Nate cursed Aiden all the way as he drove to the small house that Ella had been sent to. He sighed as he wondered how he was supposed to say all that to her. Because if she really believed him and turned against Aiden, then he might really be the one to try and shake so sense into her.
Unexpectedly, he found her sitting under a tree in the yard right outside her house and paused. The light breeze played with strands of her hair as she stared at the sky, her arms wrapped loosely around her knees. She looked so small, so heartbreakingly quiet, it took him a second to rember that this girl had once been the sun in every room she entered. The outgoing one with always a smile on her face. He felt pained. There were tis he’d find her cheeriness irritating but now, he realized he woud do anything to bring the old Ella back.
"Hey. Ella Hawk. Mind so company?"
Ella looked over her shoulder and blinked once, startled, before a soft, almost sheepish smile touched her lips. "Only if you brought chocolate."
"Damn," Nate said, lowering himself onto the bench beside her. "I knew I forgot sothing."
She chuckled quietly, but it faded quickly, and her eyes returned to the wind-touched branches overhead. Nate studied her profile. She’d already lost a lot of weight but now she seed to have beco even more pale.
Ella shrugged, but her answer ca after a pause. "I’m... trying not to disappear into the part of my mind that thinks I deserve all of this." She looked at him, and sighed, "Is that too honest for you?"
Nate nodded. "Too honest, you’re right. Makes my job harder."
Her brow creased. "What job?"
He hesitated, then took a breath. "To get you out of here. Quietly. No questions asked. I have a car that will be waiting for you here within the hour. A flight by midnight. New identity if needed. Dale Brown can scream himself hoarse and I’ll still make sure you’re safe."
Ella blinked at him, and for a mont she looked like her old self again — overwheld, confused, and not quite sure she was hearing correctly. "You... what?"
Nate let out a breath and said," I know Dale Brown approached you for a dangerouns mission. I heard Aiden talk about it. In fact, he is the one who volunteered your na. But whatever this plan is, it is too dangerous to you Ella. So, you don’t have to do this."
"I’ll handle everything. Just say the word.If you want out then I’ll make it happen. No missions, no impossible plans, no den of wolves. Just a clean break. You can start fresh. Sowhere warm. Sowhere you can actually breathe again without feeling any burden."
She didn’t speak. Instead, she stared at him with wide eyes before her face crumpled and she launched forward, wrapping her arms around him with sudden desperation. Her body trembled as she buried her face against his shoulder and cried — not loudly, but with a kind of quiet grief that ripped into Nate’s chest and stayed there.
"At least you still love ," she whispered hoarsely. "God, Nate. Thank you... I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear that."
He held her tighter, closing his eyes as he rested his chin on her hair. "Of course I love you. You’re my family." And even as he said that, he felt a panic rising in his chest. If Ella accepted this offer, then he could arrange everything of course. But he knew that if she chose this path, she would lose the last chance to being a little sister to Aiden again. So, he wondered what he was supposed to do in this situation.
Thankfully, before he could reach so solution, Serena spoke up.
"But..." She pulled back slightly, enough to et his eyes with her own tear-filled ones. "I’m not leaving."
Nate blinked. "What?"
She gave a wobbly smile through her tears, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve. "You ant every word. And I thank you for it. If you’d asked this in the past, I might’ve run." Her breath hitched. "But I can’t. Not anymore."
Nate’s brows knit together. "Ella, don’t do this because you think you owe soone —"
"I do owe soone," she cut in softly. "So many people. You. Aiden. Serena... and myself." She sat back, wrapping her arms around herself tightly as if bracing against sothing cold only she could feel. "I kept thinking this whole ti that I was just the stupid one. The soft one. The one who needed protecting. And maybe I was. But it wasn’t just that."
Her voice grew steadier as she went on, words now finding their own rhythm.
"I let people use because it was easier than questioning them. I let myself believe lies because the truth felt too heavy. I told myself my heart was my compass, but all it did was spin." Her lip trembled slightly, but she forced a breath through her nose and steadied herself. "And every ti I made a mistake, soone else paid for it."
She looked back at him again as she moved away, this ti not crying - just... resolved.
"I’m not going to keep running from that," she said. "If this mission ans putting myself in danger so that so other wide-eyed girl doesn’t make the sa choices I did... then maybe it’s worth it. Maybe I’m worth more than my mistakes if I use them to fix sothing."
Nate stared at her, struck silent. He’d expected fear, desperation. Maybe even relief at the chance to escape. But not this.
Not this fla in her eyes.
He let out a slow, disbelieving laugh, shaking his head as he leaned back against the bench. "Damn it, Ella. You’re turning into Aiden."
She grinned. "Well, soone has to."
"So, you don’t bla him for siccing Dale Brown on you?"
Ella looked away at that and shook her head," No. I don’t."
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