Chapter 21: Fine, damn it.

“Hey—! HEY—!”

My voice went high in frustration as I shoved past bodies, my feet nearly tripping over a crate. The crowd was still buzzing around the Humvee, around me, firing questions like bullets, but I barely heard any of them.

My eyes were locked on her woman— striding away like she didn’t hear me, like she didn’t care.

That just made me so damn mad.

I pushed through one last person a little too hard. They stumbled. I didn’t even look back.

“So that’s it then???”

My breath was uneven.

“You just… send me on suicide a mission and give me the cold shoulder after—!?””

She slipped into her tent before I could finish.

I followed, anger and frustration painting my face.

The flap shut behind me, muffling the noise outside. She stood with her back to me, shoulders rigid, hands planted on a metal table as she exhaled slowly. The fuck was she hiding??

When she finally turned, her jaw was clenched tight.

“Asshole,” I snapped before I could stop myself, chest heaving. “I busted my ass for you people. The least you could do is—”

“Why are you two still alive?”

The words cut through me.

I stared at her, mouth open, confusion turning my blood cold.

Behind me, I heard the soft thud of hurried footsteps— the tent flap lifting. Lila had finally caught up.

“What..?” I breathed.

She didn’t answer.

Her eyes darted between us, pupils sharp with something she was trying hard to hide. fear? frustration? regret? I couldn’t even tell. She ran a hand over her buzzed hair, fingers shaking just slightly, and that was somehow worse than if she had been shouting.

“What do you mean why the two of us are still alive?”

I demanded.

“What were we supposed to be—..?”

She never gave an answer. I found it hard to swallow.

Collapsing into her chair like the weight of the whole the situation took her down, her elbows dug into her knees as she pressed a hand to her forehead. A broken exhale escaped from her mouth.

Then—

“I want you two out of my camp by sunrise.”

There was no anger in her voice. No, it was something akin to defeat.

Wait…what?

My face drained of color so fast. Behind me, Lila’s rage was evident through the air— her breath hitching, her knuckles becoming white as her fingers curled into trembling fists.

“Why..?”

My voice was trembling barely over a whisper. Yet, the scarred woman only stared at the floor.

A moment of silence, then a sigh.

“You don’t get it.”

She began, her tone cold.

“If you stay here, you’re gonna kill us all. Please— just…”

A shadow cast over my eyes as my knuckles clenched. A shaky breath escaped my mouth. Yet, before I could speak—

“You made a deal with those psychos, didn’t you?”

My eyes widened at Lila words. They flickered towards her, then to the commander.

She never looked up from the floor. Not even a fake, forced excuse.

Just a stiffened jaw.

A hard swallow, loud in the suffocating quiet.

She betrayed us. It all made so much sense.

“Go fuck yourself.”

The word I spat came out of me without another thought.

I didn’t want to hear or see whatever pathetic excuse or guilty twitch she’d try to hide behind, if she even had any. I shoved the tent flap aside, letting the cold night hit my face. Lila was by my side instantly, steps brisk, breath shaking with something she was barely containing.

Behind us, the flap fell shut.

The sounds of camp swallowed us once again.

Inside the tent, the scarred woman let out a long, broken sigh— the kind that sounded scraped from the bottom of a grave. Her shoulders slumped, her palms pressed into her eyes as if she could physically push the guilt back into her skull.

But she didn’t get the chance.

A voice cut through the dimness, steady and angry.

“So… is it true?”

Her spine grew stiff.

She looked up to see the boy with the glasses standing in the entrance, the lantern light behind him painting half his face in shadow.

He stepped farther inside.

“Carl—…I—”

“You made a deal with the Crucible?”

It was more of an accusation than a question, like he’d finally pieced everything together.

His voice cracked as he continued.

“And now Aubrey… half of our manpower… the people we knew— they’re gone.”

The woman’s lips parted, breath hitching like she had words prepared for this very situation

— something defensive, something desperate.

Yet, nothing came. Nothing ever did.

Carl’s shoulders pulled back slowly.

My expression must’ve looked like a storm cloud ready to burst. I shoved my way through the people of the camp, ignoring the hands trying to grab at me, voices rising in panicked questions.

Frustration boiled over more and more with each question.

“Please— tell us where Aubrey is!!”

“Where’s Sergeant Hale—?”

“What happened out there?”

Their words barely pierced the fog building in my mind. I didn’t have the strength to answer, and even if I did, I wasnt about to give them Lila’s lie. Not yet, atleast.

Lila walked beside me, her eyes flickering with anger…and something else. I guess she was right about this too.

It really was a mistake coming back here.

We were just a few meters away from the Humvee we’d arrived in, ready to get back on the road, when someone sprinted into our path— nearly tripping over his own boots.

The kid.

The skinny one who’d explained The Crucible to us days ago. The one with shaky hands and eyes that always looked two seconds from panic— but now it looked like those traits were amplified. His glasses slid down his nose as he pushed through the crowd, breathless and pale.

“YOU TWO—! WAIT! PLEASE!”

I stopped in my tracks, jaw clenching.

People noticed his pleading shout. And with that, conversations seemed to die. Heads turned toward us, tension thickening in the air.

The boy swallowed, looking at both of us like we were the only lifeline he had left.

Lila’s eyebrow raised. It looked as if she was about to tell him to move out the way.

“I— I need you to listen,”

He stammered, voice cracking as he raised it enough for the built crowd.

“Everyone… the commander…she made a deal with the Crucible!”

Gasps slowly exploded through the camp like a shockwave.

Murmurs turned to shouts. Faces twisted in confusion, rage, fear.

The boy kept going, louder now, desperation bleeding through every word.

“She offered someone— Adrian— as part of some sick trade! To try and protect the rest of us! When the Crucible didn’t get what they wanted, t—they took the others instead…”

My brows furrowed. Hearing that out loud made me sick.

Lila stiffened beside me.

The crowd erupted behind us, voices overlapping in a sequences of revelation and anger.

But the boy wasn’t looking at them.

His trembling eyes were locked on me.

“Please… I know deep down they’re still alive. Aubrey, Sergeant Hale, the rest of them… I can’t do this alone.”

He took one shaky step forward.

“Just—”

His voice went low, pleading.

“Just help us find them. Please.”

There was silence. My pulse rang in my ears, drowning almost everything out around me.

I felt Lila tug against my sleeve.

“Come on, Adrian. We don’t owe these freaks anything.”

Her voice was barely above a whisper. My eyes darkened. I barely looked at her.

“Come on—!”

There was a crack in her voice, syllables laced with frustration, possessiveness, panic, all the things she tried to hide but failed.

“We can finally be alone together again, Adrian…please…”

Her tone was softer now, desperate like she was trying coerce me.

The world seemed to shrink around her words. It was as if she was trying to drag me back into the same small, suffocating loop we’d been spinning in for days. Running together. Surviving together. Pretending we were safe when we weren’t.

I’m tired of it.

Her hand was still clamped around my sleeve, trembling.

I stared at it.

Then, slowly and deliberately— I pulled free.

Her fingers slipped off me.

She froze. Eyes widening. A shimmer of disbelief. And underneath it… something darker.

Yet, I didn’t flinch.

Inside me, something brittle finally snapped.

I’m done running from shit. Im done being a fucking coward.

I turned to the boy.

“Fine,”

The word didn’t feel like agreement. More like a door slamming shut behind me.

God fucking damn it.

The boy, glasses crooked— stared at me in shock, like he couldn’t believe someone like me would actually say yes.

The crowd whispered silently. Lila’s breath hitched.

“F-Fine?” the boy repeated my words, his voice cracking.

“You’ll… you’ll help?”

It was clear I didn’t know what I was getting myself into…not really.

But for the first time in a long time, the pit in my stomach wasn’t fear.

It was something heavier.

Something that almost felt like resolve.

I exhaled once.

My rights to being a bitch were signed away officially.

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