What if true loyalty sometimes meant disobeying?
The metal doors of the command center slid open with a hiss. Blade entered first. His uniform was covered in dust. Behind him, the three other Watchers walked in silence.
No one spoke. Kaïssa stood in front of the wall of screens.
She didn't turn around.
"Report."
Blade removed his gloves.
"The tunnel is empty."
"The scans?"
"Signs of recent activity, abandoned equipment, a little blood."
"Bodies?"
"None."
Kaïssa remained motionless. Her eyes moved across the satellite images of Biel.
"Have the exits been checked?"
"All of them."
"The cameras?"
"Nothing."
A brief silence settled over the room.
Blade spoke again.
"We lost her."
Kaïssa slowly shook her head.
"No."
She enlarged a map of the city. Her fingers moved toward the edge of the districts, then stopped over a vast green area.
The forest.
"No one ever disappears. They simply leave one place for another."
Blade followed her gaze.
"You think she's hiding there?"
"I think she has no reason to stay in the city anymore, if she's seen our wanted notices."
She brought up the different possible routes.
"From the tunnel, every direction leads to a monitored sector…"
Except one.
No one answered. Kaïssa closed the map.
"Prepare the team."
Blade looked up.
"The drones?"
"Only above the forest's edge. The tree cover will make them useless, and you'll proceed on foot."
One of the Watchers hesitated.
"And if we find nothing?"
Kaïssa finally turned toward them. Her gaze was calm.
"Then we'll learn."
Silence fell again.
"You're looking for a fugitive. Starting today… you'll also be looking for the people protecting her, with another team."
Blade frowned slightly.
"You think she's getting help?"
"I never think. I deduce."
She pointed to the reports displayed on the screens.
"Two disappearances… Neris, and now Soren. No trace, no camera footage, no reliable witnesses. Yet they're both still alive. Someone knows this forest better than we do."
She paused.
"And I want to know who."
Blade nodded.
"The teams will be ready and will leave before nightfall."
Kaïssa looked at the forest on the screen one last time. Something was still escaping her, and that was precisely what she hated most.
The doors of the command center closed behind Blade and his men.
Kaïssa remained alone, facing the screens.
She thought back to the way Blade had received her orders. That quiet confidence, that habit of never asking an unnecessary question.
She knew that look.
She had first seen it a long time ago.
Years earlier, Blade hadn't yet been known to her as Blade.
The file lying in front of Kaïssa bore a different name. She had read it twice. On the third reading, she closed the tablet.
"Send him in."
The door opened a few seconds later. The man who appeared wasn't quite what she had imagined.
He was younger. Calmer, too. He stopped in front of her desk.
"Sit down."
He remained standing.
Kaïssa looked up at him.
"That was an invitation."
"I'd rather stand."
"Why?"
"Are you planning to keep me here long?"
She almost smiled.
"I don't know yet."
He inclined his head slightly.
"Then I'll stand."
Kaïssa reopened his file.
"After our deal for you to work for us in exchange for clearing your various run-ins with the Biel police and your debts, you've completed several missions. Excellent evaluations, a few warnings, and one incident."
She slid a photograph to the center of the screen.
"This man is dead."
No reaction.
"Yes."
"You killed him."
"Yes."
Kaïssa waited. He added nothing.
"You weren't ordered to shoot."
"No."
"Yet you did."
"Yes."
She leaned back in her chair.
"Why?"
For the first time, something in his gaze shifted slightly.
"You read the report."
"I want to hear it from you. He wasn't armed."
He looked at the photograph.
"He was worse than that."
"You could have waited."
"No."
"Are you certain?"
This time, he took a few seconds before answering.
"No."
The answer surprised her.
"No?"
"You never can be."
Kaïssa didn't move. He continued.
"You make decisions based on what you know at the moment you have to make them. Afterward, you can spend ten years imagining what you could have done differently. And when you come from where I come from, you make decisions fast. You get used to killing, too."
Something changed in Kaïssa's expression. So slightly that no one else would probably have noticed.
"And you?"
"Me what?"
"Do you imagine what you could have done differently?"
He looked at the photograph one last time.
"Sometimes."
"Do you regret it?"
This time, he raised his eyes to hers.
"Do you want to know whether I'm competent or whether I sleep well?"
Silence.
Then, unexpectedly, Kaïssa smiled, ever so slightly.
"I'm interested in both."
"I sleep very well, and I'm very competent."
She turned off the tablet.
"Starting tomorrow, you'll work for me."
For the first time since entering the room, he seemed genuinely surprised.
"Is that a promotion?"
"No."
"A punishment?"
"Not yet."
He almost smiled. Then his expression grew serious again.
"Why me? I have my side job at the recycling plant."
Kaïssa stood up. She walked over to the window.
Biel stretched out below, vast, orderly, still under reconstruction in places.
"Because you disobeyed."
He waited for her to continue.
"That's usually the kind of thing that ends a career."
"Usually."
"And with you?"
Kaïssa turned around.
"I don't need someone who obeys every order I give."
The Guardian Angel: Human beings are intermediaries between worlds, between Heaven and Earth. Through their thoughts, feelings, and actions, they have the ability to give life to beings from the subtle worlds. They thus become precious instruments, capable of giving tangible form to invisible beings who need them in order to manifest.
This is why human beings must awaken and become conscious, so they can discern and choose which beings and worlds they wish to serve, bringing them to life and allowing them to become real and active through their bodies and their entire lives.