“Because you’re still choosing,” he says. “And I want it to be a choice.”
CHAPTER 12
TAKHISS
Ella collapses again. Her breath comes in sharp, ragged gasps, too fast, too shallow. Her skin’s gone pale beneath the grime and blood smeared across her cheek. She slumps hard against the bulkhead before I can catch her, sliding down in a graceless heap of trembling limbs and stubborn pride.
“Ella.” My voice comes out like gravel, rough and too loud in the quiet. I drop to my knees beside her. “Ella, stay with me.”
No answer.
The readout on her suit blinks red—O2 saturation dropping fast. My claws fumble at the seal on her helmet. I lift it off gently, afraid to jostle her neck in case there’s more damage than I can see. Her breath wheezes shallowly, chest barely rising.
The fucking scrubbers didn’t hold. The patch job we did was too fragile. She told me we needed more binding agents, but I thought we had time.
We don’t.
I lift her like she weighs nothing, cradling her against my chest. Her limbs flop, boneless, unconscious. Her head lolls against my shoulder, and I catch the faintest whisper on her breath.
“Rael…”
My steps are slow. That name slices through me like a vibroblade. Rael. I don’t know who that is. But it’s not me.
It hurts anyway.
I carry her to the core chamber—one of the last sealed compartments with any real integrity. It’s the only place we can pressurize now. I seal the door behind us and override the manual locks. The ambient temperature drops, but the air’s cleaner here, richer. I hear the hiss of the oxygen cycling through the emergency valves.
She stirs.
“Where…” Her eyes flutter. “Where’d the sun go?”
“It’s okay,” I murmur, setting her down on a bed of coiled data cables and insulation wrap. “You’re safe. Just breathe.”
“I’m trying,” she slurs, voice a breath of sound. “But my lungs are full of stars.”
I sit beside her. She reaches for me blindly and her fingers hook against my armor, soft and insistent. I let her. I shouldn’t—but I do.
“Your voice,” she mumbles, staring up at me, pupils blown wide. “You sound like war. Like a battle hymn made of thunder.”
Her hand lifts. Trails across my jaw like a lover’s caress. My breath catches.
“And you smell like heat lightning,” she adds with a ghost of a laugh. “Hot metal and ozone and bad decisions.”
She doesn’t know what she’s saying.
But I do.
She leans up, face so close now I can count the tiny scars on her chin, the flecks of gold in her brown eyes, even through the haze of her stupor. Her lips part. She’s going to kiss me.
I should pull away.
But I don’t.
She brushes her mouth against mine, feather-light. A whisper of warmth. I stay frozen, afraid even to breathe. Her lips tremble against mine for the briefest second.
Then she slumps back, asleep again, as if nothing happened.
And maybe it didn’t.
