look. His stuffed mech toy is still there, one arm half torn off, buttons glowing weakly in the dim light. I pick it up. It smells like him. That mix of dust, detergent, and something sweet I can’t ever name.
The smell guts me.
I drop to my knees again, clutching the stupid toy to my chest. The fabric’s damp from my tears before I even realize I’m crying.
I rock back and forth, the way I used to when he was a baby and colic kept him up half the night. My voice cracks.
“I’ll find you,” I whisper. “I swear it, baby. I’ll find you.”
The words echo in the empty room, swallowed by the wind.
Minutes—or maybe hours—pass before I move again. I can’t tell.
When I finally force myself to stand, I notice something I missed before. A mark near the doorframe.
Tiny. Subtle.
A faint scorch in the metal.
I crouch. Touch it. The edge is still warm. My stomach drops.
It’s from a plasma cutter—portable, surgical. The kind used by professionals. Not some random thief or local gang. Whoever did this was clean. Fast. Trained.
And the smell in the air… that chemical sweetness I tasted when I woke up.
Ataxian sterilizer. Sedative mix.
My pulse stutters.
Coalition.
Autrua.
I slam my fist into the wall so hard my knuckles split. “You goddamn witch.”
The room spins again, fury replacing fear. It’s almost a relief. Rage is easier. Rage keeps you moving.
I start throwing things into a bag—tools, spare ammo, medkits. My hands move on autopilot, but my mind’s a hurricane. I need a plan. A route. I need to assume Clint gets the message—but I can’t just sit here waiting.
If Autrua’s people took Vex, they’ll move fast. Diplomatic convoy, maybe. Or a Coalition drop. They’ll want him off-planet before I can make noise.
Fine.
Then I’ll make noise first.
The safehouse’s floor creaks behind me. I whirl around, gun raised before the sound even registers. The sight of my own shadow in the mirror almost makes me laugh.
“Losing it,” I mutter. “Completely losing it.”
I shove the gun back into its holster and head for the main control room. One of the power cells is fried—probably when they jammed the comms—but there’s still enough juice to trigger a localized burst. It’ll fry every surveillance node in a two-mile radius. No one’s tracking me after that.
My hands shake as I wire the loop. The spark flares too bright when it goes, the light searing white across the dark room. The monitors pop one by one, screens bleeding static before dying altogether.
Good.
No more eyes.
The rain’s still hammering outside when I throw my pack over my shoulder and head for the door. My boots splash through puddles of shattered glass.
The wind’s biting cold. Smells like rain and iron and smoke. I pull my jacket tighter and start running.
Down the narrow streets. Past the dead lights. Through the underpass where the city’s heartbeat slows to a crawl. Every sound echoes too loud—the slap of my boots, the rasp of my breath, the wind whistling between the old metal beams.
I keep replaying his laugh in my head. The way he’d shout for “sky growls” every time thunder hit. The way his eyes would light up when Takhiss walked in the room. The way his fingers curled around mine when he fell asleep.
Each memory’s a blade.
Each one keeps me running.
By the time I reach the outskirts, the storm’s tearing the sky open. Lightning splits the clouds in white veins, painting the world in brief, violent snapshots—rusted rooftops, slick pavement, the skeletal outline of the city beyond.
I spot an old transit tower ahead—dead since the war. Perfect. The signal scramblers there still work if you know how to talk to them. Clint taught me that trick once, back before everything went to hell.
He owes me.
He promised.
If anyone can trace a ghost signal through a blackout, it’s him and that crew of misfits he calls family.
I climb. The metal’s slick, cold enough to bite through my gloves. Wind slams into me with every step. By the time I reach the top, my hair’s plastered to my face, soaked through. I slam my pack down, yank open the console panel, and start wiring in a manual boost.
The system hums weakly. Half the circuits are fried. Doesn’t matter. I just need a pulse. A ping strong enough to scream across the void.
My breath fogs the glass as I lean over the old comm dish.
“Come on,” I mutter. “Come on, Rogers. Pick up.”
Lightning hits somewhere close, the shockwave rattling the tower under my boots. The console flares to life for one heartbeat—a burst of static, then a single blip.
Signal acquired.
“Got you,” I breathe.
The transmission line flutters—unstable, but alive. I route everything through. One final message.
Ella: Vex taken. Coalition marks. Ataxian sterilizer residue. Need Aces High. Find him. Please.
I hit send. The console sparks one last time and dies.
The sky’s howling now, wind and rain and thunder rolling together like war drums. The sound drowns everything else out—my fear, my anger, even my heartbeat.
When I open my eyes again, there’s only one thought left.
They took my son.
And I am coming for him.
No god, no priestess, no tribunal’s going to stop me.
Not this time.
Not ever.