I sip from a chipped mug—citrus root tea, sharp and grounding. My nerves still hum like overclocked wiring.
“People think it’s you?” Valtron asks from behind me.
“Some. Not many.”
“Do you care?”
I glance at him, eyes still gritty. “No. I said what needed saying.”
He joins me, sliding his arm around my waist. We stand there in silence while the lake hiccups mist into the air and birds that don’t exist anywhere else trill like cracked violins.
“She’s going to change the stars someday,” he says quietly.
I snort into my tea. “She already did.”
He chuckles. “Fair.”
By midday, Ripley’s bolted together a pair of wing braces from drone parts Valtron stashed in the supply closet. She straps them to her arms with uneven straps and takes off across the yard, yelling, “I’m gonna catch a moonbeam!”
The braces flutter, not quite lifting her, but she believes they will. That’s enough.
Valtron chuckles from his perch on the swing he built last week. I sit beside him and lace my fingers through his.
“You ever think about what it would’ve been like?” I ask.
He raises an eyebrow.
“If we’d never been torn apart.”
His gaze stays on Ripley. “I think we wouldn’t have survived it.”
I tilt my head. “That’s dark.”
“It’s true.” He turns to me. “We were a spark back then. Hot. Dangerous. Unstable. We had to burn out before we could burn steady.”
I look down at our hands. “Now we’re steady?”
He smiles, slow. “We’re stars.”
The feed buzzes again at dusk. The local system news is parroting the message now, trying to guess who “The Ghost Reporter” is. Some think it’s a planted AI. Some think it’s old archive footage from before the Fall. A few whispers suggest it might be me.
None of them are certain.
That suits me fine.
I don’t need credit. I don’t need spotlight. Not anymore.
Truth doesn’t need a name attached. It just needs to be heard.
We eat dinner on the porch—bitterroot stew and flatcakes Valtron half-burns but pretends are “rustic.” Ripley smears juice across her cheek and pretends to be a war hero. Valtron goes along with it, letting her “heal” him with a snapped twig and an acorn.
When the sun finally dies behind the hills, Ripley runs after fireflies again. Her wings catch the wind just enough to flutter. She shrieks with joy.
Valtron wraps a blanket around my shoulders.
“You warm enough?”
I nod, eyes fixed on the girl who shouldn’t have existed—but does.
