"Pull the trigger."
Nathaniel didn't flinch.
Didn't beg.
Didn't breathe.
He just stared at the woman he once kissed under a rain of bullets—the woman now aiming a silencer-fitted pistol at his heart.
Celia's hands didn't shake.
Her voice didn't crack.
But her eyes flickered—like a war was happening behind them.
"You don't remember," Nathaniel said softly. "Not really."
She tilted her head. "Oh, I do."
Then her lip curled.
"I remember the fire. I remember you running. I remember screaming your name while the ceiling caved in and your shadow disappeared."
The boy, now bleeding out beside them, laughed weakly.
"She was always your sin, Nathaniel. Mine to resurrect."
Nathaniel stepped forward, slow and steady.
"Celia. If I could go back—"
"You can't."
Her finger twitched on the trigger.
But something cracked.
Not the gun.
Her voice.
"I waited for you."
The tears came—silent. Shaking. Furious.
"I crawled out of that building with my ribs broken and my face torn open. I screamed for help. I screamed for you. And all I saw were the flames."
He stepped closer.
One step.
Two.
The gun dropped slightly.
"I searched," he whispered.
"You didn't find me," she snapped.
"Because they buried you. They told me your body was ashes. I held your ring."
"You left me for dead."
A pause.
Then Nathaniel said something he never had before.
"I loved you."
Celia blinked. Like the words hit her harder than a bullet.
That's when Alfreda moved.
Still tied. Still bloodied. But alive.
She slammed her body into Celia's side.
The gun fired—
BOOM—into the sky.
The two women crashed to the ground, rolling through ash and blood.
Nathaniel lunged, disarming Celia just as she kicked Alfreda in the ribs.
"Stop!" he shouted.
Celia froze beneath him, pinned. Her eyes were wide, wild.
"I didn't die," she whispered. "I became."
Then she said something worse.
"I'm not the only one."
—
Elsewhere…
In a cold chamber deep beneath the Widowmaker archives, Celeste stared at the monitors. Her mother stood behind her, arms crossed.
They watched it all: the fight. The fire. Celia's breakdown.
"She's not stable," Celeste muttered.
"No," her mother replied. "But she doesn't have to be. She just has to destroy them."
Celeste looked up.
"You sent her into that blaze knowing she'd survive."
Her mother sipped wine. "Some flames purify. Others forge weapons."
"And Nathaniel?"
"He's already dead."
Celeste's hands curled into fists. "You said we'd take the Vault together."
"I said we'd own it. Not share it."
Then, with deadly calm, her mother whispered:
"You're next, Celeste."
—
Back in the burning alley—
Alfreda stood, blood streaking her cheek.
"Is she yours?" she hissed.
Nathaniel didn't answer. Couldn't.
Celia sat now, knees to chest, giggling quietly. It was the sound of trauma… and victory.
"She'll come for you both," Celia muttered. "When I'm done, you'll beg to burn."
Nathaniel turned to Alfreda.
"She needs help."
"She needs a bullet."
"I'm not doing that."
Alfreda scoffed. "Of course you're not. You never finish anything."
Ouch.
But true.
Still, Alfreda stepped beside him. Hand on her sidearm.
"What now?"
Nathaniel looked at Celia. "Now… we find out who brought her back."
—
Later that night, in a safehouse cloaked in fog—
Celia was locked in a high-tech cell—clear glass, soundproof, laced with sleeping gas.
She sat on the floor, humming a lullaby Nathaniel hadn't heard since they were teens.
Alfreda watched from the other side.
"She's not going to hold long."
"She's stronger than before," Nathaniel said. "But she's fractured."
"She's a grenade with a timer."
He nodded. "And we're all in the blast radius."
Alfreda turned to him, voice low.
"I saw something in the Vault."
Nathaniel tensed. "What?"
"A name. On a contract. A payment."
She faced him fully now.
"It was your signature."
"What are you talking about?"
"Ten years ago. A deal. With the Widowmakers. A body for a vault key."
Nathaniel stepped back. "No. I never—"
"You sold someone to get the Vault," she hissed. "And I think it was her."
His stomach dropped.
No.
Impossible.
But her eyes said she wasn't lying.
And somewhere deep inside, guilt clawed like a beast.
He turned to the cell.
Celia was staring right at him now.
Smiling.
Like she knew exactly what came next.