Chapter Twenty — Don’t Die for Me
Chapter Fourteen — Don’t Die for Me
Silas left before sunrise.
Not dramatically.
No threats.
No final speech.
One moment he stood beneath the chapel lights smiling like a beautiful nightmare—
Then he was gone into the poisoned dark above them.
Avery hated how little sound he made leaving.
The silence afterward felt worse.
Blaine locked the chapel stairwell immediately once the upper door shut.
Metal bolts slid heavily into place.
Controlled.
Methodical.
Like he expected betrayal even after Silas spared them.
Maybe especially after.
Avery watched him from across the room.
“You trust him?”
“No.”
The answer came instantly.
“Then why didn’t he kill us?”
Blaine’s jaw tightened slightly while checking ammunition beneath the industrial lights.
“Silas enjoys interesting situations more than successful assignments.”
“That’s a terrible personality trait.”
“Yes.”
Avery leaned back against the cold embalming table behind her.
Exhaustion finally clawed into her bones properly now.
Everything felt unreal — Vinny’s death, the Black Vein Program, Silas, The Theater.
Like Poison City had peeled open overnight and revealed machinery rotting beneath the
surface.
Blaine noticed her swaying slightly.
“You need sleep.”
“I need my life back.”
“That isn’t available.”
The flat honesty almost made her laugh.
Almost.
Blaine crossed toward the toxin cabinet again, movements quieter now after the violence
earlier. He removed a small injector vial and pressed it against his wrist without
explanation.
Avery frowned immediately.
“What is that?”
“Stabilizer.”
“For what?”
Silence.
Wrong answer again.
Avery pushed herself upright from the table.
“Blaine.”
He sighed softly through his nose before finally answering.
“Black Vein conditioning damages the nervous system long-term.”
Fear sharpened beneath her exhaustion.
“What kind of damage?”
“Depends on the subject.”
“That sounds bad.”
“It is.”
The injector hissed softly against his wrist.
Avery watched the black veins beneath his skin recede slightly afterward.
Her stomach twisted.
“How often do you take those?”
“Daily.”
“Does the conditioning protect against the long-term scarring too? Or just the immediate
irritation?”
Blaine paused slightly.
“Both.”
She thought about that. About what it meant that Black Vein had cracked that problem —
had built subjects whose bodies processed city air cleanly and efficiently — and buried the
mechanism inside a weapons program while the rest of the city coughed itself through
shortened lives.
“They could have fixed it for everyone,” she said.
Blaine looked at her.
“Yes.”
No anger. Just the flat acknowledgment of someone who had already finished being angry
about this a long time ago and arrived somewhere colder on the other side.
Avery hated how calm he always stayed.
“How are you not angry?” she whispered. “Your entire life sounds like a nightmare.”
“It was.”
“And you just…” She gestured helplessly. “Function?”
“Most weapons do.”
The words landed brutally.
Not dramatic.
Not self-pitying.
Fact.
Avery’s chest tightened painfully.
Because that was the problem with Blaine — he said horrifying things like they no longer
hurt him.
Maybe they didn’t anymore.
That thought felt worse somehow.
“We need to move locations in the morning.”
Avery looked up.
“Silas knows this place. The three who came tonight knew it.” He was already reviewing the
map. “We stay tonight. We don’t stay tomorrow.”
The assassin crossed toward the old terminal monitors again.
“You should rest while we still can.”
“We?”
The word slipped out before she could stop it.
Blaine looked mildly surprised by it too.
Then:
“Yes.”
Simple.
Like partnership was obvious now.
Dangerous.
Avery wrapped her arms around herself tighter.
“People die around me.”
Blaine returned to reviewing surveillance feeds without reacting.
“I noticed.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Frustration flashed suddenly hot through her exhaustion.
“Why are you acting like this doesn’t scare you?”
That finally made him pause.
The room fell quiet except for rain and static humming softly from the monitors.
Then Blaine looked at her fully.
Really fully.
Silver eyes sharp beneath dim industrial light.
“I was raised around death,” he said quietly. “It stopped frightening me years ago.”
The honesty hollowed something inside her.
Avery swallowed hard.
“That’s sad.”
Something unreadable flickered briefly across his face.
Then disappeared.
“It’s useful.”
“No,” she whispered. “It’s sad.”
Silence stretched between them heavily.
Blaine looked away first.
Interesting.
Avery slowly unstrapped the leather journal bag from her hip again and rested it beside her
on the embalming table.
Her fingers lingered over the worn black leather.
Then quietly:
“Vinny died because he loved me.”
Blaine didn’t answer immediately.
“He died because powerful people weaponized that love.”
“That changes nothing.”
His jaw tightened faintly.
“It changes everything.”
Avery shook her head.
“No.” Her throat burned suddenly. “Because now it’s happening again.”
Understanding flashed instantly across his face.
Sharp.
Immediate.
“Avery—”
“Don’t.”
Her voice cracked softly.
The grief finally sounded exhausted instead of shattered now.
“You cannot die for me too.”
She’d watched it happen with Vinny in slow motion. The way caring for her worked like a
second poison — quieter than the first, more patient. He’d known what he was walking into
and walked anyway, and she had let him because it felt like love and because she was
selfish and because nobody had ever chosen her before and she hadn’t known how to turn
it away. She knew now. She knew exactly what the end of that story looked like and it
looked like a city screen at dawn and a name she couldn’t stop saying inside her own head.
Blaine was still watching the surveillance feeds. His breathing had steadied. He looked like
nothing had happened.
That was the worst part.
He’d already decided.
The words lingered between them painfully.
Blaine stared at her for one long silent second beneath the flickering lights.
Then quietly:
“That isn’t your decision.”
The answer hit harder than it should have.
Not romantic.
Not soft.
Certain.
Like Blaine Morana had already accepted something dangerous inside himself.
Avery realized suddenly — that frightened her more than Silas ever could.