Page 89 of Fated in A Time of War

“Target in upper quadrant! Lock down sectors four through six! Engage intercept protocols!Do not let him reach the dig site!”

So he’s still alive. Unfortunate.

Alice pulls back, face flushed, pupils wide with adrenaline. “What now?”

I meet her eyes, and my voice comes out low and calm. “We’re not running.”

She nods once, no hesitation.

“Good,” she says. “I’m done running too.”

We move.

She’s limping slightly, favoring her left side. I give her my shoulder. Her hand finds my back, warm against the plates there, grounding me.

We descend fast, back through the upper catwalks, sirens screaming around us. Guards flood corridors below, but I’ve already cut the main power—half the security doors are frozen mid-lock, flickering open and shut like mechanical spasms. We slip past them, shadows between strobes of light.

Alice grabs a dropped pistol off a corpse. Checks the mag. “Still warm,” she mutters, and pockets it.

“She hurt you?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “No. Not really. Misha… she hesitated.”

“Not enough,” I growl.

We hit the first stairwell, and she stops me.

“Krall.”

I turn, breath short, heart still burning.

She touches my face, fingers tracing a streak of blood across my jaw.

“You came for me,” she whispers.

“Always.”

That word hangs there, suspended between heartbeats.

Then we run.

Down into fire. Into steel. Into the war waiting at the bottom.

CHAPTER 26

ALICE

The fortress shakes beneath us, like it’s trying to shrug off the weight of its own sins. The lights above flicker with every boom, sending shadows spinning along the curved metal walls. I run at Krall’s side, his movements clean and lethal, mine just a beat behind. We don’t talk. We don’t have to.

He tosses a rifle over his shoulder mid-stride—my reflexes catch it before I even process the gesture. My hands wrap around the grip like they’ve always belonged there. It's heavier than I expect, but familiar in a way I hate. This isn’t the first time I’ve carried a weapon in a place meant for people, not battlefields.

We burst through a side corridor into a narrow loading bay. Two Kru mercs wheel around, their armor still scorched from the last power flicker. Krall doesn’t slow. His shoulder slams into the first with bone-crushing force, sending the man sailing into a pillar with a crack I feel in my teeth. I take the second—squeeze the trigger, short controlled bursts like he taught me. The rifle bucks against my shoulder. He drops before he can even raise his own weapon.

The hall beyond is filled with smoke and shouting. Krall points, his voice gruff and clipped. “Service tunnel to the base. Southeast quadrant.”

We move together, bodies low, breathing ragged. I watch the way his muscles shift beneath the armor, how his tail flicks with each corner we cut. There’s no hesitation in his stride, no doubt. It hits me—how far we’ve come since that drop zone. Since the mud and the screams and the first time he looked at me like I wasn’t another broken cog in someone’s war machine.

There’s something else between us now. Something harder to name, but stronger. It's not just jalshagar anymore. We’re more than bonded. We’re partners. Equals. Fighters, bleeding the same cause, chasing the same light at the end of this choking, blood-soaked tunnel.