Chapter 20 - THE LAST PRAYER
The temple was burning again when I arrived.
Not the whole building.
Just the south crypt.
Exactly where Ward wanted us.
Eli stood at the entrance with blood on his sleeve.
“Where’s Noah?”
“With Pike. Ambulance is coming.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes for half a second.
Then we went in.
Ward stood beneath the shattered frame where the stained-glass panel had once been.
A laptop sat on the altar.
Flames crawled along old wooden beams behind her.
“You transferred the evidence,” she said.
“Yes.”
“To prosecutors?”
“And reporters. And victim-protection teams.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Messy.”
“Truth usually is.”
She looked at Eli.
“You taught her that?”
“No,” he said. “Her family taught me.”
Ward smiled sadly.
“I gave you a life.”
“You gave me orders.”
“I gave you purpose.”
“You gave me guilt.”
“And yet you kept coming back.”
Eli stepped forward.
“Not tonight.”
Ward touched the laptop.
A final command appeared.
STRUCTURAL PURGE — SOUTH FOUNDATION.
I felt cold.
“You rigged the temple again.”
Ward nodded.
“If I can’t keep the archive, no one keeps the building.”
“People are outside.”
“Then you should hurry.”
A timer started.
02:00.
Eli moved toward her.
Ward raised her gun.
I moved the other way.
She tracked me.
“Stop.”
I kept going.
One minute forty.
“Maya.”
“You know what your problem is?” I said.
Ward laughed.
“Please enlighten me.”
“You think everybody has a price.”
“Everybody does.”
“No. Everybody has a fear.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“And yours is losing control.”
I grabbed a loose stained-glass shard from the floor and threw it at the laptop.
Ward fired.
The bullet missed me by inches.
The glass shard smashed the screen.
Eli hit Ward from the side.
The gun skidded across the floor.
I dove for the laptop.
The screen was cracked but alive.
01:03.
I ripped out the black physical key from my locket and jammed it into the emergency slot.
A new command appeared.
VOICE OVERRIDE.
I said the phrase.
Denied.
Again.
Denied.
Ward laughed while fighting Eli.
“Wrong phrase!”
Thirty seconds.
My memory flashed.
Dad under the temple.
His hand on my shoulder.
“If the stars go dark, say the thing I taught you.”
I had remembered only half.
I closed my eyes.
His voice came back.
“Mercy without truth is control. Truth without mercy is cruelty.”
I opened my eyes.
“Mercy without truth is control. Truth without mercy is cruelty.”
The timer stopped at six seconds.
Silence.
Ward froze.
Eli held her against the stone floor until police rushed in.
This time, the cops were with Agent Pike.
This time, Sloane wasn’t leading them.
This time, Ward left in handcuffs.
Three weeks later, Noah woke up in the hospital.
I didn’t forgive him.
Not yet.
But I sat beside him.
Mom started real treatment with doctors outside Mercy’s network.
Tessa moved in with her sister and sent me pictures of every meal like proof she was still there.
Eli disappeared for twelve days.
Then I found him on the temple steps one morning.
The shattered south window had been covered with plain glass.
No saints.
No symbols.
Just sunlight.
He stood when he saw me.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“I wasn’t sure either.”
He looked at my locket.
“No key?”
“I threw it into the river.”
“Good.”
I sat beside him.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then I asked, “Why were your hands shaking that day?”
He looked at me.
“Because Noah’s message said I had one chance.”
“To save me?”
“Yes.”
“And if you failed?”
His phone buzzed.
He checked it.
His face changed.
Not fear.
Recognition.
The same expression I had seen after the glass fell.
He turned the screen toward me.
A photograph showed Mom leaving her new clinic ten minutes earlier.
Taken from across the street.
Under it was one sentence.
YOU EXPOSED THE CIRCLE. YOU NEVER FOUND THE CENTER.
Then a second message appeared.
TOMORROW. 9:00 A.M. COME ALONE, ASSET 47.
I looked at Eli.
He looked at me.
Behind us, the temple bell began to ring.
May you like
And this time, we both knew it was a warning.
--- If you enjoyed the story, bookmark my site: https://vibe.treeiq.biz New stories are posted daily, so check back for updates.
