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She stops beside me.

Ella’s fingers brush mine. I catch them and hold tight for one breath. “Go straight to the east garage,” I tell her. “Use the code.”

“What if someone sees me?”

“No one will. The staff is still contained. Use the service stairs. Keep your head down. If anyone speaks to you, ignore them.”

I open the door. The corridor beyond is dark.

For one moment, we stand in the shadowed passage together, neither of us moving toward the separate paths we have to take.

Then she turns to me. “Come back to me,” she says.

It sounds like an order. I’ve given a lot of orders in my life. I’ve obeyed many as well, most against my better judgement.

This one? I want to obey it more than anything. I touch her face again.

“I will.”

41

ELLA

I don’t move toward the service stairs.

I know I’m supposed to. Nathaniel has given me the key. The codes. The coordinates. The order.

Go.

Hide.

Survive.

But my feet stay rooted to the narrow corridor beneath. Nathaniel is already turning away from me.

“Nathaniel.”

He stops.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Yes, you are, Ella.”

“No.” The word comes out too fast. Too raw. “You can’t just decide that.”

“I already have.”

“That’s not how this works.”

He turns then. Slowly. Dirt streaks his cheek. His shirt is wrinkled, ruined at the cuffs, damp with sweat from digging Audrey’s grave.

He looks exhausted.

He looks dangerous.

He looks like the man I’ve come to love. The man who’s hellbent on protecting me. And I hate him for thinking that means he has to stand alone.

“You told me to come back to you,” he says quietly.