My throat tightens.
I nod once. Then again.
We finish in silence.
Once the mech is fully sealed, we retreat to the maintenance vestibule—a narrow hall where you can still feel the pulse of the machines beneath the floor. Naull leans against the wall, arms crossed. I collapse onto the bench and unclip my gloves with shaking fingers.
“You good?” he asks.
“Peachy.”
“You’re lying again.”
“You’restillshirtless.”
He chuckles. “Just keeping things interesting.”
I stare at him.
At the scars.
At the too-easy confidence that masks something quieter, something old.
“You ever think about leaving?” I ask before I can stop myself.
His brow furrows. “The Corps?”
“The war. The planet. This whole mess.”
He exhales through his nose, a slow sound.
“Sometimes,” he admits. “But then I think—where would I go? Who’d want a half-cooked alien with poor impulse control and a heroic amount of trauma?”
I look up. “I would.”
The words slip out before I realize they’ve formed.
His head jerks toward me, startled.
I clear my throat. “I mean... I get it. I understand. The not-knowing. The fight-or-flight. I think about leaving all the time. But I don’t.”
“Because of Whiplash?”
“No,” I say softly. “Because ofyou.”
The silence that follows is sharp and strange and full of weight.
He moves before I can second-guess myself—sitting next to me, close but not touching.
“Aria,” he says, voice low. “What are we doing?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
But I want to.
God help me, I want to.
CHAPTER 2
