Gardens of Ashes 3

Chapter Three:

What Remains

Before the world burned, Griffin had trusted Marshal with his life. Now, he wouldn’t trust him to guard a flashlight.

The tunnel beneath the safehouse was dark, lined with sweat-slick stone and rusted metal bracing. It had been carved in secret, one slow dig at a time, back when paranoia still felt like a survival instinct and not prophecy. Now, it was the only thing between them and a bullet to the skull.

Griffin crouched at the base of the tunnel, file folder in hand. Inside were maps, notes, Authority movement logs — everything they had on the Collective’s regional network. He flipped it open, letting the flashlight skim over the rough sketches and supply drops.

Vesper stood behind him, arms crossed. “You kept this from your own people.”

“Not everything’s meant to be public,” Griffin said, voice dry as ash. “Some things go sideways faster when you tell the wrong person.”

“And when you tell no one, people die in the dark.”

They locked eyes for a moment. Not quite enemies. Not yet allies.

FLASHBACK — Delta Corridor

The air had been dry and sharp in the Delta Corridor — sand grit in their teeth, blood on their boots, and a rare moment of quiet between bursts of hellfire.

Marshal sat on an overturned crate, unwrapping a ration bar with more care than it deserved. He looked at Griffin and grinned, the kind of grin that had nothing to do with the war.

“She’s pregnant,” he said, voice hushed and almost reverent. “First one.”

Griffin had stared, dumbfounded for half a beat, then laughed. Loud. Full. Real.

“You serious? Damn, Marsh. You’re gonna be someone’s dad.”

Marshal chuckled, shoulders loose for once. “Scary, right?”

“Terrifying. That poor kid’s doomed.”

“Nah,” Marshal said, pointing at him. “That’s where you come in. Uncle Griffin. You’ll teach ’em all the things I can’t. Like how to throw a punch. How to cheat at poker.”

“And how to tell when someone’s lying,” Griffin added with a smirk.

They laughed. And for a moment, there was no war. Just two men, dirt-caked and sunburned, imagining something better.

FLASHBACK — Before the Fall

Back then, she wasn’t Vesper. Just Lila. A girl with chipped black nail polish, a sketchpad full of terrible poetry, and a crush on a boy named Theo.

It had been raining the night he told her he loved her.

They’d snuck onto the rooftop of an abandoned apartment complex, the city lights hazy through the downpour. He’d laughed, nervous and soaked, then said it — not like it was a big deal, but like it was the only truth he had.

She’d kissed him. Her first real kiss. Her heart stuttered in her chest so hard it felt like a warning.

Then the sirens wailed.

It happened fast. Screams. Shouts. Lights in the sky that weren’t stars. The air smelled like copper and ozone. Soldiers moved in, shouting orders, and people who didn’t move fast enough were marked.

Theo didn’t move fast enough.

One second he was beside her. The next, he was on the ground, still breathing but gone — branded, trembling, eyes vacant. The virus didn’t take him right away, but it took who he was.

And just like that, Lila was gone too.

She became Vesper.


Vesper’s Reflection

Vesper stood a few feet from Griffin, watching him close the file and reposition the weight of the world onto his shoulders. The tunnel was cold, but the memory of that rooftop kiss lingered like a phantom pulse in her bloodstream — a life she’d never quite buried.

She studied him. The furrow of his brow. The callused hands. The silence he wore like armor.

What made him the Reaper? she wondered. Was it heartbreak? Something he never spoke of? Was it the tragedy of war, watching friends become bodies, watching hope die slowly?

Or was it something deeper?

Maybe it was fear—the kind that slips in at night when no one’s watching. The kind you swallow with clenched teeth, praying it won’t break you. The kind you have to stomach until the ache becomes a shape you wear on your back.

She didn’t ask. But she knew. Because she’d tasted it too.
Return to the Present

Overhead, boots thudded against the concrete — faint, but too close. The boy flinched. He sat near the tunnel wall, clutching his lunchbox like it was armor.

Griffin closed the file and looked up at her. “You still wanna go for that depot hit?”

“Yeah,” she said. “More now than ever.”

“Then we move in two hours. If the Authority’s still scanning the south quadrant, we’ll skirt them.”

Vesper hesitated. “You sure this plan won’t fail the same way the last one did?”

Griffin didn’t answer right away. His jaw tightened.

“No,” he said at last. “But if we stay put, we fail for sure.”

Behind them, the red emergency light upstairs flickered, casting long shadows down the stairwell. One of Griffin’s scouts jogged in, his voice low and urgent.

“They found the fray point,” he said. “West barricade’s gone. They’re in the perimeter.”

Griffin’s spine went rigid. That meant they’d breached the weak seam — the one they’d prayed wouldn’t tear for another day.

Griffin stood, rifle already in hand.

Vesper popped her neck. “So much for two hours.”

Griffin looked at the boy, then at the file, then back at the faint glow bleeding down the tunnel.

“This is what remains,” he muttered. “Of all the plans, all the fights, all the burned-out cities. Just this.”

Maybe it wasn’t hope that kept them going, but the simple act of standing in the ashes and choosing not to kneel. That’s what remained.

The concrete groaned above them, dust sifting down like falling ash.

And they moved.

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