We part. Nessa stirs again, lifts her head. “Da?” she whispers.
“Yeah, cub?” Vael says.
“Can I sleep in your lap?”
Vael smiles tiredly. “Of course.”
Nessa lies back, head on his thigh. I watch them. Fear has sharp claws, but Love… Love has armor that’s harder to punch through.
I lean my head on his shoulder. The world outside is collapsing. The nets close. The hunters sharpen their tools. But inside this crate, this moment, two fugitives and a child build something solid.
And I believe. Maybe not in fate—but in this.
In us.
In the promise we just made.
CHAPTER 25
VAEL
The cold air of the sub-station control room feels wrong against my skin. Back inside something I never wanted to see again. The hum of the antiquated data racks vibrates through the floor, shallow and constant. I let the wall’s surface steady me—fingertips tracing the ridged paneling, the dust and static settling like memories.
Kael sits across from me, fingers tapping a burned compad. Drel’s feed is projected on the old holo-screen above him; the map of the base with hidden access points glows orange in the dimness. Razor-sharp focus from both of them. I can sense Rynn behind me — her presence like a quiet flame, steady but fierce.
Kael says without looking up: “We’ve got one shot at this. Node’s live for sixty minutes once triggered.”
I nod. My throat’s dry. “Tarek’s surveillance net will snap shut in ninety if we’re exposed.”
Drel’s voice crackles through the projection: “The node is in Sector?12B. Under the old med-bay wing. Unmonitored, off-grid. If you drop the payload there, the data will broadcast through the alliance comms loop — full expose.”
Rynn inhales behind me; I smell the faint sweat on her collar, the toll of every choice she’s made to get us here.
I say: “And after that? What happens to us?”
Drel: “You go ghosts. You’re wiped from the ledger. But you’re alive.”
Kael grins. “Better than dead.”
I let that wash over me. Better than dead.
Then Rynn steps forward. “I’m coming with you.”
My blood freezes.
I swivel. “No.”
She meets my eyes. Steady. “Yes.”
Kael pieces in: “It’s too risky.”
I pull Rynn aside anyway. “You know what this is.”
She doesn’t flinch. “I do. And I’ve run as far as I can. This ends now.”
My jaw clenches. “It ends when I tell it to end.”
Her voice cracks just then. “If we do this together, we survive together. Don’t make me be the one you protect from.”
