He’s quiet for a long second. Then: “It’s not fear.”
“I didn’t think it was.”
“It’s discipline.”
I stare at him.
The way his muscles are locked tight. The way his claws flex, like he wants to reach for something and won’t let himself. The way his eyes burn—not with anger, but with... restraint.
“I’m not fragile,” I say quietly.
“No,” he says. “You’reprecious.”
God. That word. It lands in me like a detonation.
I don’t know what to do with it.
So I sit on it. Hold it in my chest like it might shatter if I breathe too hard.
“C’mon,” I say eventually, breaking the moment before it eats me alive. “Let’s go up top. The mess roof’s gone. I wanna see the stars.”
We lie side by side on cracked tile.
The mess is nothing now. Just a skeleton of what it used to be—tables twisted, chairs welded to the walls, ceiling peeled back like a can. But the sky?
The sky’s unreal.
Stars wheel above us, bent and warped through the gravity of the singularity. They curve like brushstrokes. Colors I’ve neverseen before swim in the darkness—violet-gold spirals, deep green halos, comets smeared into arcs.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” I murmur.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I glance at him. “Do you believe in fate?”
He’s quiet a long time.
“Only when it hurts.”
I blink. “What the hell does that mean?”
He turns his head toward me, eyes locked on mine. “We don’t like the idea of being controlled. Of something bigger pulling the strings. But sometimes—when things line up just right... when pain leads you somewhere you never expected... youhaveto believe it meant something.”
My throat goes dry.
The cold should be setting in again, but I feel flushed. Inside. Deep.
His words hit somewhere low in my spine. Deeper than fear. Deeper than hope. It’s not desire. Not yet.
It’sgravity.
I tear my gaze away, look back up at the stars.
“You’re a lot deeper than you pretend to be,” I say.
“And you’re a lot tougher than anyone sees.”
“Damn straight.”
