The building smelled wrong when they reached it.
Too clean. Too empty. The kind of quiet that meant someone had already erased themselves.
Brine took the stairs two at a time, gun drawn, heart pounding not with fear but with fury Tam and Jarvis behind him. Moody also with his two men Andy and Marty followed without speaking, his movements sharp, eyes cataloging absence the way others cataloged evidence.
No bodies. No blood. No fingerprints that mattered.
Just the echo of a plan completed.
They found Lena in a room stripped of meaning.
She was standing when they entered—unrestrained, shoulders squared, eyes already distant. Whatever Mr. Stack had taken with him, it hadn't been her body. It had been time.
Brine stopped short.
For a moment, the years collapsed. She wasn't the woman wrapped in shadows and rumors. She was the girl he'd once argued with some months ago on his way to see someone. That day wasn't coincidence nor fate.
"Lena," he said, voice breaking before he could stop it. His heart racing.
Her eyes flicked to him. Recognition. Relief filled with happiness. Then caution.
"He's gone," Moody said quietly. "Stack fled ten minutes before we breached. Clean exit. Someone must have informed them."
Lena nodded once. She'd expected nothing else.
Brine stepped forward, lowering his weapon, hands open.
"It's over. You're safe now."
Safe.
The word landed wrong.
He reached for her hand—not as an officer, not as leverage. As a man who had crossed too many lines for her already. As a man who wanted to see her safe and happy at the same time. As a man who wouldn't want to lose something precious.
"Come on," he said softly. "Let's get you out of here. You need proper rest and care. Hooe they haven't bruise you anywhere, right."he said holding her neck checking every part of her body. She almost started laughing when she saw his puzzle face.
For a heartbeat, she almost let herself lean into it but when she saw Moody's expression, she moved away, just a bit from Mr Brine.
Almost.
Then Moody spoke.
"Brine. Stop."
His head snapped toward him. "What the hell are you doing?"
Moody didn't answer him. He stepped past him instead—slow, deliberate—and held out her hand to Lena.
Not command. Not rescue.
An offering.
Lena stared at it, confused. Wary.
Moody's voice was low. Unsteady in a way Brine had never heard before.
"You don't owe him obedience," he said. "But you do owe truth."
Brine felt the air leave his lungs.
"Moody—"
He didn't look at him.
"You remember what you told me," Moody continued, eyes locked on Lena now. "Some months ago. When everything burned and no one came."
Lena's brow furrowed.
Moody swallowed.
"You said if there ever came a day I needed you… you'd offer me your hand. No questions. No conditions."
Memory flickered across Lena's face like pain.
"That was before," Lena said slowly. "Before my father died."
Moody nodded. "I know."
Before Luke.
The name hung between them without being spoken.
Brine stepped forward again, desperation cutting through his discipline.
"Lena, you don't have to choose this. You don't have to choose him. You can't trust Moody especially when you are in danger. He can't keep you safe."
Moody's anger snapped at him.
"How do you know i can't keep her safe. I left you with her some few months ago and here she is, to unknown people. Is that what you call protection?"
"Moo! I know you very well. I know your intentions towards her."
"Not more than you. You know me barely by the name not what I can do. And for that, what do you know that I don't know about what I want to do with her?"
"Don't provoke me Silly goat. I won't spare even a rib you know tha...t" Brine warned almost breaking a fight between them but Lena intervened."
"Stop! Stop this madness between you two. I don't know what you people are trying to protect me from but Mr Brine Sir. I'm sorry."
Her eyes finally met his.
And there it was.
The apology he'd never voiced. The promises he'd never kept. The protection that always came too late.
"You tried," Lena said quietly. "I know you did. It just that whenever i wanted a soul to cry on, a shoulder to lean on, a loan to borrow from, Moody was always there. Even before my father's death and all the warnings i got from different people about him, he never left my side even once. This is something i have to do because i promised him I'll return the favour Sir Brine. I'm sorry"
Brine shook his head. "I failed you."
"No," she said. Honest. Gentle. Devastating. "You didn't. This is something i have to do to clear my debts."
His hand trembled where it hovered inches from hers. His heart raced, feeling the betrayal he had onced hope for. He has to let her go, for the best.
Moody's hand remained steady.
Lena looked between them.
Safety versus debt. Mercy versus gravity.
"I don't trust you," Lena said to Moody.
Moody didn't flinch. "Good."
"I'm not choosing you because I believe in you."
"I wouldn't ask you to."
Lena exhaled, sharp and tired.
"I'm choosing you," she said finally,
"because you were there when my father still was."
Brine closed his eyes. Feeling a slight pain in his heart but he hid it. As a Man.
Moody felt Lena's fingers curl around his.
Not trust.
Payment.
"I'll walk this road," Lena said. "Then we're even."
Moody squeezed once. Not possessive. Not triumphant. A smile in his face.
"Then we walk."
They turned away together.
Brine stood alone in the hollowed room, watching the past choose a different future than the one he'd tried to build. Lena's eyes never left his and he never left hers. At that moment he knew there's a spark, a strong one between them but they're hiding it. A strong feeling that only them could tell what it was. He didn't follow. He didn't fight. But he was left with a wound too. A wound that only Lena can heal. A wound that was to be heal by love. And that was love. Not Lust.
HELLFIRE — TRIAL BY EMBERS
The entrance hadn't changed.
Same black glass. Same symbol etched into the stone like a warning disguised as branding.
But Finley had.
Her heart shattered the moment she stepped across the threshold.
Hellfire remembered her.
The security guards certainly did.
Hands on her shoulders. Hard. Efficient.
"You're not cleared."
"I'm expected," she said, breath tight.
"Turn around."
She didn't resist when they shoved her back onto the rain-slick pavement.
Didn't fight when the doors sealed behind her.
She just stood there, staring at her reflection in the glass—smaller than she remembered. Meaner, maybe. Or just more honest.
"Enough."
The voice came from behind the glass.
The doors reopened.
Sir Mason stepped into the rain like it didn't dare touch him.
Senior officer. Hellfire lifter. Eyes like a man who'd survived every purge because he'd learned when to stand still.
"Leave us," he told the guards.
They did.
Mason studied her. "You came back."
"Yes."
"After what happened?"
"Yes."
"Government firms are begging for someone with your clearance."
"I don't want safe," Finley said. "I want true."
Something flickered behind his eyes.
"Why Hellfire?"
She didn't answer immediately. When she did, it was raw.
"Because you don't lie about what you are."
Mason nodded slowly.
"Five trials," he said. "Pass them, you're considered. Fail them, you walk out without both legs."
She nodded. Her heart raced for what she was about to face.
The trials were brutal.
She failed two.
One physical. One psychological.
She passed three.
Strategy. Silence. Endurance.
It should have ended there.
Mason dismissed the evaluators and stared at her alone in the aftermath.
"You shouldn't be standing," he said.
"I know."
He exhaled. "Do you know Mr Brine?" the question came abruptly.
Her chest tightened.
"Umm! Not much. I've seen him once. The last time I was here. I think he is the Most Respected Secret Agent of this Company."
Sir Mason let out a slight chuckle then paused staring right into her eyes.
"Okay, yes you are right. If I may so say."
"Wait, you meant by physical appearance or....because I know nothing more than that. I swear."
"Haha! Silly girl. Okay the reason is, he called."
"Wh...what?"
" Yes! He told me if you ever came back," Mason continued, "I was to let you in. Not because he trusts you."
He stepped closer.
"But because he wants to know why you want Hellfire."
Finley met his gaze.
"Wh...why are you telling me all this? It doesn't concern me, you know. "
"It does. Because Hellfire is all about Transparency and Protection. We protect what protects us and Kill what destroys us."
"So do I," she said softly.
Mason smiled thinly.
"Welcome back," he said. "Try not to burn."
" Whaaat! Have you just...? She said jumping up and down."
"You've been hired. Your shift starts tomorrow morning go home and park." Sir Mason said leaving the room.
The doors closed behind her. Happiness all over her face but the main problem was how to reveal everything to both Mr Luke and Rafferty at the same time without being seen when she starts her new job. These was another hard task she has to encounter. But her safety comes first.
And deep within Hellfire's core, systems adjusted.
Eyes turned.
Truths shifted.
The war had begun moving its pieces again.
Not loudly.
Not yet.
But gravity never announces itself.
It simply pulls.