Chapter 14
631words
Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
She saw fire erupt from the gun barrel, saw determination flash across Liam's dust-streaked face.
In the split second before impact, Liam shoved her—protective case and all—out of the driver's seat.
She felt herself hurled from the vehicle by tremendous force, tumbling down the steep slope. Through the spinning chaos, she heard the terrible thud of bullets tearing through metal and flesh, and... Liam's short, muffled grunt drowned by gunfire.
When she finally stopped rolling, she lay at the slope's bottom, body screaming with pain, but the case remained intact. She forced herself to look up.
The truck was riddled with bullets, driver's door hanging open. Liam's body dangled lifelessly, blood pouring from his chest, turning the yellow earth beneath him dark crimson.
Her mind went completely blank.
"Liam..." She tried calling his name, but only a hoarse wheeze escaped her throat.
She tried crawling toward him, but her body felt leaden, immovable. Pain and darkness surged like a tide.
In the final moment before consciousness fled, one thought remained—
What were his last words? He'd said something...
Right. He'd said:
"Let the world... see..."
The darkness receded as cabin lights flickered on.
Lena opened her eyes, momentarily disoriented. Her face felt cold and wet; she touched it to find tears streaming down. A flight attendant offered a warm towel, her eyes showing professional concern.
She thanked her and buried her face in the towel. For the first time in daylight, the nightmare of the past three years had returned with perfect clarity.
She finally understood.
After Liam's death, rescue teams found her and she spent two months in a Beirut hospital. While her body healed, her soul festered. Severe PTSD meant any sudden sound—a slamming door, a car horn—instantly transported her back to that blood-soaked Syrian earth.
Nightmares plagued her sleep, waking her screaming and drenched in sweat. Doctors prescribed medications, therapists encouraged talking, but nothing worked. The hole was too vast for anything to fill.
She hated herself for surviving, hated that she wasn't the one with bullets in her chest. She alone survived the mission; the hard drive reached its destination, triggering international outcry and even a brief ceasefire. She received accolades she didn't want. She only wanted Liam back.
In countless moments when she contemplated jumping from rooftops, Liam's last words would echo—"Let the world... see..."
This was what he'd exchanged his life for; she had no right to surrender.
So she chose the most cowardly yet thorough escape. Returning to New York, she sealed away all memories, resigned her position, cut her hair, and plunged into a world completely opposite her past.
That's when she met Alex.
He represented everything opposite to what she'd lost. He didn't live on the edge but at the world's center; cared not for souls but numbers; his world contained no chaos, only precise, predictable order. He was safe—safe as slow suffocation.
Choosing him—like taking a job as a "content reviewer" numbly flagging thousands of violent and hateful videos daily—was self-punishment and exile. By transforming into the boring "stable asset" worthy of his "life blueprint," she hoped to extinguish her former self who had once bled among war's flames.
She almost succeeded.
Until last night, when that cold note revealed the ridiculous, self-deceptive lie she'd been living. Both she and Alex had merely used each other to escape what they truly wanted but feared to face.
The plane began its descent. Outside stretched the boundless desolation and distinctive ochre landscape of the Middle East. Lena removed her eye mask and, for the first time, gazed fearlessly at the land that had given her true love, then mercilessly snatched it away.
