Read Chapter 18: Léa's Secret

The gunshot still rang in Camille’s ears as she pushed through the courtyard door, Julien close behind her, the stolen meds shifting in her pack. The air smelled of cordite and something sour—fear, maybe. The courtyard was empty. The rifle Léa had been holding stood propped against the wall, abandoned.

“Léa?” Camille’s voice cracked the silence.

No answer. Just the rustle of wind through the dead potted plants and the distant crackle of fire somewhere west.

They found her in the stairwell. Léa sat on the third step, knees drawn to her chest, the rifle across her lap. Her face was pale beneath the grime, her hands shaking as she looked up at them.

“I fired it,” she said, voice flat. “At a shadow. I don’t even know if I hit anything.”

Camille crouched in front of her, taking the rifle gently. “You’re okay. That’s what matters.”

“Why is that what matters?” Léa’s eyes snapped up, wet and furious. “I almost shot a child. A kid who was just trying to get water from the fountain in the back. He was maybe nine, Camille. Nine.”

Julien leaned against the stair railing, breathing hard. “Did you hit him?”

“No. He ran. I don’t know where he came from or if he has anyone. I just—” She buried her face in her hands. “I can’t do this. I can’t be the one who decides who’s a threat from a darkened window.”

Camille sat down on the step beside her. The stone was cold through her pants. She wanted to say the right thing, something steady and sure, but her own heart was still pounding from the pharmacy raid, from the barrel of a gun in her face. She said nothing.

Léa’s voice came out muffled. “Marc knew. He knew this would happen.”

Camille stiffened. “What do you mean, he knew?”

Léa lowered her hands. Her face was blotchy, raw. “He didn’t just disappear. He was trying to stop it. Or warn someone. He came to me two days before the blackout—he knew I worked at the café on the rue de Charonne, that I saw people pass through. He asked me to listen. To watch for certain men.”

“What men?” Julien’s voice sharpened.

“Electricians. Contractors. Anyone who seemed out of place.” Léa swallowed. “He was a former electrician himself. Worked for the grid for twelve years. He told me he’d overheard something at a job site—a planned attack. Not random. Coordinated. West to east, like a dial being turned down. That’s exactly what he said. ‘They’re going to dial Paris off.’”

Camille’s mouth went dry. The radio broadcast echoed in her head: *controlled shutdown*. This wasn’t a coincidence. Marc hadn’t just been a neighbor who vanished. He’d been chasing the truth.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Camille asked, her voice quieter than she intended.

Léa laughed, a broken sound. “Because I didn’t believe him. I thought he was paranoid. He was always muttering about the substations, about who owns the backup systems, about how the government contracts were all going to one company. I told him he was full of conspiracy theories and to go to the police if it bothered him that much.”

She looked up, eyes hollow. “He went to them. The next day, he was gone. I went to his apartment—you know, the one below mine—and the door was unlocked. His tools were still there. His phone was in a drawer. He never leaves his phone. I think someone took him.”

The stairwell felt tighter, colder. Camille thought of Marc’s apartment, the orderly shelves, the clean expiration dates on his insulin vials—too clean. He’d been careful. And someone had been careful to erase him.

“You have a name,” Julien said. Not a question.

Léa nodded slowly. “He gave me a name. A contact. In the suburbs. He said if anything happened to him, I should find this person. I didn’t write it down because that would be stupid, but I remember.” She paused. “Richard Brauer. A retired grid foreman. Lives out near Meaux.”

Julien exhaled. “Meaux. That’s thirty kilometers east. Past the controlled zone, if the broadcast is right.”

“It’s not the restoration front, then,” Camille murmured, thinking out loud. “It’s the opposite direction. Deeper into the dark.”

Léa’s jaw tightened. “Marc thought that was the point. Whoever planned this is controlling the restoration from inside. The people who know the truth are in the worst-hit zone, where no one is looking.”

Silence hung between them like bad air.

Julien broke it first. “We should go. Tonight, before dawn breaks and the looters get bolder. Meaux is far, but we could make it by mid-morning if we move fast on foot.”

Camille looked at him, then at Léa. “The hospital has five insulin patients who will die without meds by tomorrow night. My father is on a machine that’s losing backup power by the hour. And now you want to go on a scavenger hunt across the city for a retired electrician who may not even be alive?”

Léa’s face hardened. “If Marc is dead, that man is the only clue we have. And if the grid isn’t coming back—if this really is staged—then every plan we have is dust. Don’t you see? The insulin doesn’t matter if we’re being managed like cattle in the dark.”

The words hit Camille like cold water. She had spent so many days thinking in terms of medicine, doses, hours left of light. But Léa was talking about something bigger. Someone had turned off the city on purpose. And Marc had known.

She stood slowly, pressing her palms into her thighs. “Then we don’t just go to Meaux. We go through the hospital first. I need Sylvie to know what we heard on the radio. I need to see that the insulin I promised is still there. And I need to tell her we’re extending her debt.”

Julien raised an eyebrow. “And if she says we’re deserting them?”

“Then we desert them with a reason.” Camille looked at Léa. “You’re coming with us this time. I’m not leaving you alone with a rifle again.”

Léa’s lips twitched, something almost like gratitude crossing her face. “I wasn’t planning on staying anyway. That shot woke up half the building. The rest is them deciding whose rules to follow now.” She nodded at the rifle. “It’s not safe here anymore. Not for me. Maybe not for anyone.”

Camille helped her up. The rifle was warm in her hands as she handed it back. She turned to Julien.

“Meaux,” she said. “But we move at dusk. We can raise the radio on the way, see if Sylvie responds.”

Julien nodded, pulling his pack higher on his shoulder. Then he looked at where the courtyard wall met the sky, and his face tightened.

“One problem,” he said quietly. “The smoke column to the west is getting bigger. And there’s something new at the base of it.”

Camille squinted into the dim. She saw it then, low against the horizon, moving across the rooftops. Not fire.

Lights. A convoy of headlights, moving in formation, west to east.

“They’re coming,” Léa whispered.

Camille’s heart bottomed out. Whoever planned the blackout was now moving toward them. And they had Marc’s name, a secret, and nothing but a single rifle and a half-full bag of medicine between them and the front line.