Chapter 14
731 Words
Lyra’s POV
He collapses in my arms.
Heavy.
Unmoving.
But still breathing.
Barely.
“Damien,” I whisper, shaking him. “Stay with me. Please—don’t do this.”
His eyelids flutter, but he’s not fully conscious.
I check his pulse.
Too fast.
Erratic.
Like his heart is trying to outrun death.
---
I drag him into the backseat of the car.
Tear through the bag we packed.
Nothing.
No meds.
No clue.
Until—
My fingers close around it.
The vial.
The one Jade left in the cellar.
The one she labeled with nothing but a red line across the cap.
No name.
No instructions.
No guarantee.
Just one thing:
A last resort.
---
Damien’s POV
(He drifts in and out of consciousness)
Everything is fire.
My veins.
My lungs.
My skin.
But through it—
A voice.
Soft.
Angry.
Terrified.
Lyra.
Begging me not to die.
And for the first time in a long time…
I’m afraid.
Not of dying.
But of what she’ll become without me.
Because I know her now.
And I know the kind of love that breaks you is the kind that builds something else.
And that scares me more than death.
---
Lyra’s POV
I hold the vial in my hand.
I don’t know what’s in it.
Could be poison. Could be the cure.
Could be the thing that finally kills him faster.
But if I don’t do something—
He’s gone.
I uncork it.
It smells sharp.
Sterile.
Like pain in liquid form.
I draw it into a syringe.
“God, please,” I whisper. “Please don’t let this be a mistake.”
And I inject it.
Right into his chest.
---
Nothing happens.
Not at first.
Then—
He gasps.
Violently.
Like drowning in reverse.
His back arches. He lets out a hoarse cry.
And then goes still.
“Damien!”
His eyes fly open.
He’s breathing.
He’s alive.
And he’s shaking.
But he’s back.
---
He looks at me.
Chest heaving.
“What did you do?” he croaks.
“I trusted Jade.”
“That was dangerous.”
“So is dying.”
He leans his head back against the car seat.
Then laughs.
Rough. Disbelieving.
“You injected me with something you didn’t understand?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
He turns to me.
“No,” he says. “You did. And you chose me.”
---
One Hour Later
He sleeps.
I drive.
The suitcase Jade protected all these years sits beside me on the passenger seat.
I finally open it.
Inside?
A drive the size of a coin.
No ports.
No screen.
Just a soft pulse of red light.
And next to it…
A handwritten note from Jade.
Folded in half.
Scrawled in her looping handwriting.
> “Play this only when you’re ready to know what I did.
To you.
To him.
To all of them.”
I don’t open it.
Not yet.
Because the truth is no longer the scariest thing in my life.
Losing Damien is.
---
Later That Night – An Unexpected Visitor
We hide out in an abandoned train station just outside the city.
Safe. For now.
I’m watching over Damien when I hear it.
Footsteps.
Soft. Light.
Too light for Malcov.
I pull my gun.
And that’s when I see her.
Drenched from the rain.
Wearing a cracked leather jacket.
Face paler than I remember.
But unmistakably her.
Jade.
---
Damien’s POV
I jolt upright the second I hear her voice.
I know it before I even see her.
And I say it like a prayer.
“…Jade?”
She nods once.
Then looks at Lyra.
“I told you not to open the box.”
Lyra lowers her weapon.
Staring.
Processing.
“You’re alive.”
Jade shrugs.
“Mostly.”
“And the vial?” I ask.
“That was mine. Synthesized from the same serum Malcov tested on you in Italy. I stole it before I ran.”
Lyra steps forward.
“You saved him.”
Jade meets her eyes.
“No. You did. You just didn’t know what you were gambling.”
Then she looks down at the suitcase.
At the red pulsing light.
“You opened it,” she says.
I nod.
“Good,” she whispers. “Because now you only have twelve hours left before Malcov burns everything.”
---
- Writer
