Sacred Flame: His Enemy, His Mate (BL)-Chapter 84: Deserter

Kain Locke

"He wasn’t supposed to be back today," Bella muttered, blinking like that would somehow change what we’d just heard. Her skin was already turning paper white. "This is not good," she whispered. "It’s too early. He only comes back early when... when he suspects something."

The words sent a jolt through me.

That must’ve triggered something in her mind too because her eyes suddenly darted to me, wide with panic.

Whatever, I have to get back to the base first then I’ll come back to her when this all went down and that man was out.

So I turned to the door,

"Kain... I need to tell you something else."

There’s still more she’s hiding?

My fingers were curling around the door handle, every instinct screaming to move, to get out of this place before that devil spotted either of us missing from assembly. Maybe me, after all he wouldn’t hurt her would he?

But her voice trembled behind me, stopping me from taking another step.

"When I said I was working for him .. the truth is, I wasn’t just working for him," she said, her words rushed, tangled with guilt. "I... got tired of it all. The spying. The control and doing things that I knew would hurt the people around me. I want to be free, I just want that freedom so bad that I don’t mind whichever way it came from .. so I thought—maybe I could sabotage him. Just a little. Just enough to slow him down... and maybe buy my freedom if I have something to blackmail him with."

" So?" I turned halfway toward her with my brows furrowed. "What does that have to do with what’s happening now? Or with me?"

Her eyes flickered to the door, like someone would be busting in, or kicking the door open in the gery next second.

"I know you must hate me now. I deserve every last drop of it," she said quickly, "You have every reason to. And I know you want to get back to the base because if Caspian sees we’re not at the assembly, he won’t let us off easy. But now it’s different because the moment I walk into that courtyard, his bullet will be going straight into my head." She concluded in a trembling voice.

I shouldn’t wait to listen to her, I mean whatever it was should be between them, all I had to do is to get to the assembly on time, but eith the way she was trembling, the way she looked as though something was on her life made me want to sosre her a few more seconds.

Maybe it was because she wasn’t wrong. Besides, the first time I saw that man, drenched in my parents’ blood, I had thought the red on his coat was ketchup. I was only a kid then so I thought the tattoo around his neck was something cool, like a cartoon design.

And I didn’t know the truth until a few years later.

But there was nothing I could do.

You might ask why people stayed. Why didn’t they just run? Why did they keep following a monster like him? 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Simple.

No one who ran ever lived long enough to tell the story.

I knew that before I escaped.

I knew that before I returned.

And yet, here I was, back in the belly of the very beast I ran away from.

Six months. That’s what Kael told me before he brought me back here. Just six months, and I’ll be free. Because I’m just so tired of this all.

But what kind of battle was he preparing for?

What battle did he bring me here for? And how would I be able to help him with whatever it is he wants my help with, when the one with myself is unsolved?

And if somehow the six months meets me here alive, would I ever really be free?

I was still lost in thought when Bella announced suddenly.

"He came here because... I stole something,"

That made my heart skip a loud beat.

"You what?"

She looked at me like the words had burned her throat a great deal before coming out.

"I fucking stole something from him," she frighteningly mumble incoherently "That’s why he’s is here."

"What did you steal?" I couldn’t help asking.

Bella’s lips pressed into a tight line. She hesitated, long enough to piss me off, but I could see her fear wasn’t for me. So I pressed the desire to lashed out at her down my stomach.

She gulped... Her hand was trembling by her side as she looked at me again, "A document that contains files, a government like one." she said, barely above a whisper. "I only saw a bit, but... it had names, maybe some kind of company, maybe a large group. I couldn’t smuggle it out when I was in his home."

My eyes narrowed. "When the hell were you in his home?"

Bella’s lips pressed tight. "Last night."

That stopped me. Something cold slithered down my spine.

She looked up at me. Her eyes were wide with something close to fear, guilt, maybe both. "...Kain."

"Don’t you call me..." i trailed off everything in me is still. My breathing, my heartbeat. Even the anger buzzing in my chest quieted for just a second.

"Where is it?" I asked tightly in a low voice, still having a hard time wrapping my head around the whole drama.

She hesitated for a heartbeat too long. Before she started to explain... "I was scared. I knew the base might get searched. I panicked, okay? So I... I planted it in that very estate of his. The southern one. His main house. Behind the locked cellar. I swear—no one’s been there in weeks. He never goes there unless—"

"You’re insane," I muttered angrily, due to being pissed by the fact that despite knowing the implications, she still went ahead and stole something as outrageous as that! "You should’ve never touched it in the first place!" I snapped, turning to leave, whatever the issue is, and what the implications and the outcome of it was going to be should be on her.

However, she hurriedly grabbed my wrist before I could move. "Wait—Kain, please ... listen to me. You have to..."

I glared at her, yanking my hand back. "Why the hell would I stay? Or even help you now? After everything?"

"Because..." her voice cracked. "It contains something about you, too."

My stomach clenched immediately and I pulled back the strength I was using to separate myself from her.

"What?"

"It contains something about you too. Although I didn’t see the whole thing clearly," she said quickly. "But I swear your photo was in there. I know what I saw—it was on the top corner of a document. A red-stamped file. I think... I think it had something to do with you."

"What kind of file? What else do you find?" I asked impatiently.

"It’s in a document," she said, voice barely audible. "It looked old. Not base-made. The name on it... " She stopped talking.

"Say it," I demanded, already running out of patient.

But before she could answer, another voice crackled from the same speaker above us.

"All personnel not present at the courtyard in two minutes will be considered deserters. I repeat two minutes."

Bella flinched while I stood frozen for half a second, every nerve in my body screaming a different command.

Being a deserter was no different from running away from the base which would mean death for a deserter.

I don’t want to be a deserter... At least not now..

"I don’t want to die.." Bella looked at me, breathing unevenly. She looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks, and I could tell it wasn’t just the guilt eating at her.

"Please help me.. please, I... " She was scared. Really scared...

For him to come for something like that... Then the document must not have been anything trivial..

Whatever that document contains must’ve been more important than she thought. Who knows? It might even be an answer or that one thing that is going to save us all and maybe get me and the rest like me out of here?

"Let’s go get it," I said finally, heaving a deep breath afterwards.

Bella blinked like she didn’t believe it. "You mean it?"

I nodded once, "the document was kept in his home right? And since he’s right here in the base, so isn’t now the best moment for retrieving it?