A D R I A N

The moment the figure lunges out of the dark, my body moves before my mind catches up.

“Elara, down.”

I shove her behind me and the impact hits my shoulder like a steel ram. Metal clangs, my flashlight skitters across the grated floor, spinning wild light over pipes and shadows and the smear of blood that led us here.

The guy is smaller than me but desperate. Desperation makes people feral. He claws at my chest, slips on his own blood, gets an elbow under my ribs hard enough to knock a grunt out of me. I slam him sideways into the coolant tanks. Something hisses, steam or breath or both.

“Elara, don’t come closer!” I don’t even look to check if she listens. The saboteur thrashes, fingers scrabbling at something on his belt. Not a weapon, keys. He’s reaching for keys.

“Hey!” I grab his wrist, yank—his skin is slick, hewn with panic sweat and blood. He slams his head back into my chin, a white-hot burst behind my teeth, and wriggles just enough to slip through the narrow maintenance alcove behind the tanks.

“Elara, stay back—!” Too late. His silhouette disappears into the shaft. Gone. Just ripped away like he was never here. My breath hits like punches. The corridor is suddenly too quiet, the generator hum drilling into my skull. Elara’s hand lands on my arm, small and warm and terrified.

“You’re bleeding,” she says.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.” I caught her wrist without thinking. I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. Her pulse jumps under my thumb. She doesn’t pull away. And for a stupid second, all I feel is her. I force myself to release her. Her eyes flick to my lips, no, to the blood on them and something twists low in my gut, violent and unwanted.

“We need to move,” I say, voice rougher than I mean. “He didn’t disappear. He’s heading somewhere.”

“Guests,” she finishes quietly. That fear in her tone, she thinks in triage, always three steps ahead toward the worst-case scenario. It’s the thing I respect most about her. It’s the thing that scares me.

We move fast through the generator wing, past pipes that sweat condensation, past the metallic stink of coolant and leaking oil. Lights flicker overhead, each one snapping in my nerves like a warning shot. Ethan’s voice crackles through the corridor: “Still no visual. North wing unstable. Main breaker holding.”

“Elara, stay close.”
“I am close.” She is. Too close. Her shoulder brushes mine as we take the incline up toward the service stairwell. Every breath feels like a collision.

“What if he goes topside?” she murmurs. “Crowds. Lantern Tide rehearsals. Market vendors, someone injured could wander right into..”

“He’s bleeding,” I say. “He won’t blend well.”
“Desperate people do stupid things when cornered.”

I look at her. “Yeah. They do.” She doesn’t look away. There’s a pulse between us, charged, raw, unfinished from earlier when I had her pinned against metal shelving and her breath was trembling against my mouth. The exit hatch groans as I push it open. Warm night air rushes over us, humid and heavy with incense and frying sugar and the thump of festival drums.

We step out into chaos, lanterns swaying overhead, crowds pouring through the Night Market, bodies brushing, laughter ringing, the world entirely unaware that someone bled into my hands moments ago.

Elara stiffens beside me.
“We should alert them.”
“We will. But we can’t start a panic.” She hates that answer. I feel it in the tension clawing down her spine. The crowd swallows us whole.

Bodies press from every direction, perfume, sweat, lantern smoke, sizzling oil from food stalls. Kids run by with sparklers. Tourists raise phones like glowing shields. Music vibrates the ground. It’s everything chaotic and beautiful the Lyris Isles sells and everything we don’t have time for.

A surge of people shoves from the right, someone shouting about the fire-dancers passing through. Elara’s balance falters. Her hand flies out, instinct, not strategy and I catch it before she can hit the cobblestones. My hand closes around hers too hard. She gasps softly—not fear. Just shock.

“Easy,” I say, but my voice comes out low. Wrong. Too honest. I don’t let go. We move through the crowd like that, her fingers threaded with mine, tight, urgent. Protective, yes. Necessary, yes. But something else too. Something that makes my pulse sync with hers, fast and uneven.

Her eyes flick up to mine. Lantern light pools in them, molten silver and green. “Don’t lose me,” she half-whispers.

“I couldn’t,” I say before my brain remembers to filter. Her breath catches. Not dramatic. Just a soft, unsteady sound that hits me in the sternum.

We duck into a narrow stretch between two lantern stalls, strings of glowing paper moons hanging so low they brush the tops of our heads. It’s quieter here, still buzzing with life, but muffled, like the world decided to give us a breath. Elara drops my hand slowly, like she’s afraid the absence might sting. It does.

She exhales, shaky. “You think he made it up here?”

“He’s hurt,” I say. “He won’t blend well.”
“That doesn’t mean he won’t try.”

Her worry isn’t frantic. It’s clinical, sharp, threaded with something else, guilt, maybe, for the boy at the lagoon, for the guests, for every person whose safety she believes is her responsibility. I don’t know how one woman carries that much on her back without breaking.

Her hair is sticking to her cheek. I shouldn’t touch her. I touch her anyway, my fingers brushing the strand back, slow. Her breath stutters.

“Adrian…” It’s half warning, half plea.

“We’re okay,” I say. “We’ll find him.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

I know exactly what she meant. The space between us fills with every moment we haven’t talked about, every look, every almost, every time she shoved me away only to pull closer without meaning to.

The crowd moves in waves around us, but here, in this strip of lantern glow, it feels like the universe carved a quiet corner out just for us. Her eyes shine up at me, reflecting gold and blue and every fire I’ve tried to stay away from.

“What happens after the Lantern Tide?” she asks quietly. Not accusing. Not demanding. Just… vulnerable. My throat closes around the truth.

“I don’t want this to disappear,” I say. “Not when the festival ends. Not when the crisis dies down. Not when the island is safe.”

Her lips part.
“You’re talking like there’s a ‘then.’ Like there’s a future.”

“There is,” I whisper, moving just a fraction closer. “If you want one.”

Her breath shivers against my mouth.
“I do,” she says, barely audible. “I just don’t know who we are in it.”

A shout from the crowd snaps the moment in half. Someone drops a tray of lantern pastries, and sugar dust explodes into the air like bright smoke. People laugh. Someone curses. A drumline starts up closer than before ,  sharp, pulsing beats pushing through my ribs like another heartbeat fighting to overpower my own.

Elara steps back as though she’s afraid of what she just admitted. Or afraid that she admitted anything at all. “We should… we should keep moving. In case he doubled back.”

“Right,” I say, but I don’t move. Not yet.

She does the thing she always does, tucks her emotions away so fast the air still trembles from them. Her shoulders go straight. Her chin lifts. She presses her lips together like she’s fighting to seal away words she shouldn’t let out. I step closer. Not enough to touch, but enough she feels the heat. Enough that she swallows hard.

“You don’t have to run from this,” I say gently.

Her gaze flicks up, sharp. “I’m not running.”

“You are,” I say, softer this time. “But I get it.”

Her breath hesitates, shaking once before she steadies it. She turns slightly away as lantern light brushes over her cheek, making her glow like something I should keep my hands off if I had any sense left. But I don’t. Not tonight.

“Elara,” I say, voice low. “Look at me.” And she does, like her body gives in before her mind can argue. She steps toward me without even realizing she’s doing it. I feel it happens, the gravity between us closing the inch of space we’ve been pretending isn’t there.

Her pulse beats visibly at the base of her throat. Her lips part, the smallest inhale. I touch her jaw with my fingertips,  barely at all and her breath catches like someone pulled a string through her chest. This is going to happen. For once, nothing’s in the way. Until the world shoves back.

Elara jerks back. I almost reach for her again but she puts a hand to her chest like she needs a second to breathe.

“I—” she starts.

“No,” I interrupt, stepping in. “We’re not done.” Her eyes flicker with that impossible mixture of wanting and warning. “Adrian…”

I lean down so my forehead nearly brushes hers. “We’re finishing this. Not in a corner. Not hidden. Not as an accident.” Her inhale trembles. She’s right on the edge of falling into me again. And this time, I won’t let the world interrupt.

“Elara,” I say, and it feels like the first true thing I’ve said in hours. Maybe days. Maybe since I met her. She turns to me. All the panic and the duty and the fear fall out of her expression like she’s exhausted from holding them up. What’s left is just… her.

Beautiful. Stubborn. Braver than she’ll ever admit. I cup her jaw, slow enough she could stop me. She doesn’t. She leans into my hand like she’s been fighting the urge for longer than either of us wants to say.

“You asked what happens after all this,” I whisper. “This. We happen. If you let it.” Her eyes close just for a breath, not pulling away, not hesitating,  just trying to survive the weight of what I said. Then she rises onto her toes. And I meet her halfway.

The kiss lands like a dropped match in dry grass,  quiet at first, then everything ignites. Her fingers fist the front of my shirt. My other hand finds her waist, pulling her against me, and she melts like she’s been walking toward this moment since the cave, since the lagoon, since the first time she told me no.

She kisses me like she can’t breathe without it. I kiss her like I finally can. And then— A camera flashes. Bright. Close. Too close.

“Elara,” someone gasps behind us. Someone who knows her. Or me. Or both. The world rushes back in one violent, breathless wave.