Chapter 68: Breach
The estate never felt truly safe, but that night it felt like a cracked shield. We carried the weight of the prophecy back with us, each step heavier than the last. By the time we passed through the gates, the silence between us wasn’t just silence anymore. It was suspicion.
Elena was the first to break it. She shoved her crossbow onto the table in the war room and glared at all of us. “Fine. Say it out loud. Which one of you still thinks I’m the traitor?”
No one answered.
Which, of course, was an answer in itself.
“Oh, come on,” she barked. “I’ve been bleeding for this group since day one. I’ve covered your asses, dragged Ethan out of fire, saved Rhea when she nearly got torn apart by hybrids. But sure, let’s believe the magic puddle that says I’m gonna slit Roxanne’s throat.”
Ethan rubbed his eyes. “Elena, nobody said—”
“You didn’t have to say it!” she snapped. “You looked at me like I already had blood on my hands.”
“Elena,” I said carefully, “the pool shows possibilities. Not certainties. But we’d be stupid not to take it seriously.”
Her jaw clenched. “So you do think it’s me.”
“I think—” I stopped, forcing myself to breathe. “I think it could be any of us. Even me.”
That shut everyone up.
Echo tilted her head. “You believe that?”
“I don’t know what I believe anymore,” I admitted. “But if the Hollow Creed has been planning this for decades, maybe the betrayal isn’t even intentional. Maybe it’s not about someone turning against us on purpose. Maybe it’s about being manipulated. Controlled.”
Aidan stepped closer, his voice calm but heavy. “Either way, it means we can’t let our guard down.”
Ethan slammed his laptop shut. “Too late.”
We all turned.
He pulled up the estate’s perimeter feed. The screens flickered with static, then sharpened into focus. Figures moved in the dark beyond the walls. Dozens. Maybe hundreds.
The Hollow Creed.
And they weren’t hiding anymore.
“Son of a—” Elena grabbed her crossbow again. “Looks like prophecy hour is officially canceled.”
“No,” Ethan said grimly. “This is the prophecy.”
\---
The attack came faster than we expected.
Alarms blared through the estate, lights flooding the walls. Hybrids ran to their posts, confusion twisting across their faces. For weeks they had been kneeling, waiting, unsure where their loyalty truly belonged. Now, with soldiers pouring out of the trees, they had to choose.
Some fought with us.
Others… didn’t.
Steel clashed against steel. The crack of rifles echoed across the courtyard. Wolves shifted mid-air, fur tearing through skin, teeth flashing in moonlight. Smoke grenades rolled through the halls.
It was chaos.
And in the middle of it, Elena fired bolt after bolt, cutting down soldier after soldier without hesitation. Whatever the pool had shown us, she wasn’t hesitating now.
But the doubt was still there.
Every time her blade flashed, every time she disappeared into the smoke and reappeared, my heart clenched. What if this was it? What if this was the betrayal, happening right in front of me?
“Roxanne!” Aidan shouted, pulling me back behind a wall as bullets slammed into the stone. “We need to hold the west gate!”
“I saw her by the armory,” Echo said, sprinting past us. “She’s holding the line.”
“Who?” I demanded.
“Elena!”
My chest tightened.
\---
We reached the west gate just as it buckled under the Creed’s explosives. The blast threw us back, dust and fire swallowing the courtyard. Soldiers surged through the gap, rifles raised.
And there was Elena.
Standing in the middle of the breach, crossbow raised, firing bolt after bolt with perfect precision. She fought like a storm, fast and furious, screaming curses at the Creed with every shot.
“Get back!” she yelled at us. “I’ve got this!”
“Elena, move!” I shouted.
“No!” She reloaded, her hands steady despite the blood running down her arm. “You don’t get it, Rox. If anyone’s gonna die proving that puddle wrong, it’s gonna be me.”
She fired again. And again.
The soldiers kept coming.
“Fall back!” Aidan roared.
But Elena didn’t. She stood her ground, alone, bolts flying until her quiver was empty. Then she drew her knives and went hand-to-hand.
And for a moment—just a moment—I believed she might actually hold them.
\---
Then I saw it.
Through the smoke.
Through the chaos.
A figure slipping into the estate while everyone’s eyes were on Elena.
Not a soldier. Not a hybrid.
Someone else.
Someone cloaked.
They moved fast, quiet, cutting through the shadows toward the inner halls.
Toward the heart of the estate.
Toward me.
I froze.
Because suddenly, the prophecy made sense.
It wasn’t about Elena at all.
It was about whoever had just gotten inside.
\---
“Elena!” I screamed. “Behind you!”
She turned just in time to see the cloaked figure vanish into the smoke. Her face hardened. “Go! I’ll hold this line. Don’t argue, just go!”
Aidan grabbed my arm. “Roxanne—”
“I know,” I said, my voice shaking. “But if we don’t stop whoever that is, it won’t matter how many soldiers we kill out here.”
He nodded once. “Then let’s move.”
\---
We left Elena at the gate, her war cries echoing through the smoke, and sprinted into the estate. The halls were chaos—hybrids fighting hybrids, Creed soldiers carving through rooms like they had the blueprint memorized.
But I didn’t care about any of that.
All I could see was the shadow moving ahead of us, slipping deeper into the estate, toward the war room.
And I knew—knew in my bones—that this was the betrayal the pool had promised.
Not from Elena.
Not from Ethan.
Not from any of us.
But from someone we hadn’t seen yet.
Someone waiting in the dark.