Lara climbed the tree like soone who had learned the cost of falling.
The bark scraped her palms. The wind cut across the canopy. She moved carefully, calculating every shift of weight. One wrong sound, one snapped branch, and the entire stronghold would wake.
She was grateful Sandro wasn’t fragile.
The boy climbed behind her with the ease of soone who had grown up hanging in branches. He was faster than most grown n she’d trained with. Light. Precise. Silent.
When she told him to cling to her back and leapt from the final branch to the stone roof of the leader’s safe house, he didn’t flinch. No gasp. No scream. Just trust.
He wrapped his arms around her shoulders as she tied the rope beneath his armpits.
"I’ll lower you down. Go through the window. Straight to the bed. Tug twice when you’re safe inside."
He nodded.
She hoisted him down into the darkness. The rope trembled with his weight, then stilled. Two tugs.
He made it.
Lara exhaled once. Then she secured the rope to herself and descended until she hovered level with the narrow window. Shay was still strapped against her chest, warm and asleep.
Carefully, Lara detached her and used the tubular sling to lower her through the window. She felt the faint shift of weight—Sandro catching Shay on the other side.
Good.
Lara slipped inside last.
It had taken thirty minutes. It was past midnight.
She didn’t waste a second.
She guided the children through the hidden room, wiping traces as she passed. The only trace she left was the rope hanging from the window.
Let them believe she fled outward.
"Aunt Larissa... it’s too dark."
She retrieved a flashlight from her pack. She’d grabbed it from a cabinet earlier—beside cigarettes and cheap lighters, the sll of stale smoke still clinging to it.
Inside the hidden chamber, she moved with intention. From the stack of weapons, she selected another rifle. Four handguns. Two strapped tight against her thighs. Two disappeared into her backpack, along with extra bullets.
Sandro watched without a word.
Too young to be this quiet, she thought.
They entered the narrow tunnel. The air was damp and stale, the walls sweating with condensation. Every footstep echoed like a confession.
Lara slowed her pace to match Sandro’s smaller strides.
"Sandro," she said gently when she noticed him lagging, "tell about your family."
He hesitated.
"We lived at the foot of Alta-Sierra. My father was in the army. Mom stayed ho with ."
His voice bounced off the stone walls, thinner than it should’ve been.
"Dad ca ho every Christmas. He brought toys and clothes." A faint smile touched his tone. "Mom made desserts. The best."
Lara humd softly, letting him continue.
"Then, one Christmas, he didn’t co ho."
A pause.
"They said it was an accident. During a mission."
The tunnel felt tighter.
Lara stopped abruptly. Sandro nearly walked into her.
She shouldn’t have asked.
"Where’d you learn to climb like that?" she changed the topic.
"There’s a forest behind our house. Mom said I could climb as long as I was careful."
"That explains it."
Silence again.
"Mom had an accident too. Six months after Dad. My relatives said I am jinx and no one wanted to take in."
His voice cracked.
Lara turned toward him, flashlight beam aid upward so it wouldn’t blind him.
"I’m sorry. You don’t have to say more."
He didn’t.
Sothing inside her tightened.
She crouched. "Climb on. Hold tight."
He obeyed without hesitation.
She carried him for nearly two kiloters. Her muscles burned. Her breathing stayed controlled. Sandro eventually went limp against her back—sleep claiming him despite everything.
They reached the tunnel’s end, sealed by a slab of rock. She could guess that outside, it was disguised beneath vines.
She pushed. It didn’t move.
There had to be a chanism to open it.
She scanned beside the stone with her flashlight until she found a shallow depression in the wall. She pressed it.
The rock shifted—an inch.
Outside was still dark.
She couldn’t tell where they were.
Sandro stirred when the stone scraped open. Shay slept on, small and unaware.
She let Sandro down.
"Sleep so more," Lara whispered. "It’s still night."
He obeyed.
She laid her jacket down and eased him onto it. Shay curled against her chest as she leaned back against the damp tunnel wall.
For the first ti since escaping, she allowed herself to think.
The man in the forest.
He’d looked like he’d stepped out of another century.
And the woman in the red dress...looking so seductive.
Was it her.
The mory made her shiver.
The way she’d smiled. Flirted. Lured that vile man closer. The efficiency with which she’d snapped his neck.
She was decisive.
That wasn’t the girl from a farming family.
That wasn’t innocence.
She raised her hands in the dim light.
They looked steady and capable.
She had killed soone. Does that an that there was blood on her hands?
Had she always been this?
"Who am I, really?"
The question felt heavier than the weapons strapped to her body.
She shut down the spiral before it consud her.
From her pack, she retrieved the satellite phone. Extended the antenna. Powered it on.
One bar. Enough signal to send a ssage.
She typed:
Mount Ourea. Escaped rebel stronghold. Safe for now. – LR
She hit send.
...
Back at the stronghold, the deputy leader felt sothing was off.
The room on the second floor was too quiet.
The stone walls and the door were thick—but they had never been completely soundproof. The n downstairs were used to hearing things through that door.
Pleading.
Crying.
Sotis laughter twisted into sothing darker.
And on certain nights—rare but unmistakable—the sounds of pleasures.
Tonight, there was nothing.
Not a whimper. Not a thud. Not the scrape of furniture.
Silence pressed down as if a hand were over the mouth.
The deputy leader stood at the base of the staircase, jaw tight. The leader had given strict instructions: no interruptions.
But instincts had kept him alive this long. And his instincts were screaming.
He climbed.
Each step creaked under his boots, the wood protesting the weight. The hallway upstairs was dim, lit only by a flickering wall sconce. The air slled faintly of oil and sweat.
He stopped before the heavy door.
Locked from the inside.
He leaned forward and pressed his ear against the wood.
Nothing. No breathing. No movent. No shifting sheets.
The silence on the other side felt unnatural—like the air had been sucked out of the room.
His hand slipped into his coat pocket. The spare key felt colder than it should have.
He hesitated only a second before sliding it into the lock.
The click echoed louder than it had any right to.
He pushed the door open slowly.
Darkness swallowed the room.
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