"Special Forces of Arrest, don't panic, ladies and gentlemen. We're here to arrest two criminals who have violated the Decree 123-51316. Don't move and everything will be kept under control."

...

They should run. He should rush to protect Anastasia. But where to? How to? There is no escape. The whole square is already surrounded. No one ever escapes.

"Cooper Herrera and Millie Garner, you're under arrest. Show up without a fight."

Nate lets out the breath he's been holding for the longest seconds of his life as the relief washes over him like a tsunami, pulling his body out of its numb state. He can't say that it's joy with what is happening just beside; it's just pure relief to be breathing as his angel is still protected from those dark clouds. Though is she really? 

The darkness is already invading her eyes, and he can do nothing to protect her as he reluctantly follows the direction of her frozen gaze.

Anastasia is paralyzed, yes, but not frozen anymore because the fright that has turned her blood into ice at the sudden invasion has fused under a thick smoke the second she has heard those names.

She has been expecting Nathaniel and her's names, and she knows he has too. Through their gazes, they have shared the freezing emotions, like they have been sharing lightness and grins a few seconds before. Just a few seconds, a few words, and these brightest smiles can be ripped away in the most torturous way; Nathaniel can be ripped away from her.

All the times they have been close to getting caught cannot compare to the terror that has stricken her at the words 'arrest two criminals who have violated the Decree 123-51316'. The panic rushing in tremors, the fears stabbing her insides, and the dreadful scenarios of hell, it is beyond that. She has felt all the love she has for Nathaniel more intensely than ever in every cell of her body and the excruciating pain of him getting torn away from her. 

'Two criminals who have violated the Decree 123-51316', it is them. It could have been them. 'Hell' has never appeared so close. It still is, and that's why she is paralyzed under something that resembles a pyroclastic flow: rushing like fire, yet freezing her like rock.

"No, please!!" The screams and cries are echoing around, and Anastasia can't even tell if the music has stopped or not; she can't hear her own heartbeat.

All her attention, like everyone else's, is on the soldiers whose uniforms are different: a dark shade of green mixing with the usual gray, with helmets and protections as if they were dealing with dangerous armed criminals. But they are just arresting two young people whose only weapon is their hearts, a man and a woman like anyone.

Though the man and the woman are barely a man and a woman to start with. They look hardly 18, maybe 20, but not older, and they seem so innocent.

They are not even fighting. They are pleading and trembling while several men are taking them away, and they don't even know where they are going: hell. Anastasia has never been there, yet she feels it invading her, burning away every bit of hope inside. It is wrapping around every part of her body to suffocate her, and she is panting heavily as if she was the one battling those armed men, when she is in fact still frozen to the spot. Everyone around is, although she doubts everyone is overwhelmed with powerlessness, guilt, and anguish.

It is surreal how no one is protesting. Where are the supposedly 'reckless' rebels right now? Everyone is following the orders, staying calm, or at least, faking it. However, just as these thoughts cross Anastasia's stunned mind, some commotion is heard, and this is probably the worst scene she has witnessed so far.

A frail woman is pouncing on the soldiers, trying to reach the young 'criminal', and the strength she is displaying is impressive in front of the strong men who are shoving her away mercilessly.

Anastasia can't see much with all the people gathering to watch the scene as if it was another demonstration, but she understands from where her strength comes from when she hears the cries 'Mom!' and 'No, please! My baby! Don't take him!'. The latter and its heart-wrenching echo – and it is exactly this: the mom's heart being ripped away with her son – is the final straw for Anastasia, or maybe it is the quieter and broken plea from the young woman: 'It was just once'.

Whatever it is, Anastasia is pulled out of her daze. She still isn't totally conscious, her members still shaky, yet she is driven by something lighting up inside her guts. There is no freezing dread remaining inside her veins, it is engulfed by a fire stronger than ever.

She tries to get closer to the scene, but there are too many people around, and mostly, there are too many soldiers. So guided by the furious beats of her heart resonating in her throat, in her ears, in the palm of her hands, and through all her trembling body, she grabs a torch hung on the edge of a small side stage, and she sneaks to a narrow alley in a corner of the large square while no one is watching.

No one except Nate, who notices immediately, as his attention is always on Anastasia. He's on his feet as fast, guided too by the pace of his heart rate, even though it isn't the same motive behind the strong hammering.

The second thing he's been dreading the most is happening. He's known this would come one day or another, no matter how much he's tried to convince himself he could postpone it. Yet he hasn't expected it would all take place the same day in a matter of second, and in this order. His body is still numb with the first shot of terror, and he has to react fast through this second painful rush of adrenaline. 

He can't let Anastasia's fire lead her back to what they've just avoided, and he fears it's exactly where she's heading with every turn he takes through the narrow streets before he finally finds her near the end of the second alley.

Her back is facing him, but he can already picture her determined frown set on the other side of the abandoned courtyard, beyond the wire fence: on the back of the military trucks which have arrived in the square.

"What are you doing here?"

She jumps at the breathless sound of his voice echoing around the narrow alley, and when she turns around, the burning look in her eyes is enough to shake him fully out of his numbed state. It isn't the reflection of the flame she is holding; it's another fire dancing in her eyes. The spark he's discovered since the first times he's talked to her has caught light, the shock of it all and the arrest coming like fuel to the flames.

She isn't used to this violence and to the dark shadows of 'hell'. She is an angel. It's probably the first time she witnesses an arrest, as generally, the armed forces avoid crowded arrests. Yet today, they don't seem to mind, and they've made it bigger than usual, with more soldiers than necessary, surely because the leaders are there, and it's the best way to stifle a possible rebellion, at least, for most people.

"I need to save them." Her frown is as pronounced as he's imagined, yet her voice sounds more fragile. It's cracking the same way as her first words to him, 'Am I in heaven?'.

His angel. That day he has sworn to protect her; even if he hasn't done it consciously at the time, his heart has made this promise, and now, she is getting too close to hell because of him.

Ever since that day, he's only made her play with fire, a fire that she's currently holding in her hand as she's turning back to the wire fence, searching for a slit to sneak in.

Her movements are frantic and purposeful, making the fence wobble under her determination. The tornado Anastasia is on her way, and with fire in her hands.

He doesn't know what she has in mind, or more exactly he's scared to picture it as her gaze stays set on only one detail, not even looking for an answer or a protest from him, but it calls for disaster, and it's without hesitation that he walks closer to this tempest.

"And what are you planning to do? Set the prisoners' truck on fire?! It won't save them." His voice is tighter than he intends to be, probably because of the oxygen he's been lacking for some too long minutes, though it brings her attention back to him, and the look in her tempestuous eyes finishes to burn his lungs, unless it's her reply.

"No, of course! I'm not stupid." She shakes her head as if her plan hadn't come up in the last two minutes. "But I can create a diversion with the fire–"

"No!" His voice and his movements are as sharp as her fiery gaze.

"No?!" Her eyebrows shoot up, widening the ardent colors in her eyes as they travel between his own big eyes and the torch now in his hand.

"No," he repeats as determined. "It's reckless. There are too many soldiers, and even if you managed to reach there, they have security cameras all around the trucks."

"There must be a way." Her frown quickly comes back, the flickering flame highlighting the pressure tensing her delicate features as she tries to reach for the torch, but in spite of the same tension crippling his muscles, he's faster. "They don't deserve this. We have to find a way!"

"I know." He follows her gaze to the armored truck where he guesses the two young people are already locked in. He can hear their cries in the depth of his mind, even though the vehicles are soundproof.

The soldiers are probably making sure there are no other rebels or criminals in the crowd, while some are already interrogating the prisoners, deciding if they will get a trial or not. Seeing how innocent they look, they'll surely have one, although it won't change anything for their fate.

Nate can't even think about where those trucks are heading, and those two young people will be two more ghosts to haunt him with their cries. Yet as painful as it is, he's used to it. What he wouldn't survive is his angel being taken away in that truck.

"But it would only make our way there with them." His words out loud are even more frightening, resonating with an echo from hell, and it's like an electroshock for him.

With the same determination and drive that Anastasia has grabbed the torch, he throws it in a metallic tank full of rainwater, and despite the light smoke escaping, it immediately opens his ribcage for a little more oxygen.

However, it doesn't last as Anastasia gasps, "No! What have you done? Merde! C'est leur dernière chance! On doit faire quelque chose."

She starts pacing around, throwing glances at the back of the truck as if her glare would open it, and maybe it could, seeing how the intensity in her gaze is knocking Nate's breath out. He may have put out a fire, but the most dangerous is still going up.

"If we do nothing, they'll get... killed," she whispers the last word, stopping her nervous steps for a second, although Nate knows better. Her determination is unextinguishable, and he isn't surprised when she resumes her frantic steps and words. "Non, non, non. We have to do something."

"Ana!" he calls softly to not pull attention in the street and mostly because her ragged breaths and her bloody fingers gripping the wire fence are constricting his chest, even though it is nothing in comparison with what's to come if he doesn't stop her.

She is leaving him so powerless, struggling to breathe as he's watching her tormented with her fire, and his fists by his sides are of no use. The only thing he can do is throwing anxious glances around to make sure there is no one except for a few trash cans and the now-extinguished torch, and thankfully, there isn't.

The quietness in the alley is almost surreal, and it doesn't look like there is an international celebration just a few streets away, and even less that 'hell' is so close. It could mistake him that they're alone in the world; maybe it does because his hands and their mind of their own are reaching for her.

"Ana!" he repeats firmer as his hands gently grab her trembling ones to turn her to him. "Please, calm down. I don't want you to bring attention on yourself, please," he's pleading, letting her see for the first time the haunting clouds in his dark gaze, and she holds it as transparently for a second where they're closer than ever until... a blink... a flicker of her eyes to his insignias, and...

"You... With your uniform, you're a soldier, maybe you could get to the truck, and I coul–"

"No. There's nothing we can do, Ana," he cuts her off, his hands now reaching for her cheeks to pull her gaze back to his. "I'm not assigned to those jobs anymore, and they don't let any other soldier in. It's all checked, the shifts can't even be switched, and they don't even leave a soldier alone with the prisoners for one second." He sighs, pulling out buried memories to make her hear his plea, as he knows it's an argument he can't lose, and it's against the most determined lawyer. 

"Besides, even if they ever managed to escape, they're now on the 'hell' list, and they'll be chased worldwide. No one ever escapes." He tries to swallow the heaviness in vain. "If there was something I could do, I'd have done it already, trust me. People would have done it way before us. It's been going on for decades, and no one has ever managed to defy this system. They have every little detail under control. There's no way."

"So what?! We stay like that? Innocent lives are taken away because no one dares to try something?!"

"Yes, I know it's horrible. But there's no way I'll let you be the one who tries and gets sacrificed." The words are painful to let out through his clenched jaw, yet he won't back down.

"But innocent people, almost babies, that's okay?" She pulls away from his touch, throwing her hands up, and he feels the blow deep inside his guts.

The tornado Anastasia is on her way, and his tongue is twisting to find the right words through his already spinning head. "It's not– It's not what I say but–"

"Have you heard them? Their desperate cries?!"

Yes, he has, and his mind can't help but torture him with what those cries would sound like in Anastasia's sweet accent.

"It was just once. We have a hundred more reasons to be here!" She points to the same truck with another sharp gesture. "Maybe even more." 

Surely even more because as he closes his eyes, and the two months and a week they've known each other flashes before him, he can't even count how many times they've broken the law, wrecked it completely.

"You're right." He reopens his eyes, the look in them darker than ever. "Maybe we should take this as a sign."

"What-what do you mean?"

Something has switched in the air, in Nathaniel, and it echoes in the wavers of her own voice. All her movements are frozen, but inside, it's even more frantic as if all her cells were rushing to find a way to take back her words, a way back from where he is heading.

"I mean that we should stop."

No, he can't do that right now, not when she is weaker than ever, when her heart has been frozen, burned, and tortured in every direction. It won't handle being broken.

"Our 'let it be'... us."

She has been right. Her heart is shattered, and each little piece is piercing through every inch of her chest. It is worst than she has imagined, and her legs are almost giving out. She is only standing with the strength of her love to fight.

"No, no, you can't." She clenches her fists to stop the tremors of her hands and in her voice.

"We got a narrow escape today and so many times before. We should consider ourselves lucky, but it won't always be like this. It was so close today... This is a warning. We can't continue."

"Nathaniel." She sees clearly that he is avoiding her eyes, and that's why she pleads his name with all the emotions, the feelings she has. It works; it makes him flinch, a subtle start for just a second, but it will replay in her mind with every agonizing beat of her heart.

"We knew it would end sooner or later. It's better to do it before there's any damage." He finally lifts up his gaze to hers, after letting it roam everywhere around, and his tensed features are now sharpened in an emotionless mask, the mask he has never worn with her, not even on their first encounter when they have been just two strangers, the mask he puts on with everyone to be the perfect Captain Johnson.

There, in his uniform, with the epaulets accentuating his strong shoulders and the deep gray fabric darkening his powerful aura, he looks as distant as at the Honor Ceremony, at that moment where he has appeared on stage to become more than a nameless, steamy memory. All the way they have gone since then, for him to just throw it away like ashes... 

The more she stares at the cold Captain Johnson, who looks like her Nathaniel but is far from him, the more it breaks her heart into tiny pieces, and those little shards are all flying and clashing in her chest until they create a bigger fire.

"It's too late for this." Her voice is bitter like the tears gathering behind her eyes. "All your beautiful words and promises... I guess they're just empty like everything else..." She chuckles sourly, using the pain to fuel the anger rather than crashing down fully in pieces.

"I meant them. I st– But it's risking too much, it's not–"

"Not worth it? We're not worth it, right?" She lifts up her gaze defiantly to him, though it is more a desperate attempt to hear him refute those words; it's maybe even a little masochistic to seek a glimpse of emotion through his closed-off gaze.

"We're talking about matters of life and death. This is dangerous." His tone is calm and cold, too cold when she is searing in pain.

Does he really have to become the rational one when she finally lets her feelings lead her?

"You have to understand–"

"No, I will never understand. You and I are too different..." She loses her words as out of the corner of her eye, she catches sight of a detail on the other side of the courtyard that throws explosives on the flames.

Nathaniel sees it too: the military truck starting up and disappearing at the corner of the road. The sigh he breathes out is the only glimpse of emotion he lets out through his perfect, godly stance, whereas all Anastasia's emotions are starting to spring out like projectiles of a fire. Her hands are shaking uncontrollably despite her clenched fists. Her breaths are growing into a thin wheeze as if a thick smoke was invading her lungs, and maybe it is, as her skin is scorching hot.

"You... you give up without a fight. You want to be a hero, but when the time comes, you don't even stand up." Despite her blurry eyes, she notices the way his jaw tightens like taking the blows she throws at him. It's exactly what it is: harsh blows that she doesn't even think. "You give up without a fight."

It is one of her biggest lies, and not only because she is speaking it in his face. She is very well aware that he has fought constantly for them and their 'let it be', every second, yet it doesn't matter if it is to give up now.

So she repeats her low blows directed to the unflinching Captain Johnson in hopes of bringing back her Nathaniel. 

But it's a useless battle; he has been trained for this. She is only wearing herself out, while he knows how to stand like a shield of steel, and as she watches him use those tactics on her, she is consuming the rest of her broken heart, breaking out in a cold sweat. Although, as she brushes carelessly some wetness off her face, she realizes it isn't only sweat.

The tears are now spilling out of her eyes, and she can't feel for how long. She doesn't grasp time or any sensation anymore, except the blazing one inside her chest.

She never cries in front of people. Nathaniel is the only one who has ever seen her cry. But this is the last time; she vows to herself as she wipes the tears off her cheeks, even if they keep flowing, and with the same damp and shaky fingers, she grabs the precious items in her pocket.

"Here, take your key. I won't need it anymore." She holds out her hand, but he doesn't move, staying like a Greek statue: perfect but cold.

Maybe it is for the better because she wouldn't bear his burning touch, and she would surely melt at his feet. Instead, she throws the key and the keyrings linked to it there, and they both watch pieces of her heart crash with the little items. 

"And you can take back your 'je t'aime' too!" She reaches for her pendant, fighting against the pull of her whole being, the attraction, and her love for Nathaniel.

"Ana..." 

Her fingers are stopped by the call. It may be a quiet murmur, yet it resonates like an excruciating cry reaching from behind his shield.

She is left hanging, along with every piece of her broken heart, on his trembling lips and how they open slightly to then close again in a battle she can't even glimpse. However, when their gazes meet, she is sure he is about to let her pierce through his armor, his mouth finally parting to take in a shaky breath.

"Ana!"

The word is snatched from his lips, and her heart that has already been leaping is brought back in a free fall down the pit of her stomach as she recognizes the voice.

Yet it isn't the most frightening. The most gut-wrenching is the shield that falls off completely over Nathaniel's figure. She has to close her eyes in an attempt to stop the painful sobs choking her, or maybe just to not witness this scene: Nathaniel acting like what he should be, what he is from now on, a stranger. He is turning away and staring at his phone faster than the blink of her eyes.

She will never know what he has been about to say, though she has no doubt she has been about to crack through his shield. If they hadn't been interrupted, he would have opened up to her again. Her hope has already been soaring, rushing to reach him, and now, it is like crashing against a wall of steel at full speed.

She is knocked out as Fergus appears beside her. 

"What are you doing here? Are you okay, baby?" The second question following instantly the first one when he sees her face is obviously telling a lot about how she looks right now.

"No, I'm not okay." There is no point in lying when it's written all over her face in deep stains of tears. "I needed some quiet after the scene of the square."

"Aw, there's nothing to get so upset about." Fergus brushes her arms up and down, and her trembling fingers have to let go of the compass pendant, which is still hanging above her heart, when he offers her his hand.

"Nothing?! Innocent young people are being taken away while everyone is watching like... cowards." She emphasizes the last word with all the pain she has, throwing one last glance at Nathaniel as Fergus is leading her away.

She is wishing for Nathaniel to fight or just give her a tiny sign of hope, but his strong back is turned to her while he is pretending to be busy on his phone. This is the sign that she has to give up. For the first time in her life, she is giving up; she is giving up her heart.

"Baby, they're not innocent." Fergus wraps his arm around her shoulders, and despite the gesture that feels oppressive and the words even heavier, she doesn't fight. She has no strength left to fight. "They're criminals." 

The words are left to resonate around the gloomy alley as they disappear around the corner, though before, Nate turns to watch Anastasia one last time, and it's Fergus's gaze that he meets.

It's just for a second because Nate is quick to glance away in a trained reflex, yet the look in Fergus's piercing eyes is enough to give his words a sinister echo, and if Nate wasn't numb right now, he would feel the chills down his spine.

He has let his angel walk away with this man, and she's right about everything she's said through her tears.

He isn't a hero, and as soon as he's sure he's alone, he's falling to his knees, defeated. He's just lost the most devastating battle of his life, and without fighting, he's earned a wound that will never heal.

A single tear rolls down his cheek, landing on the keyrings his fingers are brushing on the ground. 

It's over. 

😭😭💔 I told you trouble was coming! Did you expect this? Did you think it would be Anastasia and Nate who would be arrested? And did you expect Nate to end their 'let it be'?

Do you agree with him? Is it really 'over'? 💔 And the last part with Fergus, what do you think? 🤔🤨😨

Let me know what you think of this heart-wrenching chapter in the comments! It was hard to write because this is much more than a break-up scene, we also glimpse a part of hell 💔 So tell me what you think, and don't forget to vote ⭐ – I won't say if you liked this chapter because it was sad, but if you can't wait to read more 😉💕

I love to see all the little notifications I get from you! They're my rays of sunshine on those gloomy days ❤😘🌞

PS: To continue the French lesson:  'Merde! C'est leur dernière chance! On doit faire quelque chose = Shit! It's their last chance! We need to do something!' and 'Non = no' 🤓