The Safe Zone - Ascension (Book 5)

Chapter 11: Ethan's Sacrifice Revisited

The rain poured down in heavy sheets, drumming against the rooftops of the makeshift camp, soaking through the threadbare tarps we had strung up for cover. The wind howled through the trees like a mournful wail, the sound that seeped into your bones and made everything feel colder. I stood in the center, watching as the camp descended into quiet chaos.

Elias's betrayal had shaken us to our core. In a matter of hours, everything had changed. The tight-knit group I had fought alongside for years was unraveling, fraying at the seams. I could see it in how people avoided each other's eyes, in the whispered conversations that stopped as soon as I walked by. Trust had been shattered, and I didn't know how to fix it.

Not yet, anyway.

Carter and Marian were inside the command tent, strategizing, trying to figure out our next move. The Ascendants were coming, and now they had the advantage. We had managed to contain Elias before he could escape, but the damage was done. He had given them everything.

I tightened my grip on the edge of the tarp above me, my knuckles white as the cold rain splashed against my boots. Every part of me ached with exhaustion—physical, emotional, mental. But I couldn't rest. I couldn't stop.

Ethan's voice echoes in my head. I had to keep moving for him. For the promise I had made to him.

My thoughts drifted, unbidden, back to those last moments with him—the moment he had sacrificed himself to stop the Directive's signal. The pain of his loss hit me like a fresh wound, raw and bleeding, no matter how much time passed. I had always known the cost of what we were fighting for, but losing Ethan had changed me in ways I was still learning to understand.

It wasn't just his death; it was his presence. His sacrifice had never indeed left me. And now, his consciousness—what was left of it—was still out there, somewhere in the network, flickering like a distant star I couldn't reach. Sometimes, I felt him, like a phantom brush against my mind. It was faint and fragmented, but it was him.

And now I was about to lose him all over again.

Marian had been monitoring Ethan's signal for weeks, and it had only grown stronger. More coherent. He was reaching out, trying to warn and tell me what was coming. *Phase Four*. A self-initiating program was designed to finish what the directive had started, to control not just minds but humanity's essence.

But Ethan had a plan, a way to stop it—just like he had stopped the Directive before. The problem was that his plan came with a price. A price I wasn't sure I could bear to pay.

Ethan had become part of the network. Whatever he was now, it wasn't entirely human anymore. He had integrated with the system, a living consciousness inside the very thing we were trying to destroy. And to stop Phase Four, he was willing to merge entirely with the Directive's core.

The thought twisted in my chest, a raw and painful knot of fear and grief. If he did this, if he merged with the core, I would lose him. Not just physically but everything that remained of him. There would be no more echoes or fragments of him reaching out. He would be gone.

Completely.

"Lena."

Carter's voice snapped me out of my thoughts. He stood just inside the tent, his brow furrowed with concern, his hand resting on the hilt of his weapon as if he were ready for anything. He always looked like that now—ready for war, even when he was talking to me. "You should come inside. It's freezing out here."

I shook my head. "I need a minute."

He hesitated, clearly wanting to press me, but instead, he nodded and disappeared into the tent. I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding, staring at the rain-soaked landscape. My mind raced, looping back to Ethan's plan, to the impossible choice he had left me with.