The General

Chapter 45.

​The storm didn't roll into Lower Falls; it invaded.

​By 10:00 PM, the wind was a banshee howling through the alleyways, rattling the vintage window frames of the bakery until they groaned. Briar stood at her central prep station, the glow of the overhead fluorescents feeling unnaturally sterile against the chaos outside. She was mid-piping on a four-tier specialty wedding cake- a delicate cascade of buttercream roses that required a steady hand she currently didn't possess.

​Thirty days.

​The number was a bruise on her mind. Three days had passed since the standoff between Victor and Caleb, and the tension in the Smith household had reached a fever pitch.

Archer was a hawk, Victor was a phantom, and Briar felt like a ghost haunting her own life.

​Suddenly, the sky outside split open with a jagged flash of blue-white lightning, followed instantly by a crack of thunder that shook the floorboards. Then, with a pathetic, dying hum, the lights flickered and vanished.

​"No," Briar gasped, her heart leaping into her throat. "No, no, no."

​The bakery was plunged into a thick, suffocating darkness. The only light came from the occasional strobe of lightning through the front windows, casting long, skeletal shadows across the racks of cooling bread. Briar stood frozen, her piping bag still clutched in her hand, the silence of the dead appliances louder than the storm itself.

​She fumbled for her phone on the counter, her fingers slick with frosting. The screen illuminated her pale, wide-eyed reflection. The battery sat at a dismal 4%.

​"Great," she whispered to the dark. "Perfect."

​She found a box of emergency candles in the supply closet, her breath coming in shallow hitches. She managed to light three, placing them around her workstation. The flickering orange glow did little to settle her nerves; it only made the bakery feel cavernous, a place of dancing shadows and cold air.

​She was reached for a kitchen towel when she heard it.

​The front door chimed.

​It wasn't the tentative, light chime of a neighbor checking in. It was a heavy, deliberate sound. A moment later, the floorboards creaked under a weight that Briar recognized in her very marrow.

​"Victor?" her voice trembled, barely audible over the rain drumming on the roof.

​A massive silhouette emerged from the gloom of the front shop. He was still in his uniform, the dark fabric of his BDUs damp from the trek from his vehicle. The silver stars on his shoulders caught the candlelight, glinting like cold eyes. He looked exhausted- the sharp lines of his face deeper, his jaw shadowed with a two-day stubble.

​"The grid is down across three sectors," Victor rumbled, his voice a low vibration that seemed to anchor the room. "I saw the candles from the road."

​Briar let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "You’ve been at the command center. Archer said you were pulling double shifts."

​"Logistics don't sleep because of a little rain," he said, stepping into the circle of candlelight. He didn't come closer than the edge of the table, but the air between them immediately thickened, the cold draft of the storm replaced by his radiating heat. "Why are you still here, Briar? It’s nearly midnight."

​"The wedding is tomorrow at ten," she said, gesturing vaguely at the half-finished cake. "The buttercream will melt if the refrigeration stays off too long, and I still have two tiers to pipe. I can’t leave it."

​Victor looked at the cake, then at her. His eyes were obsidian in the low light, tracking the way her hair had escaped her clip, the way her hands were trembling.

​"Archer told me what you said," Briar whispered, the words slipping out before she could stop them. "About me being an... 'asset' you admire. About why you’re staying at the house."

​Victor went still. The only sound was the rain and the rhythmic flick-flick of the candle flames.

​"Archer needed a version of the truth he could survive," Victor said, his voice dropping into that dangerous, sandpaper register.

​"And what’s the version I’m supposed to survive?" Briar snapped, her sass flickering to life fueled by exhaustion and fear. She stepped around the table, the candlelight casting her shadow large against the wall. "Because right now, Victor, I feel like I’m being managed. Like you’re just securing a perimeter before you fly away to some place where I don't exist."

​Victor closed the distance in two long strides. He didn't grab her, but he loomed over her, his presence a physical weight that forced her to look up.

​"You think I’m managing you?" he rasped. "I’ve spent nine years leading men into hell. I’ve negotiated with warlords and dictated terms to presidents. And none of them- none of them, make my hands shake the way you do."

​He reached out, his hand hovering near her face before he slammed it against the prep table next to her, leaning in until they were breathing the same air.

​"I lied to him, Briar," he confessed, the words torn from him. "I told him I admired your 'strength.' I told him you were a rarity. But the truth is, I’m a starving man and you’re the only thing that’s ever tasted like home. It’s not 'admiration.' It’s an obsession that’s compromising every scrap of discipline I have left."

​Briar’s breath hitched, her fingers curling into the edge of the stainless steel table. "Then why the distance? Why the coldness?"

​"Because there are thirty days left!" Victor roared softly, the sound vibrating in his chest. "Thirty days until I put a thousand miles and a theater of war between us. If I let myself have you the way I want to- if I truly claim this territory, I won't be able to leave. And if I don't leave, I lose the only thing that gives me the power to keep you safe."

​He leaned his forehead against hers, his eyes closing. In the shadows of the flour-dusted kitchen, the General vanished. There was just a man, ragged and terrified of a clock he couldn't stop.

​"Archer thinks I’m a threat to you," Victor whispered. "He thinks I’m the dark. He’s right. But what he doesn't know is that the dark is terrified of losing the light."

​Briar reached up, her fingers tentatively brushing the damp fabric of his sleeves. "We can't stop the thirty days, Victor. But we're here now. In the dark. No Star-ranked officers, no bakery owners. Just us."

​Victor opened his eyes, the hunger in them so raw it made her knees weak. He looked at the cake, then back to her, a grim, humorless smile touching his lips.

​"The mission is failing, Briar," he murmured. "My resolve is at zero percent."

​He didn't wait for her to answer. He reached out, his hands catching her waist and hoisting her up onto the prep table, scattering a few stray piping tips. Briar let out a small gasp, her legs instinctively wrapping around his midsection, her hands finding the thick, corded muscles of his neck.

​The kiss was a collision- violent, desperate, and tasting of salt and rain. It wasn't the calculated "inspection" of the dinner table. It was a man trying to memorize the sensation of a woman’s soul before the world took it away.

​Victor’s hands were everywhere, bunching the fabric of her apron, his thumbs tracing the line of her jaw with a frantic, uncharacteristic heat. He pulled back just an inch, his forehead still pressed to hers, his breathing ragged.

​"Thirty days," he rasped against her lips. "It feels like a firing squad."

​"Then let's make the most of the stay of execution," Briar whispered, her fingers tangling in his dark hair, pulling him back down.

​Outside, the storm raged on, trees snapping and the river rising, but inside the circle of three flickering candles, the General and the Baker had finally stopped fighting the inevitable. The wall was closing in, the deadline was looming, but for one night in the shadows of the flour and silk, the only logistics that mattered were the ones that kept them anchored to each other in the dark.