The weight of his words pressed into the silence like thunder in slow motion.
“You saved my life.”
I looked at him, really looked. Trying to merge this composed, watchful man with the half-remembered blur of that night—flames clawing at the sky, smoke thick in my lungs, a tiny hand in mine as I pulled someone through the black.
I had buried that memory so deep I’d almost convinced myself it never happened.
But he hadn’t.
Elias sat there like he was still carrying it. Every scar. Every breath. And now, so was I.
“I didn’t know,” I said finally, my voice raw.
“I never wanted you to,” he replied gently. “This wasn’t about repayment. It never was.”
I pressed the necklace to my chest, suddenly feeling the weight of years I didn’t even know I’d lived. “Why tell me now?”
He paused. “Because tonight... you opened the door.”
I nodded, swallowing the emotion building in my throat. “So what happens now? You just... stay?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “Only if you want me to.”
I hesitated but it wasn’t fear holding me back. It was the realization that for once, I didn’t want to push someone away. Not him.
“I think I do,” I whispered.
And just like that, something inside me exhaled for the first time in years.
Elias leaned back against the couch, shoulders finally relaxing, like he’d been waiting for this moment too.
But then his eyes flicked to the window. His entire body shifted. Tension returned like a silent alarm.
“What is it?” I asked, suddenly alert.
He stood up slowly, controlled, scanning the room as if it had changed in the last ten seconds.
“I saw something,” he said, voice tight. “Just for a second. Across the street.”
I moved beside him, heart picking up again. “Another firework?”
Elias shook his head. “No. Something else.”
He turned to me. “Do you still have the emergency code on your phone?”
“Yeah. Why—”
“I need you to stay inside. Lock the windows. Don’t open the door for anyone but me.”
The shift in him was instant—gentle protector replaced by trained sentinel. The man I’d just begun to trust was now a shadow moving toward the door, quiet as smoke.
“But Elias—what is it?”
He looked at me over his shoulder, expression dark, unreadable.
“Someone else knows it’s your birthday.”
Then he was gone.
The door closed behind him.
And for the second time that night… I was standing alone.
Only this time, the loneliness felt different.
It wasn’t empty.
It was a warning.
The silence after Elias left wasn’t the same.
It wasn’t comforting or calm—it was a hum beneath skin, like the quiet before a storm that knew her name.
I double-checked the locks like he said. Drew the curtains. Secured the windows.
Every shadow outside the glass now looked like a threat.
The room felt too big, too quiet. My thoughts kept looping back to his last words:
“Someone else knows it’s your birthday.”
That shouldn’t have meant anything. But it did.
Because no one was supposed to know. Not even he should have known.
And yet, Elias did.
And now someone else did too.
I sat on the edge of the couch, fingers curled tightly around the silver necklace with the key pendant. It pulsed against my skin—not literally, but emotionally. Like it was connected to something much larger than just a childhood sketch.
I glanced at my phone.
No missed calls. No messages. Nothing.
Except—
1 new notification.
An airdrop request from an unknown device.
My stomach twisted.
The image previewed before i even accepted it.
It was a photo.
Of me.
Standing in the doorway just minutes ago—hand on the frame, eyes on Elias.
The angle was off—too high.
It wasn’t taken from the street.
It was taken from above.
From a rooftop.
My breath caught in my throat. I hit "Decline," hand shaking.
Another notification popped up instantly.
“Don’t trust him. He’s not what you think.”
No sender. No contact name. Just those words.
What the hell is this?
I stood up, backing away from the window. The air around me felt heavy. Electric. Wrong.
I looked around my apartment like it had suddenly become foreign.
Had someone been watching me all along?
The lock on the front door rattled—soft. Too soft.
Not like someone trying to enter.
Like someone testing it.
My breath hitched as i turned slowly.
No voice came through.
But something slipped under the door.
A folded piece of paper—pale, deliberate.
I stared at it for a moment, frozen, before finally kneeling to pick it up.
One sentence. Handwritten in precise block letters:
"You saved the wrong life."
