Before The Fall.
—Ten years ago.
Alina had been nothing more than a young soldier with raw talent and ambition, eager to prove herself in the world of war. At just 18, she had been a prodigy. Faster, smarter, deadlier than most seasoned veterans. Her skills made her indispensable, and that made her win a spot on the ‘Task Force Helios’.
The missions were brutal, but she thrived in the chaos. Every time a bullet whizzed past her head, every time she pulled the trigger and watched an enemy fall, she felt alive. She wasn’t just a soldier; she was a legend in the making.
And then there was ‘Phantom Shade,’ always masked, always watching— aka Damon.
Damon Jones had been her mentor at first. Tough, calculating, and always watching.
But somewhere along the line, things changed. It started in the small moments: the way he lingered when she cleaned her weapons side by side, the rare chuckles that escaped him when she would make a sarcastic remark, the way his gloved hand would brush against hers when passing her ammo.
Damon wasn’t the type to let people in. His past was a locked door, his heart guarded by walls thicker than any fortress. But with her, with Alina, he had cracked. Just a little.
He first kissed her after a mission went wrong. The air was too heavy, the surroundings were filled with worry and guilt. She had taken a bullet to the shoulder, and while the medic patched her up, Damon had stood there, watching, his fists clenched.
Later that night, he found her alone, sitting on a crate, staring at the moon.
—“You scared me today,“— he murmured, his deep voice barely above a whisper.
Alina smirked, trying to hide the pain. —“Didn’t know you cared, Phantom.“—
He hesitated, then pulled off his mask. Something he almost never did, just for her. To feel closer to her, not ‘Phantom Shade’, but like his true self, Damon. His lips crashed against hers, desperate, like he was trying to make sure she was really there, alive.
From then on, everything changed.
Alina and Damon were still soldiers, still killers, but behind closed doors, there was something softer. His hands on her skin, his voice in her ear, whispering things that no one else would ever hear. He never said I love you. Maybe he didn’t know how. But Alina felt it in the way he held her after a nightmare, in the way he made sure she always had his six, in the way he let her see the man beneath the mask.
For years, it had been the two of them, unstoppable together.
Until, Ten years later, when the accusations came.
Damon, the man who had sworn to protect her, had looked into her eyes and chosen to believe the lies, and so did the rest of the task force, the rest of her “family.”
