They walked away from the planning table like two people slipping out of a noisy room — Selene's hand light at Diana's elbow, voice soft as if apologizing for the world.
"Come," Selene said. "A drink. A little talk. You need to breathe."
Diana hesitated a fraction, then followed. She trusted Emma; she trusted the plan; she trusted her feet. Selene's invitation felt like a harmless shadow.
They passed into a narrow corridor lined with old boxes and dust. The hideout's hum fell behind them. Selene closed the door softly and turned. The smile on her face never reached her eyes.
"You're close to her," Selene murmured, studying Diana like she was reading a new page. "You make her… softer."
Diana's skin prickled. "What do you want, Selene?"
Selene's laugh was small, almost fond. "Only to know her better. To know what makes her human. To touch what everyone else fears."
She stepped forward. Her fingers flicked under her coat — quick, practiced. Her hand came back with a folded rag that glinted faintly at the corner: a soaked cloth, something chemical and dark.
Diana saw the movement as if it were under water: too late to flinch, too late to reach the gun on her hip.
Selene lunged.
The rag came up. The putrid smell of chemicals hit Diana's face: bitter, metallic, a second's panic. Selene forced the cloth toward Diana's mouth and nostrils.
Diana drove a knee up without thinking, spine clamping, breath snarled out. The rag smeared across her cheek, not over her mouth. She grabbed Selene's wrist in a vice and twisted, then struck the side of Selene's head with an elbow — hard, animal. Selene staggered but didn't fall.
"You were supposed to be mine," Selene hissed, voice slipping from silk into panic.
Diana wasn't graceful; she was frantic and precise. She slammed Selene's shoulder into the wall, then pushed off and drove her shoulder into Selene's ribs. They hit the floor in a tangle of limbs — quiet, brutal, immediate. Selene's hands clawed for a second knife buried in a boot before Diana's fist closed over it. Diana crushed the blade against the concrete until it folded.
Selene screamed — a small, surprised sound — and for an instant the edges of her control frayed into something raw and human. "You don't understand what she is! You'll take her away—" Her words were cut off as Diana tightened an arm around her throat with the kind of pressure that left no doubt: hold, don't kill.
Diana's breath came hard. Her knuckles whitened. She could taste iron. She thought of Valeria smiling in the grave. She thought of Emma's hand on her head, the quiet promise. The hideout was a heartbeat away; the team was still planning in the other room, oblivious.
"Why?" Diana asked, voice low enough that Selene could only hear. "Why would you—?"
Selene's eyes were wild. "Because you are close. Because she lets you touch what she hides. Because I can't share that. You would— you would make her ordinary. You would make her soft. I won't let her be ordinary. I won't let anyone take her from me."
Diana tightened the hold another fraction. Selene's fight slowed, heat leaving her face. The rhythm in the corridor — a muffled laugh, the scrape of chairs — kept the world ordinary. Diana forced down a tide of everything she felt — betrayal, anger, a cold that had nothing to do with the night.
She pulled Selene up on one knee, pinned an arm across her back, and forced the other hand to the cold concrete so Selene's face was up and exposed. "You tried to kill me and burn my body," Diana said. There was no accusation in it; there was a report. "You tried to silence more than me. You tried to silence Emma's world."
Selene laughed once, a broken little thing. "She wouldn't miss you long."
Diana's reply was a flat, terrible thing: "You won't touch her."
She cuffed Selene's wrist with Selene's own scarf — rough, efficient — and held the other end tight as she stood, hauling Selene to her feet and shoving the broken blade into a pocket. She checked her face in a shard of glass: a thin cut, a bruise already darkening. Nothing fatal. A memory to carry.
Diana led Selene toward the main room, hand on the back of her neck, every step controlled like a metronome. The plan room was stunned into silence when Selene was pushed through the door. Emma's eyes met Diana's instantly — not surprise, only that small, practiced look that sorted what could be fixed now from what had already been broken.
Diana shoved Selene to the floor and let go. Selene slumped, panting, the mask of composure shattered. Mostang stood too quickly, a growled question dying in his throat as Emma spoke.
"Bind her," Emma said. "Carlo — sweep her electronics. Anyone who touched those vials — we investigate. Selene — talk."
Selene's face folded; somewhere beneath the ruined calm laid fear. She opened her mouth to plead something—love, devotion, a reason—but the room did not want it. Celeste moved with clinical hands and put ropes on Selene's wrists. Kane's face was unreadable; Mostang's jaw clenched so hard it whitened.
They did not beat her. They did not kill her. They could have. The choice pulsed in the air — to punish, to purge, to turn the act of vengeance into another justification for more blood. Instead, Emma's hand rested on the table, fingers splayed, and she spoke once.
"Everything Selene knows, we take. She answers. If she lies—if she betrays us again—this will end differently."
Selene's eyes flicked to Emma, and for a moment they were only two people measuring whether one could own a soul. "Please," Selene whispered, voice small as a child's. "I never wanted—"
"You wanted her," Diana finished for her, voice flat. "You wanted her dead-quiet in your arms. You thought you could have her by removing others. You were willing to burn a woman alive to get closer."
Selene's breath shuddered. No answer came.
Emma nodded once. "Watch her," she told Diana. "And if she tries anything else—end it." Her voice was not angry. It was a law.
Diana's grip on Selene's scarf tightened for the briefest moment as she stood. The room had turned cold, and everyone felt it. Outside, the night kept moving, ignorant. Inside, a betrayal had been exposed and contained — for now.
They moved Selene to a chair against the wall, ropes precise, eyes watched. Diana sat across from her. She did not smile. She did not shout. She only watched until Selene's breaths evened out in captive defeat.
Mostang lit a cigarette too long and didn't inhale. Carlo tapped on his tablet and started the logs. Emma stepped to the window, not looking back, and for the first time since Valeria's grave, her face was not empty — it was something colder: a decision taken, a line drawn.
Chapter end