The air inside the safe house had turned from electric to glacial in a matter of seconds. The glowing screen of the tablet sat between them on the concrete floor, the message from the Bureau frequency pulsing like a heartbeat of a bomb.
"Report to the extraction point."
Julian didn't scream. He didn't throw things. He simply became a statue of ice, his grey eyes narrowing until they were nothing but sharp, lethal slivers of glass. He stood up, ignored the lingering ache in his arm, and reached for his tactical holster.
"Julian, look at me," Elara said, her voice steady but her heart hammering against her ribs. She didn't move toward him; she knew that would only make him recoil. "That frequency was decommissioned six months ago. It's a ghost signal. Thorne is trying to do exactly what he's doing right now—splitting us apart before we even reach the facility."
"Is he?" Julian's voice was a low, dangerous rasp. He clipped his weapon into place, the metallic snick echoing in the cramped room. "Or did he just realize his Nightingale was getting a little too comfortable in the Don's bed? Maybe this was always the plan. Get close. Heal the wound. Gain the trust. Then, at the moment of the purge, you vanish with the ledger."
Elara felt a flash of white-hot anger. She stepped forward, slamming her hand against his chest, forcing him to look at her. "I stayed in that vault when the ceiling was coming down! I killed three Wraiths to keep your heart beating! If I wanted you dead or captured, I would have walked away the moment you caught that fever."
Julian caught her wrist, his grip like an iron shackle. He pulled her flush against him, but there was no warmth in the contact this time. Only a dark, suffocating intensity.
"In my world, Elara, the people who save your life are the ones who eventually take it," he hissed. "You're a Shadow. And shadows belong to the light that casts them. If the Bureau is that light... then I have to put it out. And you with it."
He pushed her back, not roughly, but with a finality that hurt worse than a blow. He grabbed the keys to the van and headed for the door. "Suit up. We're moving on the facility. But don't think for a second that I'm turning my back on you tonight."