“Together,” he says.
I search his eyes.
He’s not saying it to soothe me. He’s saying it like a vow.
“Together,” I agree.
He kisses me right there on the sidewalk—slow at first, then deeper, like he’s pouring all the fear he couldn’t say into the only language that feels honest. I kiss him back like relief is a weapon. Like love is. Likewe won.
When we break apart, Arrow is a few feet away, arms crossed, expression carved from exasperation and pride.
“I told you to stay put,” he says.
I grin sweetly. “I’m medically allergic to ‘stay put.’”
He shakes his head. “Gage is going to lose his mind.”
“Let him.”
Knight’s mouth twitches. Then he turns toward Arrow and Dean. “Serafina?” he asks.
Dean’s expression is unreadable. “Tonight was one piece,” he says. “Not the whole war. But Luka’s cooperation with her just got forcibly discontinued.”
Sawyer adds, “And now we have leverage, audio, and witnesses.”
I tilt my head. “Meaning?”
Dean smiles without humor. “Meaning we’re about to makeherbeg.”
By the timewe’re back home, the adrenaline is fading.
Knight looks worse in softer light. So do I. We’re bruised.
Dirty.
Alive.
He cups my face again, like he can’t stop checking that I’m here.
“I’m furious at you,” I say.
“I know.”
“I’m also wildly proud of you.”
“I know.”
“And I’m going to kiss you again because I’m still mad.”
His smile is small and wrecked and so damnhim. “Okay.”
We kiss. Because we survived. Because we choose each other. Because this was never going to be a story where I sit quietly on the sidelines while the man I love bleeds for me.
This is a story where we walk into the fire together— and walk out holding hands. And somewhere deep in Halo City, in a club that thought it could swallow us whole— the monsters just learned the hard way:
I’m not prey.
I’m not a prize.
