But underneath, I’m still humming with him.
Even hours later, after Whiplash’s post-op diagnostics are done, after I’ve run a dozen system checks and watched him vanish down a corridor with that same cocky sway, I feel the imprint of him. In my thoughts. In mybody.
The Meld left fingerprints all over me.
I make it back to my quarters without speaking to anyone. Strip out of the jumpsuit. Wash the sweat and kaiju-guts stink from my skin. I stand under the too-hot spray of the water for way too long, watching it swirl down the drain like it's supposed to take the memory with it.
It doesn’t.
I close my eyes.
And he’s still there.
Not just the image of him. Thefeeling.
The way it felt when we moved in tandem.
The way it felt to be known without question. Held without arms. Seen without shame.
Gods.
I’m in trouble.
I climb into bed and pull the blanket over my head like it’s going to shield me from my own brain. The bunk feels too small. The air recycled and thin. My body aches—not from combat, but from beingopen.
Emotionally flayed.
Mentallytouched.
I don’t know how to come back from that. I don’t know if Iwantto.
My hand curls under the pillow.
And just before I drift off, half-awake and breathless, I realize something that makes my stomach flip:
I want to Meld again.
Not because we fought well.
Not because we won.
Because when we wereus,I didn’t feel broken.
CHAPTER 6
ARIA
ATyphon-class windstorm is a beast. That’s what they say in the manuals. What theydon’ttell you is how it feels—how it creeps into your teeth like grit and makes the walls moan like something alive. I’m crawling belly-flat through a shaft barely wider than my shoulders, auxiliary cable looped awkwardly over one arm, while the sirens scream bloody murder overhead. Red emergency lights strobe every few feet, making shadows pulse like they’re breathing.
My skin sticks to the metal. My coveralls are soaked through with sweat and Rhavadaz’s red dust. I can feel my heartbeat in the backs of my knees. But I keep moving. We need power rerouted to the eastern stabilizers, or we lose comms. And if we lose comms during a gamma flare? Game over. Instant microwave dinner.
I reach the last relay box and jam the cable into place with a satisfyingclick.A faint whirr signals a restored power loop. I sigh, dragging myself out of the tunnel into the main mech bay.
And there he is.
Of course.
Naull.
