⟾ 27 | SKYFALL (Part 2)

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TRIGGER WARNING!

(MILD) description of death, knives, guns, blood.

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LOUIS

Wednesday, 4:42pm

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IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, I'VE NEVER MADE SUCH A TERRIBLE MISTAKE.

While I dressed myself in male, arrogant, bravado, my entire mission statement was to help other people. It was my job; I joined the agency, because the world was going to Hell, and I wanted to at least save someone's life in the thick of it. I only pretended to be above it all, because it's what distracted me from the knowledge that one day I might wake up and die the next day.

But I never told anyone that. I'm telling you that, because I just made the one mistake I felt would haunt me for the rest of my life, and I don't care about my reputation any more.

I fell in love.

And the world fell apart.

The only difference was the blame lay on the lover's hands, not the one who was loved. It was my fault. She did nothing but live as she was, perfectly her, and perfect to me. I just couldn't focus, and that's the mistake I made.

"How does it feel?" Millie scoffed, planting her boot against my chest and shoving me backwards, "must be terrible, hm?"

My back hit the floor. "Care to explain what you mean by that?"

"Having to stick around her for so long."

She threw a glance to Ash, who was struggling to climb off the ground with dizziness. She had gotten hit pretty hard a few minutes ago, and had almost blacked out cold. Concussion; I'd have to look at her wound later.

"No, actually," I spat out, "I quite like it."

My response threw Millie off guard, just long enough for me to scramble to my feet and sock her straight in the jaw. She went stumbling backwards, and I didn't cease to use that opportunity to grab her by the collar and send her flying into a console by the wall.

Falling to the ground, the force of her hit sent a vase tipping over on it's side, crashing onto her head.

Give her five seconds and she'll be knocked out. Dusting off my hands, I turned my back on her, and began to walk the other way. Ash was still dizzy from her previous row, but looked up when she saw me approaching.

But then something flickered in her eyes, and the world slowed down.

"Louis!"

I don't think I've ever seen fear in her eyes like how I did then. It was enough to make me fear myself. Eyes running cold, face losing all sense of life, and words so chilling it pierced right through my soul.

And it all happened so quickly.

Feeling her hands around my shoulder, spinning me around until we stood in opposite spots, and wondering what was happening. I didn't know. Not until she lurched forward, pain slipping out of her lips as she stood frozen to her spot, her mouth hanging open as if she had lost the ability to speak.

"Ash?" I asked, searching her eyes for an explanation.

She didn't say anything.

But then a trickle of blood slipped out of her lips, dripping down her chin and staining her skin with a river of pure red.

And that's when I saw the dagger.

Seconds before Millie lost her own consciousness, she had enough time to grab her weapon and throw it across the room in a final attempt to win. That must have been what Ash had seen. That must have been why she called out my name, switching our places at the last second, just so it wouldn't hit me.

And instead it hit her.

Hands slipping off my shoulders, the girl crumpled to the ground, her eyes falling shut without any control.

"[y/n]?" I blurted out, falling to my knees beside her, "[y/n], come on, you have to wake up."

Her eyes stayed closed, blood trickling out of her mouth like a trail of misfortune. I felt so numb looking at her, and I was the one who made it out unharmed. All I wanted was for her to open her eyes and tell me that it was all a joke, and that she was okay; that the world wasn't ending in a single moment.

"[y/n], please," I begged, placing my hands on the side of her face, "wake up."

The dagger was lodged into her back, right next to her spinal cord and under her ribs. This wasn't a bullet wound. I couldn't just take it out and hope for the best—I needed to get her to a hospital, but there wasn't enough time, and there was a bomb still ticking halfway across the palace.

Tick, tick, tick...

"Lou...?"

The words breathed out of her mouth like the faintest trace of wind. She always spoke her mind. She never backed down from a fight. But right now, she could barely speak, and it broke me. I was losing her.

"Hey, hey," I whispered, "I'm here."

The back of my eyes were starting to sting, and I felt tears threaten to spill down my face with every second I looked at her. I don't remember the last time I cried—I don't remember the last time I wanted to cry.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

I shook my head. "Don't be sorry."

"I could never say I love you."

She looked at me like I was the only thing left in the world. She looked at me in the same way she had always looked at me, but I'd only realized now what it meant. A girl who had spent her whole life running, took time to stop and look at me. She always stuck by me, even when we were supposed to be enemies. She always came back for me, even when I betrayed her trust.

But now she was slipping away, and I couldn't do anything to make her stay.

"I don't need you to love me back," I choked out, placing my forehead against hers, "I just need you to stay alive."

"Louis..."

"Just stay with me, Ash."

Pressing my thumb against her chin, I wiped the blood off of her face, wishing it didn't stain her skin a shade of pink. I didn't want to see her like this—like she was dying—because it only broke me more. I couldn't even imagine the pain she must be feeling.

But even through the Hell of it all, she smiled.

"I saved you." she coughed out, using all her strength to weakly laugh, "I guess this is me returning the favor."

I couldn't bring myself to laugh with her. "Ash, please."

"Save the city, Louis, I'll see you again," she whispered.

"I can't leave you."

"You can, Lou, and that's okay."

"Ash..."

"Go, Louis."

Placing her against my wrist, her eyes trailed down to the tattoo still healing on my skin. We were supposed to be a team. We were supposed to do this together, not sit here helplessly while she died in my arms and I couldn't do a thing about it. I had gotten that tattoo to show her she wasn't alone, and yet I had no choice but to leave her.

"I'll be with you," she whispered.

I blinked back the tears. "I love you."

"I know."

There was a moment where neither of us said anything, but felt everything. Pain, guilt, anger, hatred, love, and pure fear of what the future held. It wasn't supposed to end like this, we were supposed to win together.

"Go, Louis," she said, "trust me."

I grasped her hand tighter. "Trust you?"

"Trust me."

And without another word, her head fell back, and her eyes closed. A peaceful image of a soul I used to know, gone after asking me to trust her. How could she ever think I wouldn't? I'd always trusted her.

But now she was gone.

She was...

Gone.

And the pain I'd felt was suddenly swallowed up into anger, a fiery hatred burning through my blood and seeping into my very mind. I wanted revenge. I needed it. They killed the girl I loved, and I was going to kill them for it.

"I'll be back for you, I promise," I whispered.

Standing onto my feet, I wiped the tears from my eyes, beginning to run down the hallway and to my destination. I had to get to the South tower before the bomb blew. Roughly thirty minutes left, and I'd need ten of those to search for the bomb, ten of them to dispose of any obstacles in my way, and ten of those for emergency purposes.

But even as I willed myself to focus, I couldn't draw my mind away from her.

[y/n].

I already missed her more than I could ever explain. She should be right next to me, making a snarky remark and waiting for me to fight back. She should be holding my hand, pretending to hate it, but secretly smiling when she thought I wasn't looking. She should be hating everything about me, because I loved everything about her, and it was what made us us.

But she wasn't here.

And I lost control.

All I saw was the anger in my heart as I stormed down the hallways, taking out anyone who dared to stop me. Palace guards who saw my bloody hands, people who even so much as took a step in my direction—I knocked them out cold and continued on my path.

Tick, tick, tick...

I don't know if I even cared about turning the bomb off. At this point, dying didn't seem so bad, and if it was at the hands of the enemy, I don't think I'd care either. Every part of me wanted to be with her. She asked me to trust her—but why?

What for?

If she trusted me to protect her, I'm ashamed to say I've failed. I never deserved her. I begged for her to love me back, but this whole time she didn't need to, because I should have been happy just to know she was still alive.

Turning the corner into the South Tower, I prepared to search the area for my target, but was stopped in my tracks.

I wasn't alone.

A dozen S.I.S tacticals were positioned around the room, all pointing their guns straight at me. They'd been waiting for me to arrive. I didn't know for how long, but clearly they knew I'd show up, and that could only be because of the man standing right behind them with a smirk on his face.

"Wondered when I'd be seeing you again," William Franklyn-Miller mused, "although I thought you'd be dead by now."

His words hurt more than anything. It should have been me, not her.

And he brought his team of tacticals with him too. They all thought I was the bad guy. They thought I was here to wreak havoc like some sort of twisted vigilante. Little did they know, the man they were blindly following was the man who wanted to take over the city.

"Where's the bomb, Miller," I spat out, my eyes narrowed with disgust.

At my accusation, a few tacticals turned their heads to glance at the agent they were safely guarding. If I could see through their helmets, I'd expect them to look confused.

Will scoffed. "Don't try to fool me, Partridge."

"I'm not fooling you, I'm exposing you."

"No, you're pretending like I'm the one who planted the bomb," he said, "obviously that was you and your pretty, little, sidekick who did it."

He was trying to turn this on me, but I wasn't going to let him do it. To Hell with my reputation, this was about saving the city and its residents, not saving my pride. I'd lost too much already. I wasn't going to let others lose more.

I had to think.

Think, Louis, think.

I felt lost, and I couldn't focus. Not with all these emotions running blindly through my mind, making it hard to separate my heart from my mind. What would Ash do? She always knew what to do. She was brilliant at escapes, and if she was here, we'd already have saved London and made it out alive.

What would she do?

She'd stall.

Her snarky fights were never random, she did them on purpose. To get information from my office, to snoop around my apartment—all brilliant devices disguised by her pretend interest. I had to do things her way if I wanted to get out of this.

"Strange, isn't it?" I said, my eyes grazing over the room, "how you were also in that jail cell that day?"

William tensed up.

I kept talking, using my time to look for anything out of place in the room. Where was the bomb hiding? Tick, tick, tick...I can't hear a ticking noise. It must be across the room.

"I was there to stop you from helping her escape," William shot back.

I glanced towards the window. "Then why were you there before me?"

"I wasn't."

"That's not how I remember it, Miller."

I heard quiet mutters slipping underneath the masks of the tacticals, all of them wondering what game I was playing at. Interrogation, to put it plainly. A tactic [y/n] used before we really knew each other. It was to make the other flustered and give you the advantage—just like how she used to ask me questions about myself.

As William began sputtering out lies, I noticed a drawer sitting ajar in the corner of the room. It was slightly jutted out, and I could see a faint red light slowly fading and lighting through the wooden walls.

Bingo.

But as I took one step towards it, suddenly the guns were cocked and ready to aim straight at me. I held up my hands, narrowing my eyes.

"Lower your weapons," I said calmly, "I'm not here to hurt anyone."

William scoffed. "Don't lie, Partridge."

"I'm trying to save all of our lives," I continued, "so lower your weapons and let me defuse that bomb."

At the word bomb, I sensed the tension in the room immediately rise. It swallowed the tacticals up, and suddenly they were wildly looking around for the detonator I mentioned. William looked betrayed at the fact that I have it away, but I had no loyalty to a traitor like him. Not after what he did killed her.

"Don't trust him!" The man shouted, "there is no bomb."

I frowned. "Drawer, top right, if any one of you would like to see for yourselves."

At my words, one of the tacticals hesitantly slipped away from the grouping, stepping over to the dresser and slowly grasping the metal handles. Pulling it out fully, the ticking noise suddenly began to fill the area again.

Tick, tick, tick...

"It's his!" Miller hissed, "he's the one who planted it, can't you see that?"

I cocked a brow. "How could I have planted it if you were here first?"

Got him.

The tables were turned in that exact moment, and each tactical slowly lowered their weapons, turning their attention to the flustered man behind them. His face was flushed a sickly shade of red, and there was no doubting it was guilt.

"Now, I'm going to cross the room and turn it off," I said smoothly, "no one is to move until it's done."

Keeping my hands up to show I had no ulterior motives, I slowly paced across the South tower, my eyes on the drawer. Maybe I underestimated the lengths William would go for his 'Embers'. I thought he'd back down and let me do my job, finally afraid one more wrong move would expose his entire plan.

But he wasn't going to let me do that.

In the split of a second, he had wrestled a pistol out of one of the tacticals hands, leaping across the room and whipping it out in front of me. The barrel of the gun was pointed straight at my head.

"If anyone moves, then I'll shoot him," he spat out, "step away from the bomb, Partridge."

I pressed my lips together. "Don't do this, William."

"Don't tell me what to do," he said.

"That bomb is set to blow in about five minutes," I explained, adding up the numbers in my mind, "my stalling took away your chance to escape, so if I don't stop that explosion, you'll die too."

He shook his head. "I don't care."

"I don't believe you."

"I said I don't care!"

And suddenly there was a gunshot.

I thought he pulled the trigger. I thought he'd finally gone mad and killed me off, but I had been mistaken. That gunshot didn't come from him, it came from somewhere else. Letting out a piercing scream, William grabbed his arm in pain, dropping the pistol to the ground as he fell to his knees. He had been shot in the arm.

All of us turned out heads to the doorway, where a figure silhouetted in the shadows slowly stepped into the light. There was a pistol in her hands, and blood on her face, but she was there, and she was real.

"Ash?" I whispered.

I felt like I was seeing a ghost. I watched her die. I held her in my arms as she closed her eyes, and I saw the dagger plunged into her back. This wasn't possible, it couldn't be. Had I gone crazy?

"No, no, this isn't right," William spat out, writhing on the ground, "you should be dead."

Ash narrowed her eyes, the pistol still raised. "It's going to take a lot more than a dagger to kill me, Miller."

I didn't know how to feel. How was she alive? I was trying to add it all together in my mind, but the math wasn't making sense—at least not until I remembered what she said.

Trust me.

She faked her death.

She asked me to trust her, because she was really trying to tell me she had a plan. She had to make them believe she was dead, even myself. By the way she slowly limped over across the room, I could tell she didn't fake the injury. She still was dying, but she wasn't dead yet.

Without hesitation, I began to walk towards her, but she shook her head.

"Bomb first," she said, "explanation later."

Nodding my head, I rushed towards the drawer, tugging it back open and peering over the device. Tick, tick—I shut it off before it could make another noise. A breath of relief seemed to flush over everyone in the room, but I felt only longing grow. I needed an explanation for why she let me believe she was dead. I cried for her, and she just closed her eyes and pretended like my broken heart was only a shard of glass.

So as the tacticals swarmed around William, I stood in my place, staring at the girl across the room from me.

"You're alive," I breathed out.

She nodded her head, her lips twisting painfully as she winced at something.

"Still have a knife in my back," she said.

"Oh, Hell."

"Yep."

"Come here," I said, holding out my hands. I quickly crossed the room, sweeping her up into my arms, and beginning to rush her out of the room. "We're getting you to a hospital."

She gave me a look of disbelief. "Don't you want the explanation?"

It felt unreal to know she was still living, but I wouldn't trade that for the world. A miracle, I suppose. Or maybe just one of her tricks. It didn't matter anymore, I could wait for whatever truth she had left to share.

"I'll hear it later," I said, "just don't die on me, Ash."

She smiled. "Wouldn't dream of it."

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three more chapters! Surprise contest info at the end ;) 

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