Chapter 45 Eleanor's POV
The world shrank to my breath, the hammer of my heart, the black lines of vines whipping past. We ran low, crouched like soldiers in a trench, using the furrows for cover. My injured shoulder screamed with every turn. Beside me, Alec moved with grim rhythm, but his face was tight with pain, arm pressed to his side.
Ollie led, slipping between rows like a shadow, head swiveling.
Leblanc followed, surprisingly quick for his age, gasping short breaths.
A shout erupted behind us.
They were in the vineyard.
“Split!” Ollie hissed.
He grabbed Leblanc’s arm and veered right into thicker vines.
Alec yanked me left, toward a stone wall marking the vineyard’s edge.
We vaulted it and landed in a frozen ditch. Mud and ice soaked through my clothes instantly. Alec clamped a hand over my mouth, his body shielding mine. We froze.
Boots crunched on the other side of the wall, two, maybe three men.
“Heat signature fading, split up,”
“,east toward the trees. You two sweep.”
Their voices faded, chasing Ollie and Leblanc.
Alec removed his hand. His eyes met mine in the gloom, no fear, only cold, furious focus.
He held up two fingers, pointed to his eyes, then down the ditch. Two men watching the trees.
He mimed crawling. I nodded.
We inched forward on our bellies, mud seeping into every seam.
The ditch ran twenty yards, then curved, offering cover toward a stand of bare trees. Our only chance.
Ahead, the two guards stood at the tree line, scanning with thermal scopes, backs to us. They were the anvil. The others were the hammer.
Alec tapped my ankle, pointed to the men, then to a mossy boulder halfway between us and the trees.
He made a fist, then spread his fingers.
On my signal, run to the rock.
My heart pounded like a trapped bird. A hundred feet of open, frostbitten ground.
He counted on his fingers.
Three.
Two.
One.
We exploded from the ditch, fast and low.
Shouts. A gunshot, not at us, but a warning. “HALT!”
We didn’t stop. Every instinct screamed to zigzag, but we fixed on the rock. A second shot kicked up dirt just left of me.
Alec stumbled. I cried out.
“Go!” he gasped, shoving me forward. “Don’t stop!”
We reached the rock and dove behind it as bullets whined overhead. Pinned.
The men fanned out, using vines for cover. They’d flank us in seconds.
Alec fought for air, wet and ragged. He fumbled in his pack, pulled out a small pistol. Checked the magazine, hands shaking.
“How many rounds?” I whispered. My own gun was lost in my soaked pack.
“Two. But the others heard.” He peeked around the rock. A spark flew off the stone.
He flinched. “We can’t stay.”
“We can’t go!”
He looked at me. In his eyes, a plan formed, horrible, necessary.
“You go. On my signal, run for the trees.
Don’t look back. Find Ollie.”
“No. Alec, no,”
“Ellie.” His voice was calm, firm. “The report is out. The story is told.
You’re the proof. The living witness. You have to get out.” He pressed the pistol into my hand. Cold. Heavy.
“Five rounds. Don’t hesitate.”
Tears blurred my vision. “I won’t leave you.”
“You will.” His palm cupped my face, a swift, desperate touch. “Only one move left. On three.
One,”
“T,”
“Two,”
He met my eyes one last time, apology, love, fierce pride burning in his blue gaze.
“TH,”
He didn’t run for the trees.
He lunged from the rock toward the men, firing two wild shots.
Gunfire swiveled toward him.
“GO!” he roared.
A sob tore from my throat. I ran like my life depended on it, because it did. Legs burning, lungs raw with cold air. I didn’t look back. Gunfire cracked behind me.
A cry, his?, and shouting.
The trees swallowed me. Brambles tore at my clothes as I crashed through brush. When my legs gave out, I collapsed behind a fallen log, pistol clutched in my fist.
Silence.
A ringing, suffocating quiet.
Then, two car engines started in the distance.
They were leaving.
They’d gotten what they came for.
A scream built in my chest, sharp and silent.
I bit my knuckles to keep it in.
Alec.
Again and again, I saw him leap into fire. A sacrifice. A trade.
His life for my escape.
The earth soaked through me. The pistol felt like betrayal. I’d run. I’d left him.
A twig snapped.
I whirled, gun up, finger on the trigger.
Ollie stepped into view. Leblanc behind him. Ollie’s eyes swept my tear-streaked face, the pistol, the empty space where Alec should’ve stood.
He didn’t ask. He knew.
For a flicker, something soft crossed his face, then hardened into ice. “They’re gone,” he said flatly. “Took him.
Alive or dead, I don’t know.”
Alive.
If they’d wanted him dead, they’d have left him in the frost.
They took him. For interrogation.
Punishment. Trial.
Ollie held out his hand. “We move. They’ll send sweepers. We have a plane to catch.”
I stared at his hand, then back at the vineyard, the rock, the ditch, the place I’d left my heart.
“Ellie.” His voice turned sharp, commanding.
“The job isn’t finished. He gave it to you. Don’t waste it.”
The report. The truth. The proof.
Alec had chosen me, the bearer of the flame.
I couldn’t let it die here.
“I’m coming,” I said.
I took Ollie’s hand. He pulled me up.
I was numb, hollow, carved from grief and ice.
We left the vineyard, left the blood in the frost, and vanished into the trees, toward a plane, a destination I didn’t know.
I was the witness now.
The only survivor.
I had a world to burn with truth.
But first, I had to learn to live with the void in my chest,
where a man named Alec used to be.