I turn to look down at the city. Hoverlights drifting like fireflies. I press a hand to my belly — the test, the blue line. I taste fresh fear. Joy. Hope. Infection of possibility.
If he comes back, I’ll be ready.
CHAPTER 22
TAKHISS
Freedom isn’t supposed to smell like disinfectant and fear.
But that’s what the hangar reeks of—the kind of sterile air that tries to scrub humanity out of war. White floodlights glare off polished steel. Rows of soldiers stand like statues on either side of the diplomatic corridor, Alliance blues on one end, Coalition crimson on the other. Me, I’m the trade. The cargo. The breathing relic they can’t decide who owns.
My wrists are bound in static cuffs that buzz faintly against my scales. I don’t fight them. I could. But not yet. Not when the outcome is still uncertain.
“Sergeant Takhiss of the Coalition,” a human liaison announces, reading from a datapad like he’s reciting the weather. “Under terms of the Trident Accord, you are hereby released from Alliance custody and transferred to Coalition jurisdiction.”
I keep my face blank. Inside, my heart slams like a hammer. Released? No. Bartered.
Behind him, Coalition officers wait in their crimson armor, faces hidden behind mirrored visors. They look like me and nothing like me all at once. The kind who obey the whip because they don’t remember it cutting.
One steps forward, rank sigil gleaming. “We’ll take him from here,” he says.
The liaison nods. “All charges have been voided under article fourteen. You’re free to go, Sergeant.”
Free.
The word tastes like ash.
I step forward. The Alliance cuffs release with a click. The liaison extends a polite smile—the kind men wear when they think they’ve done something noble. I watch his lips move, his eyes soft with false sympathy.
Something in me snaps.
My fist connects with his jaw before I can think. The sound is clean—cartilage, bone, shock. He drops like a sack of meat. Gasps echo. Weapons rise.
“Restrain him!” someone shouts.
I don’t resist this time either. Two guards shove me to my knees, slamming my face into the deck. My mouth fills with copper.
I laugh.
It’s raw and ugly and real.
Good.
Prison is safer than indoctrination. I’d rather rot in a cage than let the Coalition rewire my head. I’d rather die remembering her name than live forgetting her face.
They haul me up. Someone’s shouting protocol violations. Someone else is calling for medical assistance. The Alliance commander looks furious. The Coalition one looks smug.
“Unstable specimen,” one mutters.
“Reflex control compromised,” another agrees.
I grin through blood. “Keep writing your reports,” I rasp. “I’m sure they’ll keep you warm at night.”
They don’t like that.
The shock baton digs into my ribs. My body convulses, knees slamming the floor again. But the pain anchors me. Keeps me from drowning in the hollowness.
When they drag me away, I lift my head just once.
