The kind of beauty that opened things inside me... I didn’t even know if I could feel anymore.
Her lips parted, eyes growing wide. “Noah?”
“Let’s go,” I said. “Now.”
She stiffened. “You don’t get to drag me around—”
“I’m notasking,Liz.”
I lowered my voice, just for her. “We need to talk.Now.”
She looked like she wanted to fight me.
She always did.
But I saw in her eyes—the flicker of fear, ofknowing.
She’d been briefed.
She knew something was coming.
She just didn’t knowhow much I already knew.
So, when she finally followed, not saying a word, slipping through the crowd behind me, I didn’t feel victorious.
I feltterrified.
Because this wasn’t just about jealousy.
This was war.
And I was about to tell her that the battlefield wasn’t out there anymore.
It wasinside her.
---- ??? ----
I lost track of time as I stood there, captivated by her beneath the flickering light of the club's back alley. But one thing was clear to me—if I didn’t speak up now, I might never find the courage to do so.
She was seething, her cheeks flushed, still shimmering with the energy of the dance floor. Yet there she was, trying her hardest to act like she didn’t need anyone.
But I understood her. I recognized that her silence was a shield, that the anger she wore was just grief dressed in a sharper guise.
“Do you even realize what you’re doing?” I asked, struggling to steady my breath against the rapid thump of my heart. “Out there, dancing as if nothing matters—like you’re not about to step into a battleground?”
She folded her arms defiantly. “What, so now you get to critique how I unwind?”
“I’m not critiquing you,” I said, taking a tentative step closer. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I do,” I interrupted, urgency lacing my words. “I know everything, Liz. The mission. Your father. The virus. I know they engineered that genome using your DNA.”
For just a fleeting moment, her facade cracked.
“You weren’t meant to find out,” she murmured, her voice barely audible.
“I discovered it because I had to,” I replied sharply. “I walk into a room and see you twirling with some guy, pretending the world isn’t crumbling, and all I can think is—how do I stop you from walking straight into a death trap?”
