The Warning

The war room was dimly lit, the only illumination coming from a few flickering lanterns and the soft glow of moonlight filtering through gaps in the wooden walls. Maps, hastily drawn sketches of surrounding territories, and marked supply routes were spread across the scarred table. The battered survivor sat hunched over a chair, shoulders slumped, his breathing shallow as he nursed a mug of warm broth. He hadn't spoken much since being brought inside, his body too wracked with exhaustion to do more than cling to consciousness.

But now, the silence had stretched too long.

Leila sat across from him, her hands curled into tight fists against her knees. She had spent the last half-hour studying him, watching the way his hands shook when he lifted the mug, the way his eyes darted toward the doors as if expecting Jace's men to storm through them at any moment. She had seen fear before—felt it, lived it—but this was something different. This was the look of a man who had witnessed something so harrowing that it had broken him.

Fiona knelt beside him, her voice soft but firm. "You need to tell us everything you know. Every detail matters."

The man swallowed thickly, his Adam's apple bobbing with the effort. He looked up at Leila, and for a moment, she saw something in his eyes that made her stomach clench. Recognition.

"They… they were looking for you," he croaked, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Jace and Ellie."

The room seemed to constrict around her.

"They took Suncrest," he continued, fingers tightening around the mug. "It wasn't a raid. It was an execution." His voice cracked on the last word, as if just speaking it out loud made it all the more real. "They stormed in at dawn. Cut off the exits. No warnings, no negotiations. They went for the leadership first. Slaughtered them like animals."

Leila felt her breath slow, measured and controlled, even as her mind raced with the implications. Suncrest had been a fortified enclave—one of the few places rumored to be self-sufficient. If it had fallen, then Jace and Ellie's forces weren't just scavengers anymore. They were conquerors.

Kai stood near the far side of the room, arms crossed, his expression unreadable. But Leila felt his gaze flicker toward her more than once.

The survivor clenched his jaw, his body trembling with barely restrained grief. "The ones who fought back were killed. The rest… taken. Some were put to work, forced to haul supplies, reinforce defenses. Others… Jace has been selling them. Trading them for weapons, fuel, manpower."

The room went deathly silent.

Leila's stomach twisted. Slavers.

She had heard of groups like that before, had even encountered a few that operated with that kind of ruthless efficiency. But to hear that Jace was doing it—that the man she had once loved, the man who had broken her trust, betrayed her, left her for dead—was running a goddamn slave ring?

She felt something in her shatter.

"They said they're coming east," the survivor continued, his voice barely above a whisper now. "Said they were going to finish what they started with you."

The moment the meeting adjourned, Leila walked out without a word.

She needed air.

The walls of the war room felt too tight, the weight of too many eyes pressing down on her. She strode through the compound, her boots heavy against the dirt paths, her pulse hammering in her ears.

Jace and Ellie were alive.

Not just alive—thriving.

They had torn through an entire settlement, bent people to their will, turned survivors into merchandise. They had enslaved others, bartered them away like livestock.

And they were coming for her.

The night air was crisp, but it did nothing to cool the fire burning in her chest. Her breath came faster, uneven, her hands shaking before she shoved them deep into the pockets of her jacket.

She reached the northern rampart before she even realized where she was going.

Kai was already there.

He leaned against the wooden railing, arms crossed, eyes distant as he stared out into the night. He didn't look at her immediately, but she knew he had been expecting her.

"You walked out," he said after a long pause.

"I needed to breathe."

"You needed to run," he corrected, turning his head slightly toward her. "Because you don't want anyone to see how much this is rattling you."

Leila clenched her jaw. "I'm fine."

Kai sighed through his nose, then pushed off the railing, closing the space between them just enough for his presence to ground her. "No, you're not."

She hated that he saw through her.

Hated that he knew her well enough to recognize the way her shoulders had stiffened, the way her breath hitched just slightly when she was fighting too hard to keep control.

She turned to face him fully, anger creeping into her voice before she could stop it. "What do you want me to say, Kai? That I should've killed them when I had the chance? That I should have put a bullet in Jace's head back in that goddamn department store instead of letting them escape?"

Kai didn't flinch. "Would it have changed anything?"

Leila's breath caught.

Because she didn't know.

Would it have? Would killing them then have stopped this? Or would another monster have simply risen in their place?

She turned away, gripping the railing, knuckles white. "They're taking people. Selling them." The words felt like acid on her tongue. "Do you have any idea how much worse that makes this?"

Kai stepped beside her, his voice lower now. "Yeah. I do."

For the first time since the meeting, she looked at him. Really looked at him.

And she saw it—the flicker of something dark in his expression.

She had never asked about his past before the apocalypse. Had never pushed him to reveal the ghosts that haunted him. But right now, standing here, she could feel it between them. Whatever Jace and Ellie were doing—whatever cruelty they were inflicting—it wasn't just personal for her.

Kai had seen something like this before.

She exhaled slowly, looking back out over the horizon. "We have to stop them."

His response was immediate. "We will."

Leila nodded, letting the words settle. She wasn't sure if she had been looking for reassurance, or just a reminder that she wasn't facing this alone.

Kai shifted slightly, his voice quieter when he spoke again. "They don't own you, Leila. No matter what they think, no matter what they tell their people—you are not some unfinished business for them to settle."

Leila closed her eyes, letting the words sink into the cracks she hadn't realized had formed.

Because she had felt like unfinished business.

Like some loose end in Jace and Ellie's story that they were coming to tie off.

But that wasn't true.

This wasn't their story anymore.

This was hers.

And she was going to end it on her terms.

When she opened her eyes again, her hands were steady.

Kai nodded, as if sensing the shift in her resolve. "Good," he murmured. "Because it's time we stop waiting for them to make the first move."

Leila exhaled slowly, a determined fire sparking in her chest.

"Then let's make them regret ever coming after us."