My eyes cut to him. “You what?”
“I figured it out,” he says, calmly. “A while ago.”
I blink. “And you didn’t say anything?”
“You weren’t ready.”
I laugh. Sharp, bitter. “Ready for what? You to drop me off at the nearest checkpoint with a pat on the head and a good luck wish?”
“No.”
“Then why?—”
“Because I’ve done worse.”
His voice is flat. Final.
I stop. The fight drains from my chest.
“Roja…” I whisper.
He leans forward, elbows to knees, mirroring my posture. “That case under the bed? That’s not a keepsake box. It’s a tactical kit. I built it after I left enforcement. Has enough gear to disappear or destroy a room. Depending on the day.”
I stare at him.
“I worked black contracts for the Coalition. Extraction, erasure, loyalty enforcement. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t want questions.”
I whisper, “Why’d you leave?”
He shrugs, slow. “Stopped believing in the flags they wrapped bodies in.”
We sit in silence.
The weight of our pasts is a physical thing in the room. A gravity.
I finally ask, “Do you think it matters? What we did?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
Then: “Only if it keeps us from doing something better now.”
I blink hard. “And what’s that?”
He looks at me. Really looks.
“Keeping each other alive.”
CHAPTER 16
KELSEA
Roja’s room feels like the inside of a weapon—cold metal ribs, low light humming from old filaments, corners too tight for comfort. And still, I don’t move. I sit on his narrow cot, one leg folded beneath me, watching him as he pulls his shirt back over his head with a stiffness that says everything his mouth won’t.
The silence stretches between us like a frayed wire. He doesn’t know what to do with it, and neither do I.
I hold the scarf in my lap. The one he gave me weeks ago. The one I used to practice with until my hands blistered. I run it through my fingers like it might give me the words I’m choking on.
He glances over. “You should sleep.”
