The Sky
The helicopter sliced through the clouds, a streak of steel and thunder. Inside, the noise was deafening, the air cold and thin.
Adrian sat across from Selene, his hands still gripping the edge of the open hatch. The world below blurred into a sea of green and gray. Elena leaned against the bulkhead beside him, her face pale but steady.
"Where are we going?" Adrian shouted over the roar of the rotors.
Selene checked the navigation monitor strapped to her wrist. "An outpost east of the city, off-grid, old syndicate hub. My contact still controls it."
Adrian frowned. "You trust them?"
She gave a half-smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I don't trust anyone. But they owe me."
Elena studied her from across the cabin, voice calm but edged. "And what do they owe you for?"
Selene met her gaze evenly. "A life. Same as him." She nodded toward Adrian.
The air hung thick between them, full of questions no one wanted to ask. Finally, Adrian broke it.
"When we land, we refuel, gather intel, and move. No more detours."
Selene tilted her head, a hint of the old fire in her expression. "You still think you can plan your way out of a war?"
"I plan to finish it," he said.
She almost smiled, but there was sadness in it too. "Then you haven't changed at all."
The pilot's voice came through the comms: "Approaching the zone. Two minutes."
Selene looked out the window as the landscape below shifted, fields giving way to old industrial ruins, the skeletons of a forgotten city. She murmured something under her breath that the wind carried away.
Elena leaned closer to Adrian. "Can we really trust her?"
He didn't answer right away. His eyes stayed on Selene. "We'll find out soon enough."
(The Serpent).
Miles away, in a room lit only by digital screens, the syndicate commander stood before a holographic map. Red markers pulsed where his teams had fallen silent. His jaw clenched.
"They're airborne," a voice reported through the comm. "Heading east. Looks like one of our old extraction routes."
The commander turned slowly toward the speaker, eyes hard as obsidian. "Who authorized the aerial unit that picked them up?"
"No one, sir. It wasn't ours."
He exhaled, once, controlled. "Selene."
The lieutenant who'd once served under her shifted uneasily. "If she's alive..."
"She is." The commander's voice was low, dangerous. "And she's helping him. Again."
He stepped closer to the map, fingers tracing the moving signal. "Deploy the intercept teams. I want drones in the air and all surveillance satellites locked to Sector 9-E."
"Sir, we'll risk exposure..."
"Do it." His tone was soft, final. "If they reach the outpost, we lose control of the network. Burn the whole sector if you have to."
The lieutenant hesitated. "And if Selene resists?"
The commander's gaze didn't waver. "Then she dies with them."
(The Sky).
The helicopter banked hard, dipping toward the industrial ruins. Adrian's pulse quickened, something in the air felt wrong, a pressure before the storm.
He looked at Selene. "We're being tracked."
She didn't deny it. "They'll be here soon."
Elena's hand found his. "Then we finish this together."
Adrian nodded once. The wind roared through the open hatch, carrying the scent of iron and danger. Below, the broken city waited, a maze of concrete and ghosts.
And somewhere in the distance, the serpent was already coiling to strike.