Chapter 045: Beyond the Limits

Ava's POV 

Between Eli and me, the stillness is dense and heated. I stayed still, my fingers tightly holding the notepad he had handed me so I could feel its edges cutting into my palm. There were all those secrets, all those times he had avoided my inquiries or shrugged off my worries, ready to be unearthed in this little journal.

I opened it, steeling myself with a long breath. Quick, nearly frantic handwriting covered the pages, as if someone had hurried to organize their ideas before they might go. Not only were names and dates involved here, though. There were specifics, rich descriptions of people I knew, others I didn't, all twisted in a web of relationships I hardly comprehended.

"Eli: what is all this??" My voice was hardly consistent, I asked. I was sorting names that sounded familiar from others that made me shiver down my back. He sat silent while I turned the pages, his eyes fixed on me, inscrutable.

His voice low, he replied at last, "It's everything." "Everybody involved, everyone who got hurt or worse; the deals, the alliances, the betrayals." His comments hit like stones, each one dragging me more into a river I had not seen.

I stopped at a known name—one I had thought I would never come across here. "No," said Not him, I said under a whisper. My old acquaintance, someone I had trusted, had his name scrawled over the page connected to individuals I never would have guessed he would be related to. " Eli, this cannot be real. I acquainted him. We both did. He is not involved in any manner.

Eli's jaw grew tighter. "I wish I could say you are mistaken. Still, he is among the reasons I withheld this from you. Once you were in, there would be no way out; I knew you would want to shield him.

The walls seemed to be squeezing in. Part of this dream was the one person I considered to be solid, the one consistent. Everything I knew seemed to be sliding away, as though the ground was slumping and I would lose my footing. Pushing the notepad into his hands, the pain of treachery remained sharp.

Then why did you not inform me from the beginning? My voice was louder than I had meant, and my wrath sliced across the stillness. You kept Eli in the dark. Even though I could have, even when—“

He grabbed my hand with a hard but light hold. "Because Ava, the truth is hazardous. For you as well as for me. Knowing would have put you in the midst of it all, a target.

I drew my hand free and stepped back, a tsunami of feelings sweeping over me. "So what now? Knowing now, what do we do?

He looked at me, a trace of surrender in his eyes. "We now have to decide. We finish it or we walk away from all this. But Ava, if we do this, there is no halfway measure.

I looked at him, thinking about the weight of his words. "Then we complete it."

We slipped into a nervous routine over the following several days. Eli told everything he knew, and I soon discovered the depth of the network and the number of people engaged. It was like seeing the planet I knew disintegrating right in front of me.

We searched contacts for weak connections, people we may be able to call on our side, for hours every day. Then there were the late evenings and quiet talks when Eli would at last divulge bits of his past—things he had never told me before.

I studied him closely as he spoke, observing how his shoulders stiffened when he named specific names and the subtle edge in his voice when he related past betrayals. I saw the wounds he bore for the first time, the weight of all he had hidden—including from himself.

He seized my hand one night while we were organizing the notepad and papers, dragging me into a moment more private than anything we had ever experienced. "Ava, I've been fighting for so long," he said, his voice lower than I had ever heard it to be. "I have no idea what it is like to completely trust someone. But you inspire me to try.

Looking up at him, I sensed something delicate yet powerful enough to get us through between us. We are then in this together. Not a secret anymore.

We set up a meeting with an old Eli's acquaintance the next day who had dropped out of the network years ago. Eli had always stated that Diana, a sharp-eyed former insider who understood everyone's movements before they did them, would be the one able to destroy the organization.

We met her at a quiet café, the sort of venue where people kept to themselves and muttered. At first, eyes darting about to see who could be looking, she was wary; however, as Eli presented what we knew, she relaxed.

"Taking them down won't be easy," she remarked, her voice low and nearly whisper-like. "They seem to have eyes everywhere. They will attack the instant they suspect you. You have to hit them quickly and where it hurts.

Eli slid forward. Although we have a strategy, we need intelligence. Where the operations are situated and who is running the show right now?

Diana watched him for a long time before nodding gently. "There is a warehouse." They gather there often; somewhere they feel protected. But it's well guarded and they will have all the data you require kept there.

I could see Eli's mind working, fitting things together, computing our odds as Diana recounted the arrangement. He locked eyes with me, the concentration of which shivered down my spine. The last stretch—that point of no return—was this one.

A few evenings later we were outside the warehouse. The street was still, strangely so, as though the city itself were breathing slowly. Eli set the example; I followed, my pulse resounding in my ears. Get in, find the information, then leave—a basic approach. I understood, though, that nothing is ever so straightforward.

Inside, the warehouse was a tangle of metal beams and crates, the poor illumination creating lengthy shadows that twisted and stretched with every step. As we descended into the darkness, every sound enhanced in the quiet, I sensed a knot of anxiety developing in my gut.

We arrived at the central office, a little, messy space piled high with ledgers and paperwork. Eli headed right to work, sorting through records, as I watched, tense.

Steps suddenly reverberated along the hall. My pulse surged, and I indicated Eli. Eyes keen, he looked up and fast slid the files inside his jacket. We left the room and went softly down a side corridor.

We weren't alone, though. Someone emerged from the darkness to obstruct our way forward. I stopped; the weight of the occasion pressed down on me.

"Leaving so shortly?" The voice was contemptuous and frigid.

My old buddy, the one whose name Eli had down in her notebook, was someone I hadn't seen in years. He fixed me with an incomprehensible glance that combined part treachery with part joy.

"F Funny, Ava," he remarked, his voice full of mockery. "I never would have you involved in all this."

Eli, his body stiff, moved defensively in front of me. "We are having fun with your games. This comes to an end now.

One of my friends laughed bitterly. You believe you could just walk away? Ava, no one leaves.

The three of us locked in a quiet standoff, the stillness that followed heavy with suspense. Every choice we had made to get us here felt weighty. And I understood that one could not go back.