Chapter 287
Chapter 287
In her arms, Thomas and Timothy felt the overwhelming sadness radiating from Sophie. They looked up at her with confused little faces. They didn't fully understand what had happened yet, but instinctively sensed that something terrible had occurred.
"Mommy?" Timothy's little hand clutched tightly at her clothes, his voice timid. "Why aren't you talking?"
Thomas also pouted, his big eyes brimming with tears. “Mom… isn’t Dad coming back? And Uncle Steve? Do they… not want us anymore?”
That last sentence shattered the composure Sophie had been desperately trying to maintain.
She couldn't break down.
This thought screamed frantically in her mind.
Sophie forcefully wiped away the tears on her face, shoving down the grief that threatened to drown her.
"Don't cry, don't cry..." She held Thomas and Timothy tight, her voice hoarse and nearly gone as she comforted them over and over.
"Daddy and Uncle Steve... they're just playing hide and seek."
"They're hiding somewhere far, far away. Mommy will find them, I promise."
She didn't know if she was comforting Thomas and Timothy, or trying to convince herself that this was just a nightmare that would disappear when she woke up.
Simon, covered in the smell of blood, hesitated for a long time.
Finally, he stepped forward, bent down, and pulled Sophie, Thomas, and Timothy into his embrace, his voice low but firm.
"It's over."
"Alfonso's last remaining forces in the country—we've wiped them out completely this time, every last one."
He paused, his words clear and forceful.
"Sophie, a signal loss doesn't mean the worst has happened. That area has complicated terrain—signal interference is normal. They're not that easy to kill."
After the frightened Thomas and Timothy, along with Zola, who'd been shot in the arm, were picked up overnight by Ares's private medical team, Sophie locked herself in the command room.
When Simon came in with a cup of hot milk, this was the scene he found.
Sophie's eyes were bloodshot as she desperately pulled up all the highest-resolution satellite images and terrain survey data she had clearance to access from the incident area.
"Go rest." Simon's tone was commanding.
Sophie didn't look back, her fingers flying across the keyboard so fast they left afterimages.
"Simon, I can't sleep."
"As a photographer, I understand terrain and light better than anyone. Standard search patterns won't find them. The landslide triggered by the explosion creates countless visual blind spots and natural camouflage."
She zoomed in on a satellite image to the pixel level, pointing at an unremarkable shadow.
"Look here—the way the debris piled up after the landslide isn't natural. There might be a buried cave or rock crevice here. And here, the direction the vegetation fell suggests the impact force was buffered and redirected..."
She abandoned all conventional search logic, relying on stubborn intuition to analyze the cold data frame by frame.
She had to find any tiny possibility that could harbor life in this land of death.
"I have to find them."
"If they're alive, I need to see them."
"If they're dead, I need to see their bodies."
Simon looked at Sophie's determined profile and swallowed back all his words of comfort.
He silently placed the hot milk beside her, turned and left the command room, picking up his communicator.
"Activate Ares's highest-level rescue protocol."
"Deploy everyone we can move. Lock down the coastline and all mountain areas within twenty miles below the cliff."
"Even if we have to hollow out that mountain, we're finding them!"
...
In the cave at the bottom of the cliff, time lost all meaning.
Cold rainwater dripped from cracks in the rock, pooling into a small puddle of murky water.
That was their only water source.
No food, no fire, only endless darkness and bone-penetrating cold.
Benjamin's condition was getting worse.
The deep wound on his back, exposed to the damp environment, had inevitably become infected. He developed a high fever, his whole body burning hot as he fell into a deep unconsciousness.
He started talking nonsense.
"Sophie... don't go... I'm sorry..."
"I was wrong... I shouldn't have doubted you..."
His voice was broken and unclear, echoing in the empty cave.
"Thomas... Timothy... Daddy was wrong... Daddy will take you to the amusement park..."
Over and over, he stubbornly repeated those few names and that apology that was five years too late.
Steve sat silently beside him, using a dampened cloth to wipe his burning forehead again and again, trying to cool him down.
The motion was mechanical, numb, yet carried a trace of anxiety even he hadn't noticed.
"I'm not her."
Steve muttered to himself, his words especially clear in the darkness.
"I'm Steve. Open your eyes and look clearly."
But Benjamin, delirious with fever, couldn't hear him at all.
In one moment, he seemed to fall into some nightmare about the past, his body trembling violently.
Then, unconsciously, he reached out and grabbed Steve's wrist.
"Steve..."
A confused murmur escaped from Benjamin's cracked lips.
"Steve... don't go..."
In that moment, Steve's whole body shook.
His solid defenses cracked open with a bottomless fissure at that unconscious plea.
He remembered many years ago, when they were both still young.
During an outdoor camping trip, Benjamin had stubbornly stayed out in the cold wind all night and came back with a high fever. Just like this, his consciousness burned away until he was confused, yet he held onto Steve's hand desperately, mumbling "Steve" over and over, refusing to let Steve leave.
Back then, the sky was so blue, the wind so gentle, and the bond between them hadn't yet been tainted by conspiracy and hatred.
Past resentment, present cruelty, and the boyhood friendship buried deep in memory all tangled together, making it hard for Steve to breathe.
He looked at Benjamin's face, flushed with the unnatural red of high fever, at that face laid bare and defenseless.
Finally, he clasped that burning hand in return.
"Benjamin, listen to me carefully.”
Steve lowered his head, leaning close to his ear, speaking each word clearly, his voice steady yet distinct.
"Five years ago, you sent me to Dark Hollow Prison, you left me in a state where I could neither live nor die.”
"My family fell apart because of you. My sister wandered homeless with her children."
"You haven't paid for any of that yet."
“You want to die?" The corner of his mouth curved into a cold arc.
"Death would be too easy for you."
"I won't let you escape that easily."
Steve’s voice dropped even lower, heavy with an irresistible obsession.
"If you want to die, wait until I kill you with my own hands."
"You have to stay alive so I can keep hating you. So live, damn it!"