“That’s optimism,” he mutters.
“No,” I say, pushing myself up, knees trembling. “That’s survival. And I’m not dying in a scrap heap, Darun. I’ve got way too many people to piss off first.”
Something flickers across his face. Annoyance, maybe. Admiration? Regret?
He leans near the hatch again, peering through a narrow crack where sunlight slants in with the dust. The firestorm has moved on. Plasma trails burn high above, the telltale sign of Ataxian fighters banking out of the canyon.
“Stay close, human,” he growls, voice thick. “This is no place for mercy.”
His words are sharp, clipped. But his hands—those goddamn hands—are trembling again. Just slightly. Barely there. But I see it.
Not fear.
Restraint.
He’s holding something back.
I don’t know what. I don’t think he does either.
“You alright?” I ask, quieter.
He doesn’t answer. Just keeps watching the canyon like he expects it to swallow us both next.
I move closer. Not because I’m scared—though maybe I should be. I move because Ineedto be near something solid. And right now, for all his rage and contradictions and buried pain, Darun’s the most solid thing in this canyon of ghosts.
His hand twitches near his weapon.
I rest my fingers on his forearm. “Hey.”
He blinks like I just pulled him from somewhere far away.
“Thanks,” I say. “For pulling me out.”
He grunts. “Didn’t have time to dig a new reporter out of the supply crate.”
“Liar,” I say, soft and steady.
His eyes flare. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks away.
I think that’s the first time I’ve won.
Outside, the canyon breathes smoke. The sky above it swirls with ash and fire, and the wind carries the faint, charred stench of dead things.
Inside, it’s just us.
Two survivors in a war that stopped making sense long before today.
And I realize something, sitting in the dark next to this seven-foot-tall war machine with blood under his claws and a soul he swears he doesn’t have is that he’s scared.
Not of death.
But of whatever’s cracking inside him.
And maybe that means we’re not lost yet.
That means we still have a way forward.
If we don’t kill each other first.
