Ashes of Our Flame
Episode 16: "Marked for Death"
By sunrise, the city was already hunting her.
Nova stood at the window, eyes fixed on the digital billboard flashing over Vale Tower—her own face displayed beneath the chilling words: "WANTED: ALIVE."
She stepped back from the glass, adrenaline pulsing beneath her skin. "He actually put a bounty on me."
Adrian stood behind her, expression carved from stone. "Not just any bounty. Half a million. Dead or alive. My father doesn't send warnings twice."
Nova turned to him. "Then we run."
"I can't just disappear," Adrian said. "If I vanish now, he'll go after your friends. Tessa. Ronan. Everyone."
She walked up to him. "Then we don't vanish. We expose him. Burn his empire down from the inside—together."
Adrian blinked, caught between awe and fear. "You'd still fight beside me? After everything?"
She hesitated… then nodded. "We started this war together. We end it together."
He leaned in, gently touched his forehead to hers.
"You're either going to save me, Nova Voss," he whispered, "or you're going to be the death of me."
---
Meanwhile, inside a nondescript van two blocks away…
Tessa Quinn tapped away on a laptop, a frown shadowing her usually playful face. "This doesn't make sense."
Ronan stood behind her, arms crossed. "What doesn't?"
She turned the screen toward him. "Vale's network just pinged off a ghost signal. Someone tried to delete Nova's file from the federal database… and someone else stopped them."
"Who?"
"That's the thing. Whoever intervened had clearance above government level. Like… black-ops level."
Ronan narrowed his eyes. "Someone's protecting her."
Tessa nodded. "Or baiting her."
---
Nova and Adrian reached Ronan's safehouse—a run-down brownstone with reinforced doors and a basement that hummed with encryption tech.
"You sure this place is secure?" Adrian asked.
Ronan looked him over. "You questioning my work, Vale?"
"Just making sure the walls don't have ears."
Ronan tapped the wall twice. It vibrated, then went still. "They don't. Yours do."
Nova stepped between them. "We need allies, not ego contests."
Tessa emerged from the basement, a hard drive in hand. "This changes everything," she said. "There's a data vault beneath Vale Tower. I found fragments pointing to Project 'Ashfall'—but it's encrypted like hell."
Adrian's brow furrowed. "I've never heard of it."
"Exactly," Tessa said. "Whatever's inside, your father didn't want even his own blood to know."
Nova stepped forward. "Then that's where we go next."
Adrian looked at her. "It's a suicide mission."
She smirked. "So was falling in love with you. Look how that turned out."
---
Later that night, Nova found herself staring at an old family photo Tessa had recovered.
Her mother. Her father.
And her.
Tiny. Innocent. Unaware that everything would one day burn.
Adrian sat beside her, quiet. Watching.
"Do you think we're doomed?" she asked.
"To what?"
"To repeat our parents' mistakes. To become them."
He paused. "I don't know. But I know one thing…"
He leaned in, his voice barely a breath.
"We still have a choice."
She looked at him—and for a heartbeat, it felt like time paused.
But then—
BOOM.
The windows shattered as a fireball ripped through the safehouse.
Nova screamed.
Adrian pulled her to the floor, shielding her as glass rained around them.
Ronan barked, "Tessa! Get to the basement!"
But it was too late.
A black-clad figure crashed through the front door, masked and armed. Ronan fired twice—missed.
Adrian rolled over the couch, grabbed a hidden pistol from beneath it, and took out the second intruder.
Nova kicked open a hidden panel and dragged Tessa through.
The group sprinted into the underground tunnel Ronan had built for emergencies.
Adrian shouted over his shoulder, "They knew we were here!"
Ronan's face was grim. "We've got a rat."
Nova's heart sank.
One of them had betrayed the others.
And if she didn't figure out who soon…
She'd be dead before the truth came out.
---
They emerged in a grimy alleyway two miles away.
Tessa panted, her hand bleeding. "What now?"
Nova's mind raced.
"We go dark. No phones. No signals. We disappear for 24 hours."
"And then?" Adrian asked.
She looked at him, jaw set.
"Then we break into your father's tower."
---
Inside Vale Tower, Marcus Vale stood by his window, sipping whiskey.
Talon entered without knocking. "They escaped."
Marcus didn't flinch. "Of course they did."
"You want me to increase the bounty?"
"No," Marcus said. "Let the vultures hunt. If my son really turned, he'll bleed. And when he comes crawling back, I'll remind him who made him."
Talon stepped forward. "And if he doesn't come back?"
Marcus turned slowly, eyes cold. "Then he's no son of mine."
---
Back in the shadows of the underground, Nova stared at the glowing monitors in Tessa's laptop as lines of code flickered by.
"This encryption is unlike anything I've seen," Tessa said. "Military. Deep state. I can't break it alone."
Nova tapped the screen. "That symbol. I've seen it before. In my dad's journal."
Adrian leaned in. "Where?"
"In the page he marked with ashes."
Ronan raised a brow. "That wasn't a metaphor?"
"No," Nova said. "He wrote his confessions in code. He left me breadcrumbs."
She reached into her bag, pulling out the journal.
"I thought it was grief. But he was warning me."
Tessa's eyes widened. "You're telling me you have the key to the vault?"
Nova nodded.
Adrian whispered, "Then this changes everything."
---
Nova stood in front of a mirror in the borrowed underground shelter, hands trembling slightly as she clipped her hair back.
This wasn't just a mission anymore.
It was vengeance.
Justice.
Truth.
And if she had to walk through fire again… so be it.
Adrian wa
tched her from the doorway.
"You ready?" he asked.
She turned, eyes steel.
"I've been ready since they buried my name."
---
To be continued in Episode 17…
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