Chapter 89 Eighty nine
Elena's POV
The dreams start without warning.
One night I am sleeping peacefully, wrapped in warmth, my body finally resting after weeks of training and tension. The next I am falling, falling into darkness, and when I land I am somewhere else entirely.
Not the attack. Not the bridge, the bullets, the chaos I lived through. Something worse.
I am in a room I do not recognize. White walls, white floor, bright lights that hurt my eyes. And on the ground, bleeding, is Silvio.
He is torn open. His chest is red, his hands are red, everything is red. His eyes find mine and they are already going dim, already losing light, already leaving me.
I drop to my knees beside him. My hands press against the wounds, trying to stop the blood, but it keeps coming, hot and endless, slipping through my fingers like water. I know what to do. He taught me. Pressure, elevation, find the source. But my hands will not obey. They shake and slip and do nothing.
His mouth moves. He is trying to say something. I lean close, my ear to his lips, and I hear my name.
Elena.
Then nothing.
I scream. The sound tears out of me, raw and animal, a noise I did not know I could make. I keep pressing on his chest, keep trying, keep failing. The blood pools around my knees. His eyes are open and empty.
I scream until my throat tears.
\---
I wake gasping.
The room is dark. Familiar. Our room. The bed is soft beneath me, the sheets tangled around my legs. I am drenched in sweat, my nightclothes clinging to my skin, my heart slamming against my ribs like it is trying to escape.
I cannot breathe. I cannot think. The dream is still there, behind my eyes, his empty eyes, my useless hands—
"Elena."
His voice. Close. Real.
I turn. He is there, already awake, already reaching for me. His face is concerned, his eyes searching mine in the dim light.
"The same dream?" he asks quietly.
I try to speak. Nothing comes. I nod instead, jerky, desperate.
He does not ask more. He just pulls me against his chest, one arm around my back, one hand cradling my head. His heartbeat is under my ear, steady and strong and alive.
I press closer, listening to it. Letting it remind me that he is here, he is real, he is breathing.
\---
We stay like that for a long time.
His hand moves slowly on my back, tracing patterns, soothing. My breathing gradually slows. The images from the dream fade to the edges of my mind, still there but quieter now.
"I have them too," he says.
His voice is low, rough, the words dragged from somewhere deep. He does not share things like this easily. I know that. Every admission from him is a gift.
"You, in the crossfire." His hand stills on my back. "Me, too slow."
I look up at him. His face is shadowed, but I see the pain there, the fear he usually hides so well.
His arms tighten around me.
"The only cure is training harder. Being sharper. Making sure it never happens."
I understand. The dreams come from helplessness, from fear, from the knowledge that we cannot control everything. The only way to fight them is to become someone who can. Someone strong enough, fast enough, smart enough to survive.
I look up at him. Meet his eyes.
"Then train me harder."
He is quiet for a moment. His thumb brushes my cheek, catching a tear I did not know was there.
"You will hate me for what I will put you through."
His voice is serious. He means it. He knows what he is capable of, knows the demands he will make, the limits he will push.
I do not look away.
"Try me."
\---
The words hang in the air between us.
Something shifts in his eyes. The fear is still there, but underneath it, something else awakens. Respect. Wonder. A fierce kind of pride.
He cups my face in both hands. His thumbs brush my tears away, gentle despite everything.
"In the morning," he says. "We start again. Harder than before."
I nod.
He kisses my forehead. Then he pulls me back against his chest, wraps himself around me like a shield, and holds me until the sun rises.
I do not sleep again. But lying there, listening to his heart, I do not need to.
The dreams will come again. I know that. The fear will never fully leave.
But I will be ready. I will train until I cannot move, learn until I cannot think, push until there is nothing left to push.
And when the moment comes, if it comes, I will not be useless.
I will be the woman who saves him, not the one who watches him die.
His heartbeat drums under my ear, steady and strong.
I hold onto it like a promise.