RHEA
The bunker breathes like it’s got lungs full of ghosts. The walls groan with old tension, faint and rhythmic, like they’re remembering every whispered mission briefing and final stand ever made inside these corroded panels. I sit with my knees pulled to my chest on the edge of the cot, blanket draped over my shoulders, and watch Valtron in the half-light like I’m waiting for him to break the silence with something—anything.
He doesn’t.
He paces. Heavy-footed. Agitated. The sound of his boots scuffing the metal floor echoes too loud in this cramped space. His massive shoulders rise and fall with every breath, too sharp, too tight. He’s coiled, yeah—but not like a man about to sleep. Like a man about to snap.
“You don’t sleep much, do you?” I mutter.
His eyes flick toward me. Just a glance. Gold, unreadable.
“I do when I’m not hunted,” he growls. “Which isn’t often.”
“So this is just another Tuesday for you?”
He huffs through his nose, turning his back. He looks like he wants to punch something. Or scream. Or both.
I press. “You always bring civilians into your shitshows?”
“You’re not a civilian.”
“I’m not a soldier.”
He faces me, finally, arms folded across that ridiculously broad chest. “You were chosen. That file found you for a reason.”
“Yeah, dumb luck.”
“Instinct.”
“Bullshit.”
I toss the blanket off and stand. The cold of the floor bites at my bare feet, but I don’t care. I’m so keyed up I could scream. “You think you can waltz back into my life with your haunted eyes and death glare and what, expect me to swoon? ‘Oh thank the stars, my war-crush is here to drag me into the underworld again’?!”
His jaw ticks.
“Didn’t think you’d swoon,” he says. “I thought you’d fight.”
I blink. “What?”
“You fight for truth. You fight for people who don’t know they need saving. You put your face on a screen and tell the galaxy what it’s too afraid to hear. You think I don’t remember that?”
I swallow hard. My throat feels tight.
“You ghosted me,” I whisper. “After that night. You didn’t even say goodbye.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
His fists clench. The air between us snaps taut. “Because if I did, I wouldn’t have left.”
The admission lands like a punch. I stagger back a step without meaning to.
He drops into a crouch by the far wall, claws raking lightly over the edge of a dusty console. He’s not looking at me now. He’s staring into shadows like he wants them to answer questions I haven’t asked yet.
“I was sent on a black op,” he says, voice low. “Deep zone. No extraction plan. No comms. Classified to hell and back. I left you because I had to.”
“Could’ve told me that.”
