Long and important chapter ahead...😘❤

The thought of turning back crosses her mind back and forth, though her feet are already advancing slowly forward, and she is nearing the faded gray door, preparing to run at any movement.

However, she freezes when a voice startles her from behind.

"Are you lost?"

Anastasia turns around slowly, doing another jump when she comes face to face with the owner of the cold voice: a tall frame covered in black from his slicker hair to his clothes, and to all the tattoos covering his skin. But the most terrifying might be his lifted eyebrow and his scornful, piercing gaze expecting her answer.

Is she lost? She has been wandering to get to this building, and she has been wandering for a few weeks now. However, when she has overheard two students whispering about rebellion, she has followed them instinctively. 

It resembles the driving force leading her to read more pages of Mr. Carter's book every night. No matter how many times she reasons during the day that it is safer to stay away from this book, her hands always pull out the book when the rest of the world is asleep. 

She might only read one or two pages because of the constant battle inside, yet the more she reads, the less she hears the wrongs and guilt resonating in her mind, and the more she hears the loud beats of her heart. It is maybe them that are guiding her right now. She isn't lost; she is guided.

"No, I'm not lost." Her voice is low, yet assured. "I'm in the right place, and I think you can enlighten  me." She glances back at the concrete monster, swallowing the painful lump in her throat. "I want to know more about this... club." She makes the word and its meaning very clear despite her cracking voice.

A short and cold chuckle leaves the man's lips, making his answer very evident too, though he still adds, "I think you're lost." He looks down on her, his eyes taking in her whole appearance from her neat ponytail to her pale flats and up to the pendant she is still gripping. "There's nothing to know for people like you."

"No, I'm not lost," she repeats, the determination rising inside her stomach. "And what do you mean by 'people like me'?"

"Goody-two-shoes." He takes a step closer, keeping his haughty gaze, and she unconsciously shrinks back, getting closer to the frightening building.

His piercing eyes are planting more doubt in her mind, and the thought of saying 'yes, I'm lost' and running away is playing on loop. But she can't flee forever; she needs to face all the questions.

Besides, the doubts are irking her pride and her stubbornness. She doesn't give up an argument that easily. So her lawyer reflexes reappear with her determination.

"I thought this 'club' was promoting equality, Hadi?" she retorts confidently, or more exactly with an appearance of confidence hiding the knots in her stomach and in her brain. She even makes sure to point out his name, a proven method to show she is far from lost.

They have one or two classes of Communication together, and even though she doesn't really pay attention to the students in the back, she never forgets a name.

Yet his reply isn't one she has ever encountered in her court exercises as he sneers coldly, a little louder this time, but still careful to not draw attention to them. "You should go back to your... what? Political science?"

"Law," she mutters. The more time passes, the less she sounds convinced pronouncing this word, and it is bitterly loud when he mocks under his breath, her answer only strengthening his disdain.

"Yeah, you should go back to your little law studies. We don't want snitches here. So if you think you can nab us or whatever, it won't work. Go back to defending your precious law."

His words cut right through her, deeper than she would have expected, maybe because they could have been really accurate a few weeks ago.

He is already by-passing her, and she doesn't have any argument left. He has seen right through her plea, and he would make a merciless lawyer if he wasn't on the other side of the law.

The trial is over, and she should just go back. Yet one word is gluing her feet to the ground; it echoes louder and louder: Nathaniel. He is the one who has ignited all these questions in her, and of course, there are many other factors that have led her here today, but in this instant, he is the only reason making her fight for answers, in spite of everything telling her to run away. 

Images of every forbidden moment they have shared are replaying in her mind, and the next thing she knows her small, cracking voice leaves her dry lips. "I broke the law."

This makes Hadi turn around, lifting an eyebrow, half disbelieving, half dismissive.

"I broke the Decree 123-51316... First, maybe it was an accident.. and then, I don't know... it happened again... and again... and now it's a... conscious decision..."

She is confessing to a stranger, yet despite the tightness in her throat, the words are coming out more easily than she would have expected, even if it's only a stammering whisper.

"I was right: you're lost," he finally replies coolly, less scornful, but with no sympathy.

Although she hasn't expected anything else. She doesn't want sympathy; she needs answers.

"And you'd better come back when you're sure. This is a serious engagement, a life engagement. You don't enter with 'maybe' or 'I don't know'." He emphasizes her words, and through the dismissive edge of his voice, they take a new heaviness.

Even if she can't measure their exact weight, she feels the oppression on her chest, and her question is barely getting out. 

"And you, how did you know you were sure to join this 'engagement'?"

"I'm bi, and I want to be free to love whoever I want," he states simply, probably waiting for her to be shocked or to finally leave.

But she doesn't. She still hasn't got answers. Actually, there is even one more question arising: Could Nathaniel be her motive, the one reason that makes her sure? That, no one can answer it for her, and for now, she focuses on more rational questions. 

"It would be easier to be sure if it didn't involve so much violence..."

"What do you mean?" He lifts up his nose again.

"I mean..." She narrows her eyes. "I mean is it enough to justify to use violence and take lives away?" 

These are against all her principles, and like kindling, it makes the revolt and disgust she has buried inside spring ablaze.

"I've never killed anyone if that's what you mean." He lowers his head to her eye level, trying to scare her away, but she isn't backing away anymore.

When she is driven by a sensitive cause like this one, nothing can intimidate her, and she always stands boldly her ground, even when a sour taste of smoke and death is coming back with her next words.

"And the Westview University attack, then?"

He lets out a freezing chuckle with no humor. "Most of our people are college students, some were even there at the event. Why do you think we would do this?"

He isn't asking for her answer, and she wouldn't be able to reply anyway, as she is trying in vain to swallow the lump in her throat, which is growing with the doubts and bad feelings she has pushed away since that day. So much has happened since then, though maybe she has intentionally overlooked it because, through all those held-back questions, the answer may have already been buried there.

"We're not the bad ones in this."

Everything is overflowing inside, but instead of exploding, all those dark shadows of doubt are freezing her, her blood slowly turning to ice inch by inch from her heart to her toes, and the only thing left moving is her eyebrows furrowing. "What do you mean?" 

"You should ask your little 'accident-decision'." He nods behind her, and she hasn't thought his gaze could possibly be more disdainful until now.

"Wha–" Her heart breaks out of its frozen state with an unmistakable skip the second she glances back and glimpses a figure – from whom she is starting to know every detail – approaching.

"Nathaniel?! What are you doing here?" she asks breathlessly as the first thing that catches her attention and breath is his gaze. 

The dark clouds that she sees sometimes in his tender eyes are back in a ravaging storm. Yet the instant they cross her gaze, they become transparent with worry.

"I should ask you the same question." His tone is cold, while his eyes are burning with so many emotions, and she is left shivering when he stops at a reasonable and appropriate distance, just enough for her to notice the unmistakable insignia on his dark gray military jacket.

"Well... I was leaving classes."

A lift of his eyebrows, and she is looking away, avoiding his gaze and its silent demand for the truth. 

Her fingers wrap around her scale pendant as she tries to keep a semblance of composure, as wobbly as her beliefs, yet maybe it's all already crumbled on the ground, and when she realizes that Hadi has already disappeared, like a ghost leaving her haunted with more questions, her hands fall back by her side with a sigh.

"I think you have an idea why I'm here."

Nate gulps. He's wanted the truth, but it's hard to swallow when the guilt and the dread are already wrapping in a tight grip around his ribcage.

The moment he has glimpsed her on that screen, he hasn't thought; his heart has gone into an uneven frenzy, and he has just rushed to get her away from that guy, away from that screen, away from the computers, and away from the dangerous lists.

On the brief way here, with each loud bang of his heart, a new image has flashed in his mind, a mix of forbidden memories and frightening possibilities, and all the way he's hoped she'd just have lost her way, or that the tattooed guy would be bothering or luring her. But now she is asserting what he's been dreading, and all the flashes are putting up together, their meaning sinking in.

"And you? Why are you here?" Her soft voice draws him out of the scenarios replaying in his head.

"For work." He throws a nod at the old building beside them. Once again they're speaking in implicit, yet through their gazes, they don't need words. 

"You shouldn't hang around here." He glances around again, his eyes stopping for a second on the closed, dusky door, and he has to clench his fists to not grab her hand and pull her away. "It's not safe..." 

"About this... Hadi has said something..." She frowns, ignoring his advice, and his already tensed muscles tighten at the name on her soft lips, exacerbating the vise-like grip in his chest. 

"Do you know him?" His voice sounds like a growl, but he can't help it.

He doesn't want this Cerberus around his angel. She's too pure to go anywhere close to hell, and he would fight anyone who puts her in danger, even if it means himself, and that's already what he's doing inside the battlefield of his mind.

"No, not really... He's just in one of my classes," she explains, yet the determined glint in her eyes, which he's starting to know, lets him guess the conversation is not over. "But he's said they're not the bad ones, and... he has seemed like you would know what he's meant?" 

Her hazel eyes are staring attentively for his answer, piercing that unique way that only she can through his soul to draw out easily his confessions, and he has to avert his gaze away.

The dark clouds of his memories are storming through his veins like a pyroclastic flow freezing everything on their way and threatening to blur her purity. One of the things he has been dreading the most is impending to happen; she'll see what he sees, and he knows she'll never look at him the same way after this, never like a hero.

"What does that mean?"

She never gives up. He sighs, the trap tightening on his lungs. 

"Can we talk about this later? This is not the place." He throws a glance around. There is no one, but he knows better, and the pressure of what's invisible is crushing on him. "It's not safe..."

The urge to take her in his arms and protect her from the rest of the world is growing stronger, yet with eyes and cameras around, it would only put her more in danger.

"Later?" she huffs. "It's always 'later', but later is never."

The questions and doubts are piling up inside, and the answers are always postponed to 'later' while the clock is ticking with this word. All of this is about to overflow, like the tears at the corner of her eyes, yet she fights to keep them inside, avoiding his penetrating, tenebrous gaze.

Everyone is repeating her this word again and again. She shakes her head with a bitter smile. She is no fool; she knows this technique to take for a ride and dodge the subject. She doesn't even understand why she is letting everyone manipulate her like that, maybe because deep inside, she is bitterly aware that she won't like the answers and that her arguments won't change anything. 

Nevertheless, coming from Nathaniel, it cuts way deeper. He doesn't owe her any answer, and that's just a painful reminder of the limits of their closeness.

"Okay."

She snaps her head toward him upon his word. He is nibbling on his bottom lip, clearly battling many things inside, and if she wasn't so determined to stand her ground, she would probably try to lighten his torments.

"Give me five minutes and meet me at the corner of the street down there." He points with his head behind her, and the seriousness in his eyes makes her heart skip a beat so strong that she is left speechless, faintly nodding.

Her big eyes stay on him when he turns around and walks away, and he can't resist the urge to glance back, watching her still immobile silhouette getting smaller and smaller with each step he takes.

It's only when he takes the turn at the end of the street and she's out of sight that he lets out a shaky breath, taking in everything. 

Actually, he still has no idea what he's doing exactly and where this will lead him.

This is careless and dangerous, yet something in the cracking tone of her voice and disappointed glint in her eyes has switched off his brain, and now, his strides are getting quicker in the direction of the dark truck.

She wouldn't have backed down anyway.

He's trying to convince himself when his decision is already taken, and he just hopes this is not a mistake as he already arrives at the trunk door and takes a deep breath.

Before he can even exhale, he's met by Darrell's raised eyebrows and those same white lights accentuating his questioning look under.

This day resembles more and more an endless interrogation, and he wonders if he will manage to escape prosecution.

"I need you to do me a favor. Can you cover for me for the rest of the hour?" he instantly asks, trying to avoid facing questions and losing time. "I'll explain later," he adds, cutting Darrell off just as he opens his mouth.

"You better, dude!"

Nate hopes by then he'll have come up with a plausible explanation. He's already racking his brain for one, but he's too focused on grabbing his things rapidly to find anything.

"Oh, and there was nothing on the videos for the past 15 minutes." He eyes his best friend seriously and meaningfully, knowing very well Darrell has witnessed a lot behind his computer.

"Do you realize what you're asking me? You gotta explain!" Darrell's severe tone is one that Nate doesn't hear often coming from his friend, and his loud gulp is surely an eloquent answer because he realizes more than Darrell can even imagine, and that's the problem.

But it's too late now, and like for many other things, would he even change it if he could go back in time?

His main focus when he's seen the video on the screen has been to protect Anastasia, and it still is now. He hasn't thought clearly, and he still isn't, but he will save this for later.

"Please, I don't have time right now," he pleads, something he almost never does, yet the pressure weighing on his chest is pushing on his limits.

When Darrell stays quiet, squinting his blue eyes, he has no breath left under the vice of his ribcage, yet something else arises under the constriction

"Don't force me to use the International day's incident..." A small smirk stretches his lips as he remembers his favorite ace in the hole, and Darrell's inquisitive face immediately drops into a horrified expression.

"2091... International day..." Nate goes on, his voice and his mood getting lighter at the memory.

"Come on, dude! That's not fair! How many times you'll use it against me?!" Darrell grumbles.

"As much as I need it. Remember I have a video..." Nate taunts proudly. "So?" The clock is ticking in his head.

"Okay, okay!" Darrell puts his hands up, though he's quick to point an inflexible index finger at his friend. "But you'd better explain later!" 

"Yes... Thank you," Nate tells him sincerely, before adding in a teasing tone, "Mr. Pina Colada!"

He can hear his best friend's groan as he exits the trunk. At least, it has lightened his mood and boosted his confidence a little; he will need both for what's to come.

***

Is he going to come? The question is crossing every inch of Anastasia's mind, just like her gaze is doing around the area.

With the darkness falling a little bit more, there are even fewer people and cars, and in this corner, there is actually no one. She understands why Nathaniel has told her to meet here. What she doesn't comprehend is why she has followed his demand without question. 

She should be mad at him for ordering her around like this, for dismissing her questions, and for having made Hadi and his answers fly away. But her feet have led her there naturally, and it isn't anger she feels growing inside as she looks at the time.

Seven minutes. He won't come... What has she thought?

She should go home, yet her feet are like mired in the ground.

The minutes passing in the silence have made everything that has just happened sink in. None of her questions and doubts have been answered, only adding more with forebodings weighing on her stomach, and now, there is even something heavier crushing all her energy and determination.

However, as soon as a dark gray unknown car slows down in front of her, her chest lightens with a breath.

At this hour, in the gloomy surroundings, she should be crippled with fear, but these days, she is more reckless, and when the door opens for her, her heart recognizes its trust in the driver, pumping new energy throughout her whole body.

She doesn't hesitate to get in the passenger seat, quickly fastening her belt under Nathaniel's silent and attentive gaze, and she does well to do it because she doesn't get to prepare. As soon as she is seated, he starts the car again, and mostly, the impact in her chest happens with his question, his tone serious and straightforward, yet the simple and meaningful words catching her breath. 

"So what do you want to know?"

He throws her a quick glance as he focuses on driving them away from all the dark shadows, even though they're still chasing him in the deafening silence.

"Everything."

Her quiet answer sounds like a loud blow. He's been expecting it, but it still echoes in a buzz through his ears. 

He can't shirk. He will have to face this judgment in front of the most resolute lawyer, yet what scares him the most is the sentence from her soft heart, and not her professional brain.

"What did he mean by saying that the rebels aren't 'the bad ones'? Why you would know? Why were you here for work? Who did the university fire attack if it wasn't the rebel groups?" She stops to catch her breath that the few questions have already taken, and she senses they are already a lot.

As she has trouble finding oxygen in the thickening atmosphere, she realizes she makes it sound too much like a prosecution questioning.

So she doesn't push more, leaving him time to reply, and observing him as her skin is prickling at the prospect of the answers about to come, which are clashing with the tension in the air.

He sets the blinkers on and takes a turn to slow down by a side road. His gaze is concentrated on the narrow road, also checking that there is no one around, yet she can perceive the dark clouds from where she is sitting. 

His jaw is clenching and unclenching nervously, like his knuckles on the steering wheel, and since he has taken off his military jacket and is now left in a white tee-shirt, it is easy to see all of his muscles are tensed.

The same tension painfully invades her from inside, and she has another reason to want the truth: the need to know what is haunting him, even if the bad feelings are only heightening with his anxious silence.

Her stiff fingers reach for her scale pendant like it could help her hold on as he stops the car and takes a deep inhale, but when his tenebrous eyes set on hers, it doesn't prevent the crippling sensations to seep deeper into her chest. 

He is gazing at her like he is terrified she would disappear at any second.

"I was on a covert mission, spying to catch the rebel groups. We're seeking proof that the photography club is in reality a rebel branch." He starts with the easier part, the less buried.

"That's why I have this old car, and not mine. We use it as a discreet watchpoint along with a truck to blend in. Though it's mostly the security cameras that do the work. Every people nearing the 'club' is recorded on a Shady list, for people who might be rebels, and if there's one proof that they're breaking the law, they pass on the next list." He swallows, a sour taste engulfing all his insides.

Her gaze is attentive, and she quietly nods. Her brain is quickly processing every little bit of information – he can recognize it in her light frown – yet she doesn't push him, leaving him time and silently encouraging him to go on. Like she always does, she's gently opening a way through his shield. 

He focuses on the hazel shades in her eyes. There, it's a contradictory feeling: the softness gives him strength to speak, but it also makes the words harder to come out, as the need to protect her from everything is growing in his chest.

He draws in another big breath that doesn't even seem to bring oxygen to his lungs. 

"The next list is a one-way ticket to hell..." He diverts his gaze down. He can't look at his angel while talking about this. "That's why I don't want you anywhere near them," he adds in a whisper, as if saying the words too loud would make the hell appear and engulf her.

"What do you mean by 'hell'?" she asks in the same quiet tone.

The first time she has seen him, she has thought he has come from heaven, and she still thinks this as she observes him, with his powerful body, his flawless face, and his tender eyes, even if they're darkened by infernal clouds.

Her fingers are itching to brush his clenched hand, yet she is afraid it would only tense him more after everything that has happened today.

"I mean death, or jail, but it's kinda the same... More or less instantly..."

"'Instantly'? You mean after a trial?" Her voice starts shaking, like her hands that have now let go of her pendant, while his tone is unwavering in a frozen, grievous kind of way.

Why does she focus on the word 'instantly' more than on the other crucial ones? It is like she can't process the others; her mind is blocking them out in a survival instinct although they are already creeping up on her skin.

"Trials don't change much. I think you know this?" He gives her a small half-smile, yet it is so tiny and sad that it doesn't even look like a smile. "But it depends on the breach of the law and also on the high supervisors. Some get a trial, some not, some get killed instantly, some right after, some are sent to jail, but in those inhuman conditions, they don't live long..."

Flashes play in his mind, resembling a lot the nightmares he can't escape at night: deaths, blood, chains, skeletal, bruised and injured bodies that look more like ghosts than humans, barbwires, and the agony he's glimpsed in some eyes the few times they haven't been covered.

The putrid, unmistakable smell is invading his lungs again, inching up his nose, and a shiver runs down his spine as he can still feel the cold, narrow walls around. His mind is taking him back there again, and he wants to scream; however, the excruciating cries haunting him are not his.

As if she could see those haunting images without even knowing it, Anastasia blinks her eyes. It is the only movement she can do, and she doesn't know from where she finds the words, but she hears her voice – well, a voice that sounds a lot like hers, yet so hoarse that it could come from the depths of the world – leave her lips. 

"But... the banishments and the custodial sentences... they're supposed to rehabilitate... not to be deadly..."

Actually, she has always been so focused on her idea of justice and on defending the law that she has never really questioned all those dark points. 

Everyone knows that any violation of the law results in banishment and incarceration, and the trials in the criminal courts are always supporting the prosecution. Yet no one really talks more about the jails and sentences. 

The 'criminals' disappear after their arrest and trial, and they never come back, leaving their daily life like ghosts. Anastasia has always believed they have deserved their punishment, but death and inhuman conditions? Do they really deserve that?

Now that she knows how easy it can be to cross the line and that she gets to discover life beyond the texts of law, she realizes nothing is all black or white. Her scale of fairness is getting tipped over, and it might never find balance again with the burdensome weight pushing on her chest.

"I know it because I've worked in those jails for a few months when I've started in the armed forces." He closes his eyes for a second, and something inside her chest tries to reach out as he seems away, while the rest of her body is still paralyzed in ice.

He is speaking the words to help her understand, yet he doesn't hear her questions, as if he is stuck in a nightmare replaying inside his head to transcript her the truth.

"We call it hell. We don't have the right to talk about it to anyone." He re-opens his eyes. "I hated it there."

Inside the frozen state of her body, she can hear the shattering sound of her heart breaking upon his words.

She doesn't even dare to ask about the 'inhuman conditions' because seeing him haunted and devastated like that is enough to let it guess. He is always so strong and valiant. For him, the fire that has resembled an infernal monster has been nothing, so what this 'hell' can be? She can't even fathom it.

Maybe it is the most horrible sight for her: seeing Nathaniel tortured by dark clouds from this hell.

She wants to hold him and soothe his torments, yet she can't right now because she, herself, would need arms to comfort her.

"As for the attack, I don't know. But it wouldn't surprise me if it was the government itself... It could be possible... Probably to demonize the rebels." He finally turns to her again. "Do you want to know anything else?"

She shakes her head faintly, dazed, and he doesn't have the courage to look in her eyes. He won't bear the pain or disgust that must be engulfing their usual softness.

"Non," she eventually replies in a whisper.

She doesn't want to believe everything he has just told her. However, it is all adding up together as if it has been the last piece of a puzzle of which she has already guessed the final picture. Her brain can turn the pieces in every position, it always ends up with the same dreadful image. 

A part of her wishes she had never started this puzzle or just wants to dismantle it, but something tells her the hellish picture would have appeared to her anyway, and now, it is imprinted in her mind forever. She maybe even wishes she would have discovered it before.

"Now you probably don't see me as a hero either..." He faintly shrugs, his shoulders sagging lower as though he has been emptied of any energy, and it springs a fire inside her chest, flames surging to melt her out of her frozen state. 

Now, she is burning in revolt, disgust, sorrow, and many more emotions that seem to come from this hell. "No!" Her voice slightly rises with an unwavering conviction, before she adds softly, "You didn't decide this. You just follow the orders."

"I'm just a he-man who follows blindly the orders like Alex said..."

He doesn't ask for reassurance or objection; in his gaze, it is clear that he is convinced about this since a long time.

"No, you are a hero." Her tone is as convinced as his. "You're saving lives too, and you've risked your own life in the fire attack!" The worry she has felt a few days ago is still there, and it is rising up easily now that her walls and beliefs have been dismantled. 

"For me, you'll always be a hero no matter what." She holds those tormented chocolate eyes where she will never see a bad person, and the finality is there as much in her hypnotizing gaze as in her words left echoing in the silence with a faraway sound of forever.

Nate hears it, just like the strong uneven beats of his heart, which he can't understand through the blur of this day.

"And I don't think I'm any better, defending the law..."

The tension on her delicate features makes him wish he could have kept her away from all this darkness.

"You didn't know."

"But now I know..."

He recognizes the sparkle of determination appearing in her eyes, and it seizes him like an electric discharge in the guts.

"You gotta promise me to never go near the rebels ever again." His voice is firm, piercing the glimmer of doubt sparking deep inside her, yet it is the hint of urgency at the edge that pulls a sigh out of her tight chest as she looks down at her still-shaking hands.

When he puts two fingers under her chin and slowly lifts it up, she finds the same emotions in his eyes, and both his gaze and tone are unflinching as he repeats, "Promise me."

She pulls her lower lip between her teeth like weighing the words. "I promise."

When she looks back in his earnest tenebrous eyes, she knows she won't be able to break it, no matter how high the flames of protest are rising inside.

"I'm already making you take enough risks..." He should breathe a sigh of relief after her solemn promise; she isn't one to break her words, and oxygen would surely prevent his voice from faltering. Yet the smell of smoke is still too close.

"You're not," she insists, and despite all the memories and what-ifs mixing to paralyze every muscle inside, her determined frown draws a small smile on his lips. "This is our decision."

Now, she can really say it is a decision, and the silence is weighing on her word, along with everything that has been told; it is making everything more real, sealing each answer into reality.

The quietness is what is needed to process all those revelations and their loud implications. But she saves it for later, when she is alone. Maybe she is too stunned, or maybe something else appears more important.

Nathaniel so close. His penetrating eyes are sliding on every detail of her face to then stare straight into her soul, yet he is still so far away. The dark clouds are still there in his eyes, and in the few inches separating them, it is like there is a thick haze making the small distance feel like a thousand miles.

She has asked for answers, and for this, he has dug up dark secrets. Now he is left tormented, like stuck inside a locked, haunted house and chased by the same old demons. She is witnessing it all from outside through the windows of his tenebrous eyes, once more powerless over everything happening around her.

Her gaze roams his strong body, looking for a way to reach in, and it quickly falls on the white gauze still on his left arm, standing out in the dark compartment of the car.

"You still have your bandage?"

This pulls his attention back to her, although not fully; she can see it in his faraway look.

"Yes, I should've removed it, but I didn't find the time." He offers her a half-shrug, the movement of his muscles drawing her even more to the white strip, and it is feather-likely that the tip of her fingers skim it.

"It's fully healed, though. Don't worry."

Is he really reassuring her, even if he is suffering inside? It seems like it as she watches the light crease of his eyebrows following all her movements and his unflinching stance, looking heroic, even more than ever.

"Can I?" She tugs lightly at the bandage tie, waiting for his full approval, and more than his faint nod, it's his eyes almost begging for her touch that give it.

She wishes she could heal his soul as easily as his physical scars. However, she can still try to soothe it.

She focuses on working her fingers on the adhesive tie. All her attention is on this, and it is the only thing she can do with her numb mind, so she lets her body take over.

Slowly her careful fingers unwind the white cloth from his tensed muscle, and when the wound finally appears to her eyes, she sucks in a sharp breath. It has been more serious than he has described. The skin is still darkened in red and swollen around a deep cut.

She peers up cautiously to find his expression hasn't wavered a second, not even for a glance at the fresh scar. He is still too far away, lost somewhere inside his mind, and she doesn't know which sight worries her the most. 

She has been paralyzed by everything she has just discovered, her body numb and unable to feel or process anything, yet for this, she can perceive his pain in every inch of her skin, inside and outside.

She leans in to leave a soft kiss on one end of the scar, and he lets out a shaky sigh of relief the second her warm lips brush his skin. All his nerve endings are attracted to the smooth contact, and it's like she is closing the sensitive wound as her mouth travels along. In fact, she's wrapping his insides in a soft haze and shielding him from his ghosts, replacing his iron shield with a celestial cloud. 

She is his angel, despite everything he's revealed her from hell, and she doesn't deserve to be drawn anywhere near these dark shadows.

"You know... I would understand if you want to stop our... 'let it be' agreement now..." He glances down at her blond ponytail, her lips stilling in the middle of his mark and her thoughtful frown coming to his view as she pulls away.

"No." She traces her forefinger delicately in the puffed red skin, creating goosebumps that intensify with the expectation of her next words.

"I already knew the risks and consequences were high, and it doesn't change it. I don't want to stop."

This is the only thing she is sure of in this instant: she needs him and their special closeness in all this chaos.

"And you?" These two little words bring back all the shakes in her voice and all the weight of what has been said in the small space.

When he heaves out an empty breath, she is holding hers more than for any other question he has answered her.

"I wish..." He slides his finger in her ponytail, searching for something in her hazel eyes, while her heart is dropping and jumping between his words and gestures, and she still isn't breathing. "But I can't stop." He lets out another sigh through his nose, and he must feel all the relief she is taking in with her breath because he adds,

"But we gotta be careful." He is holding her gaze with much more meaning behind those few words, and it is the same for her reply as she leaves one more tender, healing kiss on his scar.

"We're fine in our safe place." 

Sooo, it was a long chapter, very intense, but not in the same meaning as usual, right? We've learned more about the dark shadows of the government haunting Nate? Tell me your thoughts on all of this! 💔 It makes this 'let it be' and the consequences even more serious...

Did you expect Anastasia to go see the rebels? And did you suspect this 'hell' for those who break the law?

And what do you think of the rebels? And Hadi? Personally, I love his name! 😁😈

Also, fortunately, thanks to Mr. Pina Colada, we got some lightness too! 😉

Let me know what you think of this chapter in the comments below, and vote if you liked it!

As usual, I love to hear from you! Especially after this long chapter which required some heart-breaking researches.