OPERATION WINTERSPINE (Strings Between Us Book 2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: OF SHADOWS, GHOST SCALPEL PROMISES,

"No," I reply. "Not yet."

Because I've learned—enemies don't always announce themselves with flags and guns. Sometimes they come dressed in grief. Speaking reason. Carrying the weight of promises they already shattered in someone else's name.

Dr. Amara's jaw tightens. Dr. Caelum watches me like I'm a sequence he hasn't solved yet—calculating probabilities, measuring variables, testing how close I am to detonation.

I beat him to it. "What do you want from me?"

"Cassiel and Celia's Veilfall System is already fracturing," Caelum answers, voice still wrapped in logic—except now, there's a hairline crack. "In no time, they'll find him."

Him.
Not our son. Not Khaizer.
Like distance keeps him safer.
Like language can slow a knife.

"We want you to protect him," Amara says, and this time her voice pleads. "We're asking as his parents."

Wrong tactic. I don't flinch. I don't soften.

"You're asking the Court to protect him," I correct. "To shield him until he remembers... or if he remembers."

My arm shifts—pain flares beneath the gauze. A reminder of why this matters.

"You're late," I say, voice low. Final. "We already are. Khaizer Dylan Dela Vega is already under the Court's protection."

I let the words sink in—measured, precise. Not a declaration. A verdict.

Because whatever plan they had...we moved first.
And he is ours now.

Dr. Caelum exhales. A fraction of breath. A fraction of control. His posture shifts—barely noticeable. But enough. I catalog it like I would any threat response. Minimal. Guarded. Cracked.

"If Echo-9 ever resurfaces," he says, voice sharpened to neutral. The phrasing is deliberate—when, not if, would have betrayed the fear.

I meet his eyes. Unblinking. Precise. "We will handle it."

And we will. No matter what version comes back. No matter what they left buried in his bones.

I let the pause stretch. Let the weight of those four words settle like iron on the floor.

Then—

"If you want my reason..." I shift my gaze to Dr. Amara. Direct. Dissecting. "I bled for him once."

Another beat. Surgical.

"Not for him. For her. Because if he had died under that chandelier—Ari would've broken."

I lower my voice, letting it thread with ice. The kind of cold that doesn't scream. It warns.

"I'm not taking that chance again."

Silence bleeds in. Not absence. Containment. And it cuts sharper than any scalpel they ever held.

Dr. Amara finally inhales. Measured. Frayed at the edges. "So Arielle already knows... what he is. What he was."

"She didn't run." My eyes flick to the pulse monitor. Still steady. Still alive.

"She's staying. Which means she'll fight." I let that sit. Then add, low—quietly lethal. "And if she's fighting—we fight with her."

I meet Caelum's eyes now. Flat. Final. Tactical.

"We will not let Khaizer be taken. Not killed. Not broken down into whatever blueprint you left behind. Not by them. Not by what you created."