Chapter 83 What it cost him

Chapter 83 What it cost him
The silence after they vanished didn’t feel like relief. It felt unfinished, like a sentence that stopped halfway and expected us to guess the rest. The field stayed still. No wind. No insects. Just the smell of burnt air and broken ground.
Xander stood a few steps away from me, hands loose at his sides, like he didn’t trust them to behave. He didn’t look at me. That was the first thing that hurt.
“You knew,” I said.
It wasn’t an accusation yet. Just a statement.
He nodded once. Small. Careful. “Parts.”
I waited for more. It didn’t come.
I laughed under my breath. “You’re really good at that.”
“At what?”
“At deciding when I deserve the truth.”
He flinched. That helped, a little.
We didn’t argue then. We walked. The man who’d warned us earlier kept his distance, like he knew he didn’t belong in whatever was unfolding between us. The path dipped and rose until we reached a low structure pressed into the side of a hill. Metal doors. No markings. Nothing welcoming.
“This is where I stop,” the man said. “After this, there’s no pretending.”
“Pretending what?” I asked.
“That you’re not already chosen,” he replied.
The doors opened without a sound. Inside was light. Clean. Too clean. Screens lined the walls, filled with scrolling names. Some paused. Some vanished mid-line.
I stepped closer before I could stop myself.
“These are people,” I said.
Xander came up beside me. His name appeared. Then mine.
I felt something drop inside me. Not fear. Recognition. Like seeing a photo you didn’t know existed.
“They marked you,” I said to him.
“They marked me years ago,” he replied. “I just didn’t think I still mattered.”
A voice came from behind us.
“Of course you mattered.”
The man who entered didn’t rush. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. He looked like someone used to being obeyed.
“Xander,” he said warmly. “You look tired.”
Xander went rigid. “Elias.”
That name carried weight. Not dramatic weight. Familiar weight. Like something he’d tried to forget.
“You brought her here,” Elias said, looking at me openly now. “I wondered how long it would take.”
“Say her name,” I told him.
He did. Smoothly. Like he’d practiced.
That did something ugly to my stomach.
“You broke protocol,” Elias said to Xander. “Repeatedly.”
“I walked away,” Xander replied. “That was the protocol.”
Elias smiled. “You were reassigned.”
Xander shook his head. “No. I chose.”
Elias tapped one of the screens. Xander’s file expanded. Orders. Notes. A timeline that made my skin crawl.
“You were never meant to stay with her,” Elias said. “You were meant to guide her. Calm her. Delay her. Until transfer.”
I turned to Xander slowly.
“Is that true?”
He didn’t answer.
I waited.
He still didn’t look at me.
“Yes,” he said finally.
The word landed dull. Heavy. Like it had been waiting to hurt me.
“So I was a task,” I said. “A responsibility.”
“No,” he said quickly. “You were—”
“Don’t fix it,” I cut in. “Just tell it.”
He swallowed. “You were instructions at first.”
There it was.
I laughed, but it came out wrong. “At first,” I repeated.
“And then?” I asked.
He looked at me then. Really looked. His eyes were red. Not crying. Holding something back.
“And then you started making sense,” he said. “And everything I was supposed to do stopped working.”
Elias sighed. “This is getting emotional.”
He turned to Xander. “Come back. You know how this ends otherwise.”
“What happens if he does?” I asked.
“You live,” Elias replied. “Quietly.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Elias didn’t hesitate. “We erase him.”
Xander’s jaw clenched. I saw his hands shake once before he forced them still.
I stepped closer to him. “Look at me.”
He did.
“You don’t owe me anything,” I said. “You can walk away.”
His breath hitched. Just a little.
“I already did that once,” he said. “And it followed me anyway.”
Elias raised his hand. “Time.”
Xander closed his eyes.
When he opened them, something was gone. Something careful.
“No,” he said.
Elias frowned. “No?”
“I’m not coming back,” Xander repeated. Louder. “I won’t help you finish what you started.”
“You’re choosing her over everything you are,” Elias said.
Xander nodded. “Yes.”
The room reacted instantly. Lights shifted. Alarms screamed. Screens flashed red.
Elias stepped back, disbelief breaking through his calm. “You’re throwing your life away.”
Xander laughed once. “You already decided what my life was.”
I didn’t think. I moved. I slammed the pendant into the nearest console. Glass shattered. Sparks flew. The screens died one by one.
The room plunged into chaos.
Someone shouted. Someone grabbed my arm. Xander pulled me free. We ran. Doors slammed. Something exploded behind us. Heat brushed my back.
We burst out through a side exit and hit the ground hard. The hill collapsed inward, swallowing the place whole.
Silence followed.
We lay there, breathing like we’d forgotten how earlier.
Xander rolled onto his back and stared at the sky. “That’s it.”
I turned toward him. “What is?”
“My way back,” he said. “Burned.”
I sat up slowly. “You could’ve let them take me.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He didn’t answer right away. He rubbed his face, like he was exhausted down to the bone.
“Because I watched your father make that choice,” he said quietly. “And I helped him.”
I froze. “You knew him.”
“Yes.”
“You helped him leave?”
“I helped him hide,” Xander said. “And I stayed behind to clean up the lie.”
That hurt in a new way. Deeper.
“You were supposed to be the end of it,” he continued. “But you weren’t.”
I stood. Offered him my hand. He hesitated, then took it.
“What happens now?” he asked.
I looked at the smoking ground behind us. The broken system. The mess.
“Now,” I said, “they stop thinking I’m a problem they can manage.”
He nodded. “And start hunting.”
I met his eyes. “Let them.”
No promises. No comfort.
Just the sound of us walking away from something that couldn’t be fixed.