Chapter 403 Falling Debris

    Chapter 403 Falling Debris

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    Quinn turned to scout a path–but Serena lunged, eyes zing with malice, and shoved at her

    back. “Go to hell!”

    The hand nevernded. Quinn twisted, dodged the blow, and–before shock could fade from Serena’s face–drove the heel of her palm into Serena’s temple. The woman’s gaze went ssy, and she crumpled without a sound.

    Serena’s body folded like a marite whose strings had been shed,nding in an untidy heap on the floor.

    Quinn pressed her lips together. Smoke stung her eyes, her fractured leg zed with pain, and the earlier explosion had drained what little stamina she had left.

    iCan /iiI /iireally /iidrag /iiher /iiout /iiof /iihere /iiin /iithis /iicondition/i?

    The memory of Rowan’s soft expression whenever he spoke of Lena surged up. Quinn clenched her jaw and stooped, ready to haul Serena onto her shoulder–when the ceiling groaned, then splintered.

    She yanked Serena sideways and flung the unconscious woman toward a clearer patch of floor. Debris thundered down like a stone curtain, cutting off the route she had intended to take.

    Her shattered right leg made speed impossible. Each movement sent hot needles racing along the bone.

    All she could do was shield her head and chest, praying to absorb the smallest blow the copsing ceiling might deliver.

    Yet the expected impact never came.

    A lone figure had stepped between her and the falling wreckage–so sudden, so sure, it felt like a miracle torn straight from legend.

    Quinn’s pupils contracted. She stared, breath seized in disbelief.

    It was Julius Whitethorn. Not a firefighter. Not a rescue professional. Julius himself stood there, braced like a bastion against the chaos.

    How icould /iiJulius /iihave /iifound /iihis /iiway /iiinto /iithis /iiburning /iitomb/ii? /i

    Wooden beams and jagged ster rained from the trembling ceiling. One b smashed into the center of his back with a sickening thud, knocking the breath from him and driving him to

    Chapter 403 Falling Debris

    :

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    his knees.

    Somehow, he nted both palms in the rubble, bracing on either side of Quinn’s body, shielding her with his own. His face was paper–white, sweat streaking through soot. “Move- now,” he rasped. “Find somece safe. Go!”

    Quinn pushed upright, her legs trembling yet unyielding. “We leave together–both of us,” she shot back, the words a vow more than a plea.

    Several heavy chunks of ceiling pinned Julius‘ spine like iron weights.

    Above them, the cracked concrete groaned, threatening to send fresh debris at any second. Quinn bent low, fingers bleeding as she wrestled those stones off his back one by one.

    “Leave me be,” Julius murmured, each breath a scrape of ss. “I’m not dying here. You get out -rescuers will be here any minute.”

    He had dragged himself through the inferno for one reason only–her. All he wanted was for Quinn to breathe, to live, to greet tomorrow untouched.

    Quinn’s jaw locked, eyes bright with smoke and anger. “Stop the nonsense!” She heaved another stone aside. “I told you–we leave together!”

    Her voice rang with a resolve that could not be bargained down.

    In the dancing firelight, the ruby ne at her throat swung wildly, throwing shards of scarlet across the smoke. The gleam stung his eyes. Julius stared, stunned. That ne—he had seen one exactly like it before.

    “You know?” the little girl had whispered, solemn beyond her years. “This ne belongs to my mom, but she says we have to trade it for food and medicine so more people can stay alive. Mom loves it so much. She’s always treasured it. When I grow up, I’ll buy it back for her, and she’ll be so happy!”

    That half–buried memory mmed into him like a second copse of concrete and me.

    “Don’t die–please don’t die! I’ll save you, I swear I will! If we go, we go together!” The child’s voice, choked with sobs, echoed as she hauled stone after stone from his broken body.

    It was the first time in his life he had felt anyone care whether he lived or vanished.

    Neither his father nor his mother had ever spared such concern.

    Years ago, kidnapped to a foreignnd, he had heard the kidnappers name their price while his father answered coldly over the phone, “He’s a useless child. If he can’t survive, he isn’t

    Chapter 403 Falling Debris

    worthy of the Whitethorn name.”

    :

    Useless–that word carved itself into the marrow of his bones.

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    His mother had died, the very woman his birth had been meant to anchor. Once she was gone, he–the tool forged to keep her–held no worth at all to his father.

    Those kidnappers lost their nerve in the end. One by one, they scattered into the smoke, abandoning him on the sted ground like unwanted baggage.

    He had been certain the next shell would rip him apart. Instead, a girl younger than he was appeared and pulled him back from the brink.

    Though the child’s face had faded in his memory, every word she uttered that day remained etched on his heart.

    So slight and fragile, she strained to lift b after b of rubble. All ten fingers split open, blood dripped onto the dust, yet she kept moving stones.

    “I know you’re scared, but I’m here, and I’m stronger than I look. I’ll get you out, I promise.” The girl had promised, beaming at him.

    Sunlight poured over her narrow shoulders, turning the dirt on her hair to spun gold and making her grin ze like a small sun.

    In that moment, he understood something new. Somewhere in this brutal world, there was at least one soul who desperately wanted him to live.

    It was the first time he had ever felt such a thing.

    Now, the blurred face from his memory sharpened,yer byyer, until it ovepped perfectly with the woman in front of him.

    “That ne you wear… It belonged to your mother, didn’t it? Back then, she traded it for food and medicine, am I right?” Julius forced the question through a throat scraped raw by

    smoke.