Chapter 18 JEALOUSY IGNITES

Chapter 18 JEALOUSY IGNITES
Kade's POV
I saw the way Damon touched her.
His hand on the small of her back. Gentle. Possessive. Like he had the right.
Sera leaned into him. Not pulling away. Not maintaining the distance she kept with everyone else.
Leaning into him like he was safe.
My chest felt like someone had driven a knife between my ribs.
We were in the common area. Morning light streamed through the reinforced windows. Cassia's emergency assembly last night had ended with a warning instead of termination. She'd called us all together, shown us the surveillance footage of Sera and Damon kissing, and told us inappropriate attachment was grounds for program removal.
Then she'd smiled and said we had one more chance to prove we could follow the rules.
One more chance before she killed us all.
But apparently Damon didn't care about rules anymore.
I watched him whisper something in Sera's ear. Watched her smile. Actually smile. Something I'd only seen her do maybe twice since arriving at this facility.
He made her smile.
The knife in my chest twisted deeper.
Ryker sat at the table reviewing medical data on his tablet. He glanced up, saw Sera and Damon, and his expression tightened. So I wasn't the only one who noticed.
Sera finally pulled away from Damon and headed toward her room. She had to pass by me on the way.
Our eyes met for half a second.
I saw guilt there. And defiance. And something else I couldn't name.
Then she was gone.
Leaving me standing there with nineteen years of military training screaming at me to maintain control while everything inside me was breaking apart.
Damon headed toward the training room.
I followed.
The training room was small. Padded mats on the floor. Reinforced walls designed to handle enhanced Wardens beating the hell out of equipment. Or each other.
Damon was wrapping his hands when I walked in. He saw me and didn't stop. Just kept winding the tape around his knuckles like he knew what was coming.
"You slept with her," I said.
Not a question.
Damon looked up. His scarred face showed no regret.
"She chose to," he replied simply.
The rage that had been building since I saw them together exploded.
My fist connected with his jaw before I even realized I was moving.
Damon stumbled back but didn't go down. He touched his split lip and smiled. Actually smiled.
"Feel better, Commander?"
I hit him again.
This time he hit back.
The fight was brutal. Enhanced Wardens with years of combat training. We'd both been designed to kill efficiently. Both survived situations that would break normal men.
But this wasn't about survival.
This was about her.
I slammed Damon against the wall hard enough to crack the reinforced panel. His elbow caught my ribs. Pain exploded but I didn't stop.
"She's not yours," I growled.
"She's not yours either," Damon shot back. He twisted out of my grip and landed a punch that split my eyebrow. Blood ran into my eye. "She belongs to herself. Something you'd understand if you stopped treating everything like a military operation."
I tackled him. We hit the mat hard.
"I've watched you touch her for days," I said. My hands were around his throat. Not squeezing. Not yet. Just holding. "Watched you make her laugh. Watched her look at you like you matter. Like you're special."
"Maybe I am," Damon replied. His knee came up and caught me in the stomach. I lost my grip. "Maybe she needs someone who sees her as a person instead of a mission objective."
That cut deeper than any physical hit.
I grabbed him again. Slammed my fist into his face. Once. Twice. Three times.
He stopped fighting back. Just took it.
"Do it," he said. Blood ran from his nose. "Beat me unconscious. It won't change anything. She still kissed me. She still chose me."
The door crashed open.
"Stop!" Sera's voice cut through the rage like ice water.
I froze. Fist raised. Damon bleeding beneath me.
Sera stood in the doorway with Ryker right behind her. Her face was white. Her hands were shaking.
"Get off him," she said. Her voice was hard. "Now, Kade."
I stood slowly. My hands were covered in Damon's blood. My knuckles were split. Everything hurt.
Damon pulled himself to sitting. Wiped blood from his mouth.
Sera looked between us. "This is exactly what Cassia wants. You realize that, right? She shows us surveillance footage of me and Damon kissing so you'd do exactly this. Fight each other. Turn on each other. Make us weak."
"I can't help it," I said. The admission cost everything. "I can't watch you with them and stay sane."
Sera's expression softened slightly. "Them? You mean Ryker too?"
I looked at Ryker. He was standing very still. Watching everything with those analytical eyes.
"I saw you in the greenhouse," I said quietly. "Weeks ago. Before everything went wrong. I saw Sera holding your hand, Ryker. Saw the way you looked at her."
Ryker's face went carefully blank. "That was just talking."
"That was intimacy," I corrected. "Maybe not physical yet. But it was connection. The kind I don't know how to build because the Tribunal spent nineteen years training it out of me."
The training room went silent except for Damon's heavy breathing.
"I don't know how to share," I continued. My voice was raw. "I was designed to be singular. Focused. Mission-oriented. One objective at a time. And now you're telling me to accept that the one person I actually care about is with both of you and I'm supposed to just be okay with it."
"I never asked you to be okay with it," Sera said. She stepped closer. "I asked you to trust me. To let me figure out what I need without controlling it."
"I can't," I admitted. "Every time I see Damon touch you, every time Ryker makes you smile with some scientific observation, I feel like I'm losing a battle I don't know how to fight."
Sera reached out. Touched my face. Her fingers came away bloody from my split eyebrow.
"You're not losing anything," she said quietly. "You're just so afraid of feeling something that you're destroying it before it can hurt you."
The words hit like a punch.
"Kade," Ryker said. His scientific voice had dropped into something gentler. "You kissed Sera in the common area. Remember? The night before Cassia's medical testing. You told her you didn't share but you kissed her anyway."
I remembered. Of course I remembered.
"That was different," I said.
"How?" Sera asked.
"Because I thought—" I stopped. The truth was ugly. "I thought if I claimed you first, if I showed you what I could offer, you'd choose me. Just me."
Damon laughed. Bitter and painful.
"We're all idiots," he said from the floor. "All three of us thinking if we just do the right thing, say the right thing, be the right thing, she'll pick us exclusively."
"Because that's how we were trained," Ryker added. His voice was sad. "Competition. Excellence. Being the best at everything. But Sera's not a prize to be won."
"I know that," I said. But did I? Really?
Sera stepped back. Put distance between all of us.
"I can't do this right now," she said. Her voice was shaking. "Cassia gave us one more chance. One. And instead of planning how to survive, you're beating each other bloody over who gets to touch me."
"Sera—" I started.
"No," she interrupted. "You don't get to make this about feelings right now, Kade. We have maybe hours before Cassia decides we're too much trouble and terminates all of us. Hours before Lila finishes the broadcast or gets caught trying. And you're wasting that time on jealousy."
She was right. I knew she was right.
But knowing didn't stop the rage burning in my chest.
Didn't stop the desperate need to grab her and never let go.
Didn't stop me from wanting to hurt anyone who touched her.
Sera turned to leave and I saw it.
The way she hesitated. The way her hand moved to her stomach for just a second.
Like something hurt.
"Are you okay?" I asked immediately.
"I'm fine," Sera said. But her face had gone pale.
Ryker noticed too. His medical training kicked in.
"Sera, when's the last time you ate?" he asked.
"Yesterday morning," she said. "Before the medical testing. Before everything went wrong."
"That's eighteen hours," Ryker said. His voice went sharp with concern. "And you've been under extreme stress. Your body—"
Sera swayed.
I caught her before she hit the ground.
Her eyes rolled back. Her skin was cold. Too cold.
"Sera!" I shouted.
Ryker was there in seconds. Checking her pulse. Her breathing.
"She's crashing," Ryker said. His hands were moving fast. Professional. "Blood sugar dropped too low. Combined with the stress and the gas from yesterday, her system can't compensate."
Damon was up now despite his injuries. "What do we do?"
"Get her to her room," Ryker ordered. "I need my medical kit. Now."
I carried Sera. She was too light. Too fragile. This woman who fought like she had fire in her veins felt breakable in my arms.
We got her to her bed. Ryker arrived with supplies. Started an IV. Checked vitals with equipment he'd smuggled from the medical wing.
"Is she going to be okay?" I asked. My voice sounded foreign.
"I don't know," Ryker admitted. "Her body's been through too much. The stress. The malnutrition from Cassia's protocols. The gas exposure. It's all adding up."
Sera's tablet buzzed on the nightstand.
Damon grabbed it. His face went white.
"What?" I demanded.
He showed us the screen.
Message from Lila.
"Something's wrong. I can't finish the broadcast. Cassia's people found my access point. They're locking down the entire system. I'm trapped in the communication room and they're coming for me. Sera, if you get this, run. Take the extraction coordinates Nova gave you and run. Don't wait for me. Don't try to save me. Just run before they kill you too."
The message ended.
And in the bed, Sera's eyes fluttered open.
"Lila," she whispered. "Where's Lila?"
I couldn't answer.
Because Lila had just been caught trying to expose the Tribunal.
And in approximately five minutes, Cassia's guards were going to drag her away.
To the same place they took people who broke the rules.
To the execution chambers.