novelraw Chapter 192: The Call
Chapter 192: The Call
From the 42nd floor, Noah watched as the KAS team with their little mascot vanish into the white tundra in front of them.
The hunting party moved like they always did. Sera was in the middle, protected by the four men on all sides. The massive wolf looped around the group, rushing forward and then back again when it thought that it had gotten too far away.
The men flanked her to the point that there were no gaps, no wasted steps, and not even wind could protect their precious bundle.
It made him sick.
Then again, predators didn’t leave openings for other predators.
But it still bothered him how well they took care of her.
The horizon swallowed them slowly, the wind dragging veils of snow across the ice until the whole world blurred to gray and distance.
But still, Noah didn’t move.
Not yet.
He waited until there was nothing left to see but the empty flats stretching toward the ruins of the city.
Then he pulled the sat phone from his coat.
It had been off since the flood. Since the day he called her and admitted he’d lost them.
He pressed the single number saved there.
The line clicked once, then held.
"I’ve found them," he said, doing his best to keep his voice impassive even as his heartbeat picked up at the soft sound of her breath.
Dr. Layla Orhan didn’t bother pretending to be surprised at his call. "All of them?"
"Every one," Noah replied. "The entire KAS team, plus a female that they keep close."
There was the faint sound of a scrape of paper on the other end. A door opening, and then closing. Someone speaking to her in the background.
But she didn’t answer them. Instead, she gave her entire attention to Noah on the phone... and he could feel it.
"Alive," she said. It wasn’t a question.
"Alive," Noah confirmed.
"Good."
One word.
One simple word.
To most, it wouldn’t have been understood as praise, there was no warmth to what she had said. But to Noah, he knew differently.
Good was the highest form of praise that anyone could get for Layla... Dr. Orhan. Normally, she wouldn’t have said anything at all.
The fact that his report was simply another box on another piece of paper to check off didn’t even offend Noah.
He closed his eyes for half a second, like the sound of her voice was heat in a winter that hadn’t ended in a year. She could have told him to carve out his own heart and he would have done it before the echo faded.
He loved her.
But he also knew that she didn’t love him back... that she couldn’t love him back.
However, he didn’t care. He could love her enough for both of them.
"You’ll want them soon," he said carefully. "You have to just tell me when and where to bring them to."
"I want them now," she corrected.
Of course she did.
But that was fine. The sooner he gave her KAS, the sooner he could see her again.
The entire Northern Capital — generals, ministers, CEOs, the last families with money enough to matter — were all crammed onto one frozen island behind walls of steel and soldiers.
There was no roads off. No bridges. No boats. No planes besides the ones the council controlled.
In the Territories of the very far north, it was easy to hide, and not so easy to be found.
But if the Government of Country N wanted something, they had the power and ability to make it happen.
"Seventy-two hours," Orhan continued, jerking Noah from his thoughts. "Weather permitting. Landing crews will bring sedatives strong enough to put down anything on two legs."
"You know they won’t come quietly," Noah warned.
"You’ll make them quiet." She said it like she was ordering coffee. Like she wasn’t talking about the best of the best from four different countries.
Like she wasn’t talking about the KAS team.
"They’ll fight," he reminded her, not really wanting to die that way. But if Layla wanted it, then he would make it happen.
"They’ll lose."
Voices in the background asked for coordinates, schedules, fuel allotments. Orhan rattled them off without breaking stride.
"Alive," she repeated. "We need them alive."
Noah’s hand tightened on the phone. "And if I’m here when they wake up?"
"Then you’ll be useful one last time," she said.
The words cut him open in ways he didn’t let her hear.
"Yes, ma’am."
She had already stopped listening. More orders passed. A map snapped open. Someone read off wind speeds. Helicopters. Troop counts. Landing times.
She was the center of it all, the queen bee in a hive run by men who thought they owned the world because they had survived it.
But Noah knew the truth. The government wanted results, not necessarily her. The second she failed to give them what they wanted, she’d be replaced.
Maybe even killed.
He hated them for that. Hated that she had to keep proving herself, building her throne out of the lives of others while the men above her sharpened knives behind their smiles.
If KAS was her crown jewel, he’d make sure she got it.
She’d look at him then.
Maybe even thank him.
The thought burned him like a brand.
He stayed on the line longer than he needed to, just to hear her voice cut through the background noise, steady and sharp as glass.
When the call ended, it felt like the world itself had gone silent.
-------
Noah stood at the window, the phone heavy in his hand, his eyes on the horizon where the men he was about to betray had vanished.
Seventy-two hours.
The sedatives. The helicopters. The soldiers with guns and orders.
All of it coming here.
He didn’t move for a long time.
When the five of them had returned with a seal in tow, Noah shook his head.
He listened as Lachlan’s laugh carried faintly from the common room. Zubair’s boots crossed the kitchen tile in an even rhythm. Elias flipped a page in one of his notebooks, the sound sharp in the stillness.
When he came out of the room he was in, he saw Alexei near the fire with his arms folded, eyes on the snow like he was already planning the next hunt.
And Sera —
Noah exhaled slowly.
He knew that the men would fight for Sera the same way he would fight for Layla.
Seventy-two hours until this world that they knew came to an end... all he had to do was keep smiling until it happened.