Chapter 104: Drift - Line
Early Morning, The New Apartment
They moved before dawn.
Selene woke Aria with a hand on her shoulder and a soft, "We have to go." No fire, no panic — just the quiet urgency that always followed a shift in the air. Aria had learned not to question it.
The safehouse had been quiet for too long. Quiet, in Selene's world, never lasted. It was the pause before a break, the breath before the collapse. Patterns were death. And Selene never let herself be predictable.
Aria dressed without a word, her body stiff from sleep and bruises, and followed her through the half - lit streets. They didn't talk. They didn't need to. The rhythm of their steps was communication enough.
By the time the city began to stir, they were already gone.
The apartment was further east, near the old Mid - Rise District — once a bustling line of cafes and bookshops, now a corridor of silence and shuttered doors. The building had no name, only a number carved into stone over the entrance: 14B. Another forgotten place in a city slowly rotting beneath its own secrets.
Selene had scoped it weeks ago. Clean, dry, quiet. Most importantly — off - grid.
She unlocked the door with a key she hadn't told Aria about. One of many, gathered in years most people had forgotten how to measure. The lock gave with a soft click, and the door creaked open into dust-streaked light.
Aria stepped inside slowly, eyes adjusting to the dim. The apartment smelled like cedar and old paper. The windows were intact. The floor was real wood. A hairline crack spidered across one wall like a map of veins — quiet, unthreatening. Lived - in, not haunted.
"Better," Aria said under her breath.
Selene dropped her pack by the wall and exhaled. "For now."
They moved through the space in silence — Aria checking windows, Selene scanning outlets and door frames. They worked like old soldiers, each familiar with the dance. But beneath the movement, something hung heavy and unsaid.
Selene felt it pressing into her ribs.
Not fear. Not the threat of pursuit. It was Aria — her presence, her breathing, the sound of her voice still echoing faintly from the safehouse the night before. You matter to me. Words Selene hadn't known how to hold, even now. Even here.
She turned to watch Aria move, catching the curve of her shoulder as she winced from the bandage, the way she bit the inside of her cheek when she was thinking. Alive. Fierce.
Not broken. Not anymore.
Selene's chest ached with the weight of memory. She remembered how Aria had died — not in some clinical, abstract way, but died. On her knees, choking on blood and still trying to protect the others. Selene had screamed until her voice broke. She'd crawled through ash and ruin to reach her.
And then Aria was gone.
Two years passed. And then the bloom came.
Selene had been pulled from the dead first — reborn into a body that remembered everything. The war. The loss. Aria's final breath. And the promise Selene had made, even with no one left to hear it: I'll find you again.
She had.
But this Aria didn't know. Not yet. Selene had watched her wake into the world again, vibrant and whole and unscarred by the knowledge of what came before. No memory of Nova or Lys, of Elara's laughter, of Iris's final scream. No memory of the collapse. Just dreams, maybe. Echoes.
Selene had decided, then, what she would do.
She would protect Aria again.
But this time, not just from bullets or blades. From truth.
Because the truth was cruel. The truth was a stain that never washed out. And Aria — this version of her — deserved to grow without the weight of what she'd lost.
She didn't need to know she had already died.
Not yet.
Aria stood by the window now, watching the street below. A slice of orange light cut across her face. She looked calmer here. Less on edge. There was something in her posture Selene hadn't seen in a long time.
Hope.
Selene busied herself in the kitchen, where an old percolator still worked. She moved with a quiet efficiency, her back to Aria, pretending her heart wasn't beating too fast. She could still feel the phantom imprint of Aria's fingers from last night, that moment at the safehouse when their hands had touched.
It hadn't meant to happen.
But it had.
And Selene had felt something fracture under the surface. Something dangerous and impossible.
She poured the coffee. Brought it over. Sat beside Aria without asking.
They drank in silence for a few minutes.
Then Aria said, "You're being quiet again."
Selene arched a brow. "I'm always quiet."
"No," Aria said. "You're thinking about something you don't want to say."
Selene didn't answer. She sipped her coffee. Her hand was steady. Her pulse wasn't.
Aria studied her carefully. "You ever wonder what really started all this?"
Selene didn't look up. "Define 'this.'"
"The outbreak. The collapse. The lies."
Selene's jaw tensed. "All the time."
"And?"
"I think the government covered it up until it was too late," she said, voice even. "I think this city is ground zero and no one talks about it. I think every step we take here is a step in a graveyard."
Aria was quiet a moment. "Then why are we still here?"
That was the question, wasn't it?
Selene's answer came slow. "Because you need to be here."
Aria blinked. "Me?"
"You don't remember this city like I do," Selene said. "You don't see the faultlines. You see the bones, but not the wounds. You need to understand what kind of world you're walking into before we leave it behind."
Aria's brow furrowed. "And you're staying here… for me?"
Selene turned to her then, fully, and for once didn't deflect.
"Yes."
It was bare. Honest. And Aria didn't know what to do with it.
"You're not who I thought you were," she whispered.
"I'm not who I was," Selene said, more to herself than anyone else.
Later, Aria showered and changed into one of Selene's extra shirts, loose and soft with wear. Selene busied herself with the windows, checking each latch. It wasn't necessary. Not really. But movement kept her from thinking too much.
Aria stepped into the room and paused, barefoot, silent.
"I think I remember something," she said.
Selene froze. Her spine went rigid.
"What kind of something?"
Aria hesitated. "A field. A tree with ribbons. A name — Lys. I don't know if it was a dream."
Selene's heart cracked.
It wasn't a dream.
It was the last place they'd been before the fall.
A spring evening. Aria laughing, Lys chasing butterflies. Elara playing a broken guitar. Iris napping in the sun. Selene had stood beside them and thought — just for a moment — that maybe the world could still be kind.
Then everything burned.
Selene's voice came quiet. "You must've read it somewhere."
Aria looked at her. "You're a bad liar."
Selene didn't deny it. She couldn't.
But she didn't tell the truth either.
She couldn't. Not yet.
Instead, she crossed the room and reached out — touched Aria's cheek, brushed a damp strand of hair away. Her fingers trembled slightly.
"You'll understand soon," she said, almost to herself.
"Understand what?"
Selene's smile was sad and small. "What you mean to me."
Aria didn't pull away.
And for a long moment, they just stood there — together in a room that wasn't yet a home, in a city already dead, on the edge of something neither could name.
Selene wanted to kiss her. God, she wanted to. But she didn't.
Because her love had once been a battlefield. And now, she just wanted Aria to have peace.
Aria leaned into her touch slightly, just enough to undo Selene's restraint.
A breath caught. A moment tilted.
Selene kissed her — not with fire or hunger, but with a gentleness she hadn't known she still possessed. Aria didn't flinch or resist. She accepted it with the quiet kind of grace that broke Selene more than rejection ever could.
And it meant something. Selene didn't know what. But it did.
When the kiss ended, Aria's eyes fluttered open. Her voice came low.
"I've felt this before."
Selene nodded once, barely. "I know."
No more lies, not tonight. Just this. Just here.
Selene would wait. Until Aria was strong enough. Until the others found them. Until the bloom called again. But for now, she would keep this moment safe. Even if it killed her. Even if it meant lying a little longer.
Because Aria was her beginning. Her only truth. And Selene had already decided.
She'd sacrifice the world for her. Again. And again. And again.
And if this version of Aria chose her back — if by some miracle she remembered what they were — then maybe, just maybe, Selene could learn how to live again, too.