Chapter 65 Intruder

Chapter 65 Intruder
Chelsea

✦

K moves with a speed that steals my breath. In one fluid motion, he's off me, crouched in a defensive stance. He yanks me up by my arm, pulling me behind him, his body a solid wall between me and whatever threat lurks in the darkness. His hand presses firmly against my lower back, a silent command to stay put.

"Stay behind me," he whispers, his voice a low, dangerous growl that vibrates through me. "Don't make a sound."

I nod, my throat too tight to form words. My heart is a frantic drum against my ribs, a wild, terrified thing. Did they find us? After all this? After Sam's promises of safety?

He inches forward, a predator stalking unseen prey, keeping me shielded behind his broad frame. He peeks around the corner of the gym's open doorway, his body coiled and tense. The night outside is a canvas of impenetrable black, broken only by the dim security lights lining the path. He's still for a long moment, his head tilted, listening.

Then he turns back to me, his masked face inches from mine. I can see the tension in the set of his shoulders. "I think we have an intruder," he mouths, the words barely a puff of air.

My blood runs cold. My entire body goes numb with a fear so profound it's paralyzing. They found us. The traffickers. They found the compound.

"Stay close," he commands, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Do exactly as I say. We're going to the training yard."

He pulls me by the hand, and I follow, my feet moving automatically, my mind a screaming mess of terror. We stick to the shadows, moving silently through the sleeping compound. Every rustle of leaves, every creak of a branch, sends a jolt of pure adrenaline through me. The training yard looms ahead, the moonlight casting the targets in an eerie, ghostly glow.

He pushes me down behind a low wall, his movements urgent. "They're out there," he whispers, pointing toward the tree line at the edge of the yard. "I saw movement. You need to be ready."

"Ready for what?" I choke out, my voice trembling.

"To fight," he says, his voice hard as steel. He reaches into a hidden compartment in the wall and pulls out a familiar weighted knife, pressing it into my hand. The grip is cold, a stark contrast to my sweaty palm. "You know what to do. You've practiced. I need you to cover me."

My mind races, replaying all those nights in the yard, the thump of steel hitting wood. This isn't practice. This is real.

"See that tree?" he points, his voice a low, urgent hiss. "There's someone behind it. I need you to take them out. Now, Chelsea."

My eyes follow his finger to a large oak at the edge of the clearing. I can't see anyone, but he's the expert. My hand is shaking so badly I can barely hold the knife. I take a shaky breath, trying to remember his lessons. Stance. Grip. Follow through. I raise my arm, my muscles screaming in protest.

I let the knife fly.

It sails through the air, a dark streak against the moonlit sky, and lands with a solid, satisfying thud right in the center of the tree trunk.

A wave of dizzying relief washes over me. I did it. I actually did it.

"Good," K says, his voice tight with tension. "Now the bow. There's another one, by the bushes. You have to be quiet. You'll only get one shot."

He shoves a bow into my hands, an arrow already nocked. My eyes dart to the bushes he's pointing at. I can't see anything, but my fear is a living thing, screaming at me to trust him. I pull the string back, my breath catching in my throat. The wood of the bow presses into my cheek, a familiar, grounding sensation. I aim for the center of the dark, shadowy bush and release.

The arrow flies true, disappearing into the foliage. A beat of silence, then a dull thwack.

I lower the bow, my chest heaving, my body trembling with a cocktail of terror and adrenaline. "Did I... did I get them?" I whisper.

K doesn't answer. He just walks out from behind the wall, not with caution, but with a strange, deliberate calm. He walks to the tree and pulls the knife out of the trunk. Then he goes to the bushes and retrieves my arrow. He walks back toward me, and in the dim light, I see it. He's holding a paper target, the kind we use for practice, with a clean hole right through the bullseye. The one on the tree was a paper target too.

My blood turns to ice. "What... what is this?" I ask, my voice shaking with a new, rising fury. "There was no one there, was there?"

"It was a test," he says, his voice flat, devoid of emotion.

"A test?" I practically shriek, the fear morphing into a white-hot rage. "You terrified me! I thought we were going to die! You made me think... you made me believe they were here!"

"I needed to know," he says, his voice rising to match mine. "I needed to know if you could do it. If you could handle yourself when the fear was real."

"So you lied to me?" I scream, my fists clenching at my sides. "You played with my head? What is wrong with you?"

"What is wrong with me?" he roars, his voice echoing through the yard. He takes a step toward me, his masked face a terrifying void. "What is wrong with you? You think a real attack is going to come with a warning? You think they're going to announce themselves? I need you to be ready, Chelsea! I need you to be able to fight, to survive, even when you're scared out of your mind!"

"It's my job to protect everyone here," he continues, his voice dropping to a low, intense growl. "But you... I need to protect you. I can't be everywhere. I can't always be there to stop them from getting to you. You need to be able to stop them yourself."

He reaches out, his gloved hand gently cupping my cheek, a stark contrast to his harsh words. "I can't lose you," he whispers, his voice cracking with an emotion that's raw and real. "I won't let anything happen to you. But I need to know you can handle it. And tonight, you proved you can."

I stare at him, my anger deflating, replaced by a dizzying wave of understanding. He wasn't being cruel. He was being desperate. He was testing me because he was scared for me. And in that moment, I know, with a certainty that both terrifies and thrills me, that this isn't just a job to him. It's personal.

The rage that had been coursing through me moments before evaporates, leaving behind a hollow ache of confusion. I stare at him, at the mask that hides everything, and the question that has been burning inside me for weeks finally tears its way out.

"Why?" I whisper, my voice raw. "Why do you care this much about me? Why are you trying so hard? Why aren't you treating anyone else the way you do me?"

He's silent for a long moment, his shoulders slumping slightly as if the weight of my question is too much to bear. He turns away from me, his gaze fixed on the dark, silent tree line. "Because the past haunts me," he says, his voice low and rough, stripped of all its earlier anger. "And I know your past haunts you."

I flinch, his words hitting a nerve I didn't know was exposed. "What do you mean, my past?" I demand, my voice shaking with a new kind of fear. "You know nothing about me."

He doesn't answer. He just stands there, a silent, stubborn statue in the moonlight, his refusal to elaborate a wall between us that's higher and more impenetrable than any fence around this compound. The silence stretches, thick and heavy, until I can't stand it anymore.

"Tell me," I plead, taking a step toward him. "You can't just say something like that and then... nothing."

He finally turns back to me, the dark eyes of his mask unreadable. "We should get back," he says, his voice flat, all emotion gone. "It's late. We should get some rest for tonight."

He's shutting me out. Just like he always does. He gives me a piece of himself, a glimpse of the pain that drives him, and then he slams the door shut, leaving me standing in the cold with more questions than answers. I want to scream, to shake him, to demand that he tell me everything. But I know it's useless. He's a fortress, and I'm just a girl standing outside the walls, begging for a glimpse of the man within.

I nod, my shoulders slumping in defeat. "Okay," I whisper, the word barely audible.

He leads the way back to the main lodge, his strides long and purposeful. I follow a few steps behind, the silence between us a chasm of unspoken words. He walks me to my door, his presence a comforting, infuriating shadow. He stops, his hand hovering for a moment as if he wants to touch me, but then he lets it drop.

"Get some sleep, Chelsea," he says, his voice soft, a stark contrast to the harsh words from earlier.

He turns and walks away, disappearing down the dark hallway, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the chilling realization that he knows more about me than he's letting on. And I have no idea how.