Chapter 77

Chapter 77

I Tried to Save Her

“I didn’t kill her.”

The words shattered through the chamber louder than the alarms.

Louder than the collapsing facility.

Louder than the neural core screaming around them.

Damon froze completely.

“What?”

Luca’s entire body trembled violently beside the neural interface. White light from the core flickered across his face while tears mixed with sweat and blood along his skin.

“I remember now,” he whispered.

Damon stared at him like the world had suddenly tilted beneath his feet.

“What do you mean you remember?”

Luca looked wrecked.

Not relieved.

Not healed.

Destroyed.

Because the truth didn’t erase the pain.

It only changed its shape.

“I thought…” Luca’s voice cracked hard.

“I thought I shot her.”

Another violent surge exploded through the neural core.

Cassian screamed against the synchronization overload still tearing through his nervous system.

The facility shook again.

But Damon barely heard any of it.

Because suddenly

Everything he built his hatred around was unraveling.

“You said you killed her,” Damon whispered.

Luca physically flinched at the accusation.

Not because Damon sounded angry.

Because he sounded heartbroken.

“I know.”

“Then why would you say that if it wasn’t true?!”

Luca’s breathing staggered unevenly.

“Because they made me believe it was.”

Silence crashed through the room.

Hale looked away first.

And that tiny movement told Damon everything.

Rage detonated inside him instantly.

“You knew.”

Hale remained silent.

Damon stepped toward him slowly.

Dangerously.

“You knew he didn’t kill her.”

Still no answer.

The neural core pulsed violently overhead.

Red emergency lights flashing across the chamber.

“SEVERANCE WINDOW CRITICAL.”

But Damon couldn’t stop.

Couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t think past the fury suddenly flooding his chest.

Years.

Years Luca hated himself for something he didn’t do.

Years Damon weaponized that guilt against him without knowing.

Years both of them suffered because Hale allowed a traumatized child to carry blame that was never his.

“You let him believe that,” Damon whispered.

Hale finally spoke quietly.

“He hesitated during the mission.”

Damon looked at him like he wanted to rip the world apart.

“He was twelve.”

The chamber fell silent again.

Even Seraphine stopped moving.

Because hearing it aloud made everything worse.

Twelve.

A child.

Not an assassin.

Not a monster.

A child manipulated into believing empathy was failure.

Luca wrapped his arms around himself instinctively now.

Like he was holding together something inside him that kept breaking apart.

“I tried to stop them,” he whispered shakily.

Damon looked toward him immediately.

Luca’s eyes were distant.

Lost inside the memory.

“There was another team,” he said.

“They weren’t part of the operation.”

A shaky breath.

“I shot one of them.”

Fragments still flickered violently through his mind.

Rain.

Blood.

Damon screaming for his mother.

And Luca

Terrified.

Trying to save people while conditioned to obey monsters.

“I pushed you behind the car,” Luca whispered.

Damon froze.

A strange memory suddenly surfaced inside him too.

Not clear.

Not complete.

But there had been someone.

A blurred figure dragging him away from gunfire.

A voice telling him to stay down.

His pulse dropped cold.

“No…”

Luca’s eyes filled instantly.

“I didn’t know it was you at first.”

Damon physically staggered backward.

Because suddenly

The nightmare he carried his whole life looked different.

Not an execution.

Chaos.

Crossfire.

Children trapped inside violence built by adults.

And Luca

Luca had been just another victim standing in the rain.

Damon looked toward Hale again slowly.

“You destroyed both of us.”

Hale’s expression hardened slightly.

“You survived.”

Damon laughed once.

A sharp broken sound filled with disbelief.

“That’s your defense?”

“You are alive.”

Damon moved so fast nobody reacted in time.

He slammed Hale hard against the central console.

The impact echoed violently through the chamber.

“You let him hate himself for years!”

Hale grabbed Damon’s wrist immediately.

Still dangerous even now.

“He needed discipline.”

Damon snapped.

Actually snapped.

“He needed help!”

The scream ripped through the chamber with enough raw fury to silence everyone.

Even Vale.

Damon’s hands shook violently now.

“He was a child begging you not to make him kill people!”

Luca physically froze hearing that.

Because Damon sounded devastated for him.

Not angry at him.

And somehow

That hurt worse than hatred ever could.

Hale’s expression flickered slightly beneath Damon’s grip.

Something cold cracking underneath.

“You think I don’t know what I created?”

“Yes,” Damon snarled instantly.

“I think you don’t know anything except control.”

Another surge exploded through the neural core.

Cassian screamed harder this time.

His body arching violently against the restraints.

“OVERLOAD CASCADE IMMINENT.”

Seraphine rushed toward them desperately.

“Enough!”

She shoved Damon backward before the collapsing system exploded around all of them.

“We can kill each other after we survive!”

Damon staggered back breathing hard.

Still staring at Hale like murder lived in his veins.

Luca moved instinctively toward him.

“Damon”

Damon turned toward him immediately.

And the second he saw Luca’s face

His anger shattered into grief.

Because Luca looked terrified.

Not of Hale.

Not of dying.

Of Damon.

“Hey,” Damon said instantly.

Softer now.

Luca shook his head weakly.

“You should hate me.”

Damon stared at him in disbelief.

“After all this and that’s still what you think?”

“I was there.”

“You were a child!”

Luca flinched again.

“I still failed.”

Damon crossed the distance between them immediately.

Grabbing Luca’s face hard enough to stop the spiral.

“No.”

Luca’s breathing shook violently.

“She died.”

“And you tried to save her.”

The sentence hit Luca like a gunshot.

Because nobody had ever said that before.

Not once.

Not Vale.

Not Hale.

Not even himself.

Damon’s voice broke as he continued:

“You hear me?”

His thumbs trembled slightly against Luca’s face.

“You tried.”

Luca’s eyes filled instantly.

Because all these years

That was the part buried deepest beneath the trauma.

He tried.

Damon pressed his forehead against Luca’s shakily.

“They took a terrified kid and convinced him he was evil because he cared.”

Luca finally broke completely.

A sharp painful sob escaped him before he could stop it.

His body folding forward slightly under the weight of years unraveling all at once.

And Damon held him immediately.

Without hesitation.

Without fear.

The neural core flashed violently around them.

The entire chamber beginning to destabilize now.

But Luca barely noticed.

Because for the first time since he was twelve years old

Someone looked at him and saw the truth.

Not a monster.

A child who tried to save a family in the rain and failed anyway.

Cassian’s weak voice suddenly cut through the room again.

“…this is emotional.”

The absurdity of it nearly shattered the tension.

Luca laughed weakly through tears.

Damon let out one broken breath that almost sounded like a laugh too.

Cassian smiled faintly despite blood pouring from his mouth.

“Glad we solved the trauma.”

“Cassian”

Another violent overload slammed through the system before Luca could speak.

Cassian screamed.

And suddenly everyone remembered

They were running out of time.