Chapter 14: Breakpoint
The airport was louder than she remembered.
Mira sat in the terminal, ticket in hand, flight in thirty minutes. She hadn't told Cyan she was going. She couldn't.
Because if he asked her to stay… she might actually listen.
And that scared her more than any operation ever had.
---
Cyan stood outside her apartment.
The lights were off. The silence was loud.
She was gone.
---
Mira's phone buzzed just as she reached for her boarding pass.
Unknown Number.
One Message:
"You made a mistake digging up Emberlight. People are still watching."
She stared at the screen. Then at the people around her.
Had someone followed her here?
---
Meanwhile, Cyan was tracing the source of a ping—something Mira didn't even know her phone was broadcasting. An emergency beacon he'd planted weeks ago.
It was going off.
At the airport.
---
Mira stood, heart pounding, scanning the crowd.
A man in a gray coat was staring too long.
Too directly.
She turned quickly—only to feel a hand brush her arm.
She spun around—fist ready—
And froze.
Cyan.
"You shouldn't be here," he said breathlessly.
"You followed me."
"You weren't safe."
She looked into his eyes. "Why do you care?"
He didn't speak.
He just pulled something from his pocket—a tiny silver USB. The final Emberlight drive.
He pressed it into her hand.
And then: "Because I love you."
She blinked.
"What?"
> "I didn't say it when you were beside me. I didn't say it when you tried to leave. But I'm saying it now. Because I can't keep losing you."
A moment of silence.
Then Mira whispered, voice shaking:
"Don't say it unless you mean it."
"I do."
His eyes didn't leave hers.
"Do you?"
She looked at the ticket. At the USB. At him.
And for the first time in a long time, she stopped running.
"I do."
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