The sun was rising blood-orange over the border.
Karim sat handcuffed in the back of a different jeep now, patched and splattered with the dust of two countries and a hundred lies.
His shoulder was bandaged. His face unreadable.
Zaid was upright, stitched and pale, leaning heavily on a crutch. He refused to be left behind.
And Lina?
She stood in the wind, watching the CIA helicopter approach in the distance, blades slicing the air like time itself.
They'd survived.
But survival came with weight.
Not just in the blood lost, or the betrayals uncovered—but in the truth left behind. The files Lina had stolen from the ghost camp were enough to bring down five cells. The world would know what Karim had built. What Salim had funded.
She'd done her job.
But her soul felt heavier than ever.
As the helicopter landed, the agent stepped out—this time, the real one.
"Ms. Hamdan," he nodded. "And Mr. Rahman. You're clear to go. We'll take it from here."
Lina stepped forward. "I'm coming with him."
The agent hesitated. "That's not protocol."
"I'm not your protocol."
Zaid smirked behind her.
Karim was loaded into the chopper. For a brief second, he looked back—eyes to Lina's.
Not rage. Not regret.
Just... resignation.
The kind that says, I became what I hated.
And he knew it.
The door shut. The blades roared.
And then he was gone.
Two weeks later, in Tangier—
Zaid stood on the balcony of a rented apartment overlooking the sea. Scars along his ribs. Healing.
Lina joined him with two mugs of bitter Arabic coffee.
They didn't talk much now. Not because they had nothing to say.
But because they'd already said the worst.
"I sent the article," Lina finally said.
"Front page?"
She nodded. "International headlines."
Zaid looked out over the water. "He'll never forgive you."
"He already did," she said softly. "When he stopped pulling the trigger."
Zaid turned. "And me?"
Lina met his eyes.
And smiled.
"You're not a chapter I want to erase."
They didn't kiss.
They didn't need to.
Because this time, there were no masks. No missions. No lies.
Only two people who had survived the fire together—and come out not clean, but honest.
And in a world like theirs?
That was the real miracle.