The tunnel split without ceremony.
No warning lights.
No dramatic signs.
Just two paths carved into concrete one familiar, one dark.
Naya turned right.
She felt it immediately.
The absence.
Footsteps that should have followed didn't.
Her body reacted before her mind allowed the truth.
She spun. "Kairo?"
The word echoed back at her, hollow.
The left tunnel stood empty lights flickering, air moving, alive.
He was gone.
"No," she breathed.
Her chest tightened violently, anger surging so fast it burned.
She sprinted back to the split, scanning, listening, heart slamming against her ribs. Her comm crackled once then silence.
He had chosen the extraction.
He had chosen safety.
He had not chosen her.
The realization hit like a betrayal she'd sworn never to feel again.
"You idiot," she hissed to herself or to him, she wasn't sure.
Of course he hadn't followed.
She had crossed the line alone.
That was the rule.
That was always the rule.
She forced herself forward, boots pounding against concrete as the service corridor narrowed, lights dimming. She ran not away from him, but from the weakness clawing up her throat.
Behind her, the tunnel shuddered.
An explosion controlled, violent.
The extraction route collapsed.
Her breath left her in a sharp, panicked sound.
"Kairo!"She turned and ran back just as dust and smoke swallowed the junction.
The left tunnel was gone.
Sealed.Buried.
She slammed her fists against the concrete, fury erupting hot and unfiltered.
"You stupid, stubborn girl"
Her voice broke.
She slid down the wall, breathing hard, rage and fear tangling until she couldn't tell them apart.She had left him.it was so disappointing. She thought…
She had crossed the line and he had stayed behind.
Kairo Blackwell didn't turn right because he was afraid.
He turned left because he knew exactly what she was doing.
Running.Again.
The moment he saw her hesitate, saw the weight in her shoulders, he understood. She wasn't choosing strategy. She was choosing disappearance.
And he refused to let her vanish carrying him like another ghost.
He'd gone three steps down the extraction tunnel when the blast hit.
The ground shook violently, throwing him forward. The lights went out. Dust filled the air, choking and blinding.
"Naya!" he shouted.
No answer.He staggered up, chest tight, anger igniting like gasoline.
"Damn it," he growled.
She had chosen him then abandoned him in the same breath.
And it hurt more than any punch he'd ever taken.
Security forces converged fast too fast. Hands grabbed him, voices shouting, weapons raised.
"She didn't make it," someone said urgently. "Tunnel collapse"
Kairo snapped.He shoved the man back with brutal force. "Don't say that."
"She left," another voice said. "She ran off-grid."
That was when it truly sank in.
She had chosen to disappear. Without him.
Rage burned through his veins—hot, personal, relentless.
He had trusted her.
And she had decided for him.
Naya surfaced miles away through an emergency hatch, lungs burning, clothes streaked with dust and blood.
She collapsed onto wet asphalt, rain mixing with the grit on her skin.
Her hands shook violently now.
Not from fear.
From regret.
She saw his face in her mind hurt, stubborn, furious.
She had sworn never to leave someone behind again.
And yet
"I'm sorry," she whispered into the empty night.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Consequences closing in.
Somewhere else, Kairo stood in a ring of armed men, jaw clenched, eyes dark with fury.
She thought she had saved him by leaving.
He thought she had abandoned him.
They were both wrong.
And both angry enough to burn the world down to prove it.