Chapter 2 Falling Out of Heaven

We jumped.

No countdown. No warning. No plan I could understand- just his hand gripping mine, a flash of wind, and the floor vanishing beneath us.

For a heartbeat, there was nothing. No ground. No sky. Just a vertical plunge into madness.

The tower collapsed behind us, its entire eastern wing folding like paper as flames swallowed the penthouse. We dropped past broken windows and raining debris, the roar of destruction chasing us down. My scream got caught in my throat.

I was falling out of heaven.

The man beside me didn't flinch. His jetpack roared to life, a controlled blaze under his boots, guiding us in a sharp arc toward the lower levels. Wind tore at my robe. My skin burned from the heat. I clung to him like a lifeline, and for the first time in my life, I didn't care if I died.

We landed hard on a hovering platform skimming the outer edge of the dome. I collapsed to my knees, gasping, shaking. He scanned the perimeter like we weren't seconds away from death.

"Who are you?" I wheezed. "How did you get into Eirion?"

The visor on his helmet retracted, folding back into the collar of his suit.

And that's when I saw him.

Not older than mid-twenties. Tanned complexion, tousled dark hair, and eyes like tempestuous metal-cold, sharp, and observant. A delicate scar ran from the left cheekbone, down to his jaw, and as if a blade had slacked him, it remained forever while in him.

"I'm Kael," he said simply.

"That doesn't answer anything."

"No, but it's all you're getting for now."

He tapped something on his wrist. A light flared across his forearm, pulling up a shimmering holographic display. My father's seal-golden, imperial-blinked once before being overridden by something else. A raven. Black wings spread wide across a red circle.

I stared at it. "That's... Resistance tech."

Kael didn't blink. "Welcome to the real world, princess."

Resistance. That word felt like a slap.

We weren't supposed to have a resistance. Eirion was perfect. Secure. Peaceful. Anyone who said otherwise was labeled an agitator and "reprocessed." That was my father's word for it.

"Why are you here?" I asked, voice raw. "What do you expect from me?"

"You're the leverage," Kael said plainly. "Your father's built something. Something the surface has no defense against. He's about to release it, and when he does, the world burns-again. We're here to stop that."

"My father would never-"

"He already has. You just weren't awake to see it."

I opened my mouth to argue-but the words died before they formed.

Because deep down, in the places I didn't dare look too closely, I knew he wasn't lying.

"I don't know anything," I whispered.

"You will. We're not done yet."

A new alarm shrieked through the dome-louder, deeper. A whole sector is going dark. The Resistance ship-Kael's ride-decloaked in the air ahead, shimmering into view like smoke solidifying. Sleek, black, humming with energy. The loading bay opened.

He grabbed my wrist again. "Let's go."

"I didn't agree to this."

"You did the moment you took my hand."

His grip tightened as we leapt onto the platform and into the open belly of the ship. Metal closed around us. The roar of the wind vanished.

The girl who belonged to Damon Voss was gone.

And the girl who would destroy him... had just taken her first step.

************************************

Ghost Code

I've been trained my whole life to hide fear behind a mask. But nothing prepared me for watching my world vanish through the back window of a stolen Resistance ship.

Eirion was gone.

The floating city was now a shrinking glint behind a curtain of smoke, eclipsed by clouds and flames. Somewhere inside that burning skyline, my father was either panicking-or planning something worse.

And I was stuck in a cockpit with the only man who'd ever defied him and lived.

Kael didn't say much after the warning from the ship's AI. He gritted his teeth, adjusted our altitude, and pulled the Nest into a descent that felt like it might rip the skin from my bones.

"What now?" I asked, breathless.

"Now we survive."

His fingers flew across the glowing console. The windows flickered blue, then black. Kael activated cloaking. For a few seconds, the pursuing drones lost visual-and we dropped through the troposphere in silence.

I glanced at the crystal he'd given me before the attack warning. It sat on the console now, pulsing faintly.

"My mother gave you that?"

Kael nodded without looking at me. "She didn't trust many people. But she knew the day would come when you'd start asking questions."

"What questions?"

"Start with this one: Why do you think you've never been allowed to leave Eirion?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it again.

There were reasons. Warnings. Policies about "genetic sensitivity" and "environmental instability." My father had a dozen rational explanations. But none of them held up anymore.

"Because I was never supposed to leave, " I whispered.

Kael's gaze slid to mine. "Exactly."

The air between us tightened. There was something in his face that tugged at my memory like somewhere I'd seen him far back in another life.

"Have we met before?" I asked suddenly.

His hands froze.

For the first time, Kael hesitated.

"Once," he said. "But you wouldn't remember. Not yet."

A chill swept through me.

"Why wouldn't I remember?"

He looked away. "Because your memories were wiped."

I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. "That cannot happen." My memories-my childhood-they're real."

"They're real," he said carefully, "but they're curated. Chosen. Your father is obsessed with control. In particular, as far as you are concerned.

My pulse sounded in my ears. Although in my deepest heart, I felt it, I didn't have the courage to believe what he said. Such as fissures in a dam, ready to gape open.

It violently jolted to the side before I had time to ask anything else.

"Incoming fire!" the AI blared. "Pursuit vessels reacquired target. Impact in three-two-two-"

Kael swore and yanked us into a barrel roll.

I screamed as the ship spun, narrowly avoiding a pulse blast that tore through the cloud below us. We plunged into a dense fog bank, the world vanishing into gray. Kael twisted a dial, and the windows turned pitch black.

We were flying blind now.

"Cloaking won't hold," he muttered. "We need to reach the surface. There's an extraction point-an old base from before the collapse."

"What happens when we land?" I asked.

Kael's jaw tightened. "That depends on you."

"On me?"

"The Resistance wants answers," he said. "You're Damon Voss's daughter. Whether you like it or not, you're a key to unlocking what he's built-and what he's planning to destroy."

I wanted to deny it. Scream that I was nothing like my father. But something told me that wasn't enough anymore.

I wasn't innocent. I was involved, even if I didn't know how.

Through the window, lightning flashed in the clouds. The sky beneath us was thick and red, like old wounds bleeding back into view.

We were falling now. Not just from the sky-but from everything I thought I knew.

And somehow, I could feel the truth waiting for me at the end of that fall.