Page 48 of The Monster You Made
I pull out, slow, watching her wince, and I can’t help the smirk that tugs at my lips. She’s a mess, shirt torn, pants around her knees, my cum dripping down her thighs, and she’s never looked more fucking beautiful.
I help her up, my hands lingering on her hips, and for a second, she lets me. Just a second. Then she shoves me away, yanking her pants up, her face a mask of defiance again.
“We’ve got a job to do,” she says, voice steady now, like she didn’t just come apart under me. But I see the flush on her cheeks, the way her hands shake as she grabs her hatchet.
I nod, tucking myself back in, the adrenaline of the raid flooding back.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice rough with more than just lust. “Let’s move.”
***
On the fourth night, we leave. The city fades behind us, its walls shrinking to shadow as we cross the marsh under moonlight. The air is thick, the ground sucking at our boots, reeds whispering like ghosts. Frogs croak, owls cry, but louder than all is the silence of our breath, each one measured, each one carrying us closer to the knife’s edge.
***
The depot rises from the marsh like a scar. Low stone walls, wooden watchtowers, lanterns flickering along the perimeter. Inside, shadows of soldiers move, rifles glinting, barrels stacked high beneath tarps. The stench of powder clings even here, heavy, volatile.
We wait until the moon dips low, until the guards’ voices grow slurred with fatigue. Then we move.
Rourke’s shot drops the first watchman. Jannik slides through shadows, his knife finding the throat of another. Vera and I climb the wall, my blades flashing silent as I cut through the sentries above. We slip into the heart of the depot before the alarm sounds.
Then fire erupts.
A light thrown by Jannik catches a tarp, flames leaping quick as hunger. Soldiers shout, rifles crack, but chaos spreads faster than their discipline. I carve through them, my blades singing, every strike honed by memory of chains, of Cassian's voice, of Marta’s fire. Vera fights at my side, her hatchet biting, her cries sharp, fierce. Rourke fires steady from the wall, each shot cutting down a soldier who dares step too near. The depot becomes a furnace, powder barrels exploding, walls shattering in thunder.
When it ends, the depot is ash. Smoke curls into the night, lit red by embers. We vanish into the marsh before the Crown can rally, our lungs burning, our faces black with soot. Behind us, another wound bleeds in Declan’s net.
But fire always answers fire.
Two days later, the Crown arrives in the city. Riders in gray cloaks, rifles on their backs, their banners snapping like jaws. They march through the square, drag men and women into the open, demand names. A child cries for his father as soldiers beat him. A woman spits and is struck down. Fear spreads like rot.
We watch from the inn’s upper window. Vera clutches Abigail against her, her face pale with fury. Rourke mutters curses, his fists white on his rifle. My hand tightens on the blade at my side. Every instinct screams to strike, to carve through them until silence falls. But Jannik’s voice whispers in my ear: Fire spreads both ways.
That night, the innkeeper comes to us. His hands shake as he sets bread on the table. “They’re looking for you,” hewhispers. “They don’t know your faces yet, but they will. You must leave. Before you bring their noose to my door.”
His fear is not selfish. It is survival. I nod, though something in me hardens like stone. We cannot stay. But we cannot stop either.
We leave before dawn, slipping through alleys, the city shrinking behind us. Abigail looks back once, her small hand tight in Vera’s. “Will they be safe?” she whispers.
Vera’s voice breaks a little. “As safe as they can be.”
We move north, toward the forests.
The forest is thick, its canopy swallowing the sky. Sunlight filters through in broken shards, painting the ground in light and shadow. Here, the air smells of pine and damp earth, a relief after the smoke and blood. Abigail laughs once, chasing a squirrel, the sound so strange I almost do not recognize it. For a moment, I allow it. For a moment, I allow myself to believe there can be more than war.
But war always follows.
At dusk, we stumble upon a camp. Not Crown, rebels. Scarred men and women, their eyes sharp, their blades ready. They surround us in silence, their weapons gleaming.
Their rifles are relics. Boots splitting at the seams. Armor scavenged from forgotten wars. It is not because they are behind. It is because they were pushed behind, forced into regression so complete it looks like history came to die here. The rebellion is not some archaic uprising. It is the only response left when an entire people are cut off from progress, walled into silence by governments too compromised to intervene. Andyet, they fight. They bleed. Proof that even engineered poverty cannot smother the will to resist.
Then one steps forward—a tall, broad woman, her face marked with an old burn scar. “You carry fire,” she says, her gaze fixed on the satchel. “We have seen the smoke you leave behind. Who are you?”
I meet her eyes, steady. “Enemies of the Crown.”
She studies me, then Vera, then Abigail. At last, she nods. “Then you’re ours. Come. There’s work to do.”
***
