Chapter 4 Between Fire and Flesh

The resistance base turned into chaos the second the alert sounded. Sirens wailed through the halls, red lights blinking overhead like the pulse of a dying heart.

Lira shoved a pulse rifle into Kael's hands. "They'll breach the perimeter in under six minutes."

Kael didn't hesitate. "We need to move her."

Her. Me.

I was already sprinting to keep up as they stormed through the corridor. My boots hit metal and moss, my pulse pounding to match the alarms. I was a fugitive. A weapon. A daughter of the most feared man in the skies.

And I had no idea how to fire a gun.

We reached an emergency hatch near the edge of the base. Kael pressed a keypad, and the metal slid open, and he finally saw a thin passage that went out of its way downward into the black. I was hit by a gust of cold air.

"Where does it go?" I asked.

"Old tunnels-buried before the collapse. Lead to a ravine about a klick south."

Lira narrowed her eyes. "You sure about this?"

Kael turned to her. "Keep the base locked down. We'll draw the scouts off."

Lira nodded once. "If they catch you-"

"They won't," Kael said. "They never do."

He took hold of me and dragged me into the tunnel.

Darkness swallowed us.

For a while, all that could be heard was our breath and the slap of our feet on wet stone. My palm stayed locked in his, and I hated how much I noticed it. The warmth. The calluses. The way his grip tightened every time the ground trembled above us.

We emerged into a shallow ravine carved into the forest. The sky overhead was turning violet, stars bleeding through the canopy. A fire flickered on the horizon-no doubt from the scout drones.

"We can't keep running forever," I said.

Kael turned to me, face unreadable. "We're not running. We're repositioning."

I laughed, sharp and bitter. "Is that how you cope with all of this? War? Memory wipes? Fathers who lie? You just reframe it all like it's part of the plan?"

He stepped close. Too close.

"No," he said quietly. "I cope by staying alive long enough to finish what your mother started."

I swallowed. "And what did she start, exactly?"

"A rebellion," he said. "Not just against your father. Against the system. The silence. The idea that people like us are disposable."

"People like us?"

Kael hesitated. Then, for the first time, he rolled up his sleeve.

Under the light of the moon, his sleeve danced weakly, filigreed with lines of glowing light, as if he was tattooed with system tattooed into his skin. Not tattooed. Embedded.

"What are you?" I whispered.

"Half human," he said. "Half sequence."

It hit me like ice. "Like me?"

"No. You're the original. I'm... what came after."

I stepped back. My heart was thudding wildly. "So I'm not just a weapon. I'm a blueprint."

He nodded.

I wanted to scream. Cry. Hit something.

Instead, I did something worse.

I looked into his eyes.

And I saw him.

Not just the soldier or the rebel or the relic of a plan I didn't make. I saw Kael. The way he never let go of my hand. The pain in his voice when he said her name. The ache in him mirrored mine.

"You remember me," I said, voice shaking. "From before the wipe."

"Yes."

"You knew me as a child."

"Yes."

"Then tell me something," I gasped. "Why do I feel that I meet you for the first time, although I always knew I would?"

He didn't answer.

He just leaned in.

And for one suspended breath, the war didn't exist. My father's lies. My mother's death. The crystal in my DNA.

All of it vanished.

His lips brushed mine-and I broke.

Not because it was perfect.

Because it felt like home.

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

Not the Girl I Was

I wish the world could've paused after that kiss.

But it didn't.

The second Kael pulled back, and the sky split with the sound of a hunter drone screeching low overhead. The air crackled with static. The warmth between us shattered.

"They're close," Kael said, already scanning the treetops. "We need to move-now."

I didn't ask where. I just ran.

Branches whipped against my skin. Roots snagged my boots. My chest scorched on every inhalation, but adrenaline held me up. Kael moved next to me like a shadow, quietly deadly. Whatever affection may have arisen between us was buried under urgency.

This wasn't a fairytale. It was survival.

We dropped into a hollow beneath a fallen transport vehicle, long since swallowed by vines. Kael pressed a finger to his lips and pointed to the sky.

Above, the drone hovered-sleek, silver, and silent now. My blood ran cold.

Then it spoke.

"Calla Voss," the voice said. My father's voice. "You are not authorized for surface access. You are classified as compromised. Return to base or lethal force will be deployed."

My whole body froze.

He was tracking me personally.

Kael's jaw clenched. "He's broadcasting directly to you. You still think he cares?"

"I don't know what to think", I whispered.

"Yes, you do." His voice was rough. "What you just can not accept is the fact that.

The drone shot its beams of light over the territory. Kael pushed me down further so that by his body, I was shielded by one of the beams sweeping by all together. I could sense his heart pounding into my back, which was moving fast and steadily, like a war drum.

"If we run now", I said, "they'll just keep chasing".

He nodded. "Then we don't run."

I turned to him. "Then what?"

"We make it loud."

Fifteen minutes later, we were rigging charges along a fractured stone bridge that led to one of the scout drone's blind routes. Kael moved with surgical precision, planting explosives into the earth like seeds of rebellion.

"Are you sure this'll work?" I asked, helping him wire the final trigger.

"No," he said. "But it'll make a hell of a distraction."

I tried to laugh. It came out shaky. "You blow up bridges a lot?"

"Only when someone tells me I shouldn't."

We finished just as the hum returned. The drone was back-swooping lower this time, scanners blazing. I stood behind a ridge, clutching the remote detonator with sweaty fingers.

"On my mark," Kael whispered, eyes locked on the drone's flight path.

Three seconds.

Two.

"One-now!"

I hit the trigger.

The explosion cracked like thunder, shaking the forest. Flames lit the treetops. The drone swerved into a shockwave and spiraled out of control. It grazed the bridge's edge and then smashed in a burst of smoke and fire.

Sparks made the sky glow as if the stars were dying.

I released the trigger and exhaled a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding in.

Kael looked around to me with a slow, distorted grin. Good going for your first rebellion.

My heart stuttered. "There'll be more, won't there?"

He didn't answer. He didn't have to.

We camped around the river that night. The air was wet and wonderful, the world was strangely silent. Kael set a perimeter, then lit a fire with practiced ease. I watched the flames dance, thinking about how fast everything had changed.

Just days ago, I was a daughter.

A Voss.

Now I was something else entirely.

"Do you ever miss it?" I asked, staring into the embers. "The version of yourself before all of this?"

Kael sat beside me, close but not touching. "I barely remember him. And what I do... I don't miss."

I turned to him. "Because that boy was weak?"

He looked at me, eyes dark and quiet. "Because that boy was blind."

I didn't sleep much.

But once I managed to drift off, I dreamt of fire.

And of Kael-walking into it like he'd been born from the flames.