Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 31 - Chapitre 40

CHAPTER 30: THE ANGEL COUNTS A VICTORYPOV: SeverielMortals misunderstand silence.They think it means absence.They think it means mercy.Silence, in truth, is where I work best.I stand at the edge of a place that does not exist on any human map,an interval folded between seconds, stitched into the space where prayer used to linger before belief grew thin. Below me, the world mourns.Above me, nothing interferes.Aidan Vale lives.I confirm it the way one confirms a mathematical certainty not with hope, not with relief, but with satisfaction.His breath returned seventeen seconds after his heart stopped. Not a miracle. Not chance. A correction.I was there.Of course I was.The Institute’s failure amused me. Their protocols, their alarms, their frantic scrambling to contain what they never truly understood. They believed the Key died because their instruments said so.Instruments are liars.Souls are not.I walk now through the afterimage of that day, fingers trailing through th

CHAPTER 32 — UNFAMILIAR FAMILIARITY The university smells like old paper and coffee that’s been sitting too long on a warmer. Aidan pauses just inside the gate, backpack slung over one shoulder, eyes tracking everything at once students laughing too loudly, bikes cutting too close, flyers stapled to corkboards advertising events he won’t remember signing up for. “You okay?” I ask. He nods. Then shakes his head. Then nods again. “Yeah. I think so.” It’s the first day of classes. First day of normal. Or whatever passes for it when your past has been burned out of you and replaced with silence. We walk together, not quite side by side. Our arms brush occasionally, accidental. Each time, I feel it like a bruise being pressed. “You don’t have to stay,” he says suddenly. “I can find my way.” “I’m heading to the same building,” I reply. Another lie. I changed my schedule for him. The registrar didn’t ask many questions when I transferred. They never do when you have the right pa

.CHAPTER 34 — THE FIRST LIE THAT BLEEDSPOV: EzraI lie better when I’m calm.That’s the thing no one tells you about restraint it sharpens deception into something surgical. Precise. Clean. Almost kind.Aidan believes me because I don’t sound afraid.We’re walking back from campus when it happens.Late afternoon, that soft hour where the city looks forgiving, sunlight caught in glass and puddles. He’s talking about an elective he might drop, something about the professor’s voice making his head buzz.I’m half-listening.The other half of me is watching the reflection in the storefront windows tracking movement, distance, exit points.Old instincts.Then a voice cuts through the air.“Ezra Vale?”I stop before I mean to.That’s the first mistake.Aidan takes one more step, then turns back to me, eyebrows knitting. “What?”I’m already facing the man behind us.Late thirties. Clean jacket. Sentinel posture buried under civilian slouch badly.He freezes when he sees my face.Then his

CHAPTER 36 — MUSCLE MEMORYPOV: AidanI don’t sleep.I lie in the dark and let the ceiling fan count the hours for me, its uneven rhythm slicing the night into pieces I can’t stitch back together. Every time I close my eyes, my body jerks like it’s bracing for impact that never comes.Ezra doesn’t come back.That shouldn’t matter.It does.I roll onto my side and stare at the empty space where his door should be open. The apartment feels colder without him, like whatever heat he carried bled into the walls and left when he did.I tell myself I’m just shaken. Anyone would be, after finding out their entire life came with footnotes and redactions.Still.My chest aches in a way that doesn’t feel new.At some point, too late, too early I give up on sleep and sit up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. The floor is cold. Grounding. Real.“Okay,” I whisper to myself. “Okay.”I stand.And nearly fall.My balance goes strange for half a second like my body expects a weight behind me

CHAPTER 38 — CHOOSING YOUPOV: AidanThe angel doesn’t move.He doesn’t need to.The hallway still smells like ash and scorched concrete, alarms whining softly overhead, but the world has narrowed to three points: him, Ezra’s back in front of me, and the tight, burning pull in my chest that tells me tells me this moment matters more than anything else I’ve lived through since waking up with an empty past.Ezra shifts his stance slightly. Protective. Calculated. Like he’s already mapped every possible angle of attack.“Step away from him,” Ezra says, voice flat. Deadly calm.The angel smiles.“You’re still pretending this is a choice,” he replies. “How endearing.”My hands curl into fists at my sides.“Stop talking like I’m not here,” I say.Both of them turn toward me.Ezra’s head snaps just enough that I see the tension in his jaw. The angel’s eyes brighten, like I’ve just confirmed something he was waiting for.“There you are,” the angel murmurs. “You always hated being spoken over.