Page 165 of Fractured Devotion
I swallow the knot rising in my throat. “You know I won’t be able to stop myself if things go south.”
“Then you’ll only make it worse,” she replies, and I hate how right she is.
I stare at her, watching the woman I thought I knew splinter into something sharper and more dangerous. “You really are ready to burn it all,” I say.
She smiles then, slow and terrible. “I already started the fire,” she replies.
The air thickens until it’s almost suffocating.
She closes the box, pressing the lid down with a steady hand.
“You don’t have to be here for this,” she says, her voice soft but firm.
I shake my head once, resolute. “I’m already here,” I answer. “I’m not leaving you tonight.”
For a second, something flickers in her expression, but it’s gone as quickly as it appears.
“Then you’ll watch me finish what they started,” she says.
She lifts the box and moves back toward me. I turn to watch her pass, heading into the living room. I follow, keeping pace as she goes to the desk, she sits and tucks the box under the desk, then she pulls open her laptop with a smooth, practiced motion. The screen lights her face in blue, turning her features almost ghostly.
Lines of code ripple across the screen as she opens the Heretic Loop.
I watch, unable to tear my eyes away, as she begins to weave her vengeance into reality.
Every keystroke is a dagger.
And she doesn’t hesitate once.
I move and take a seat across from her, watching the rapid flicker of her fingers on the keyboard, the cold precision in every move. It feels like watching someone disassemble a bomb, except she’s the one who planted it.
“You know, once this is in motion, there’s no undoing it,” I say, my voice low.
She doesn’t even look at me. “That’s the point.”
“You could still walk away,” I push, even though I know I’m too late. “We could disappear. Burn the evidence and leave them to rot on their own.”
Her lips curve into something that isn’t quite a smile. “They don’t rot. They rebuild. That’s what they’ve always done.”
Her words are calm, but her hands betray her. There’s the slightest tremble in her fingers as she executes another string of code. I see it, but I don’t point it out.
“I’m not letting them build again,” she finishes.
I glance at the window. The street outside is empty, the world oblivious to the war starting in this room.
“Celeste,” I say her name softly, meaning to cut through the haze. “If you do this, you can’t come back from it.”
Her gaze lifts to mine, steady and sure. “I’m not planning to.” She inputs the final command, her voice barely above a breath. “Done.”
The code compiles, locking itself into place.
She leans back in her chair, finally still, her breath shallow but even. The quiet that follows is heavier than the storm before it.
I don’t speak. I just watch her.
“Tomorrow,” she says, breaking the silence, “I upload it into the clinic’s system.”
I feel it settle deep in my chest—the point of no return.
