It’s like a punch to the gut and a whisper in my ear all at once. I reach for the panel with the slow, deliberate stillness of a predator waiting to pounce. My heart doesn’t beat faster—but it does beat louder.
The message is simple.
Agent Valtron, confirm receipt. Immediate recall to grid vector 88x-Eps. Objective: intercept rogue war-mind. Expected loss probability: 93%. Acknowledge or deny.
No name. No signature. No encryption padlock. Just my callsign embedded in the transmission’s bones. This came from high up. So high I know who it’s from without them needing to say.
It’s not a request. It never is.
I stare at the screen for a long time. Not reading. Just feeling. The memory of adrenaline. The cold certainty of a no-return mission. The rush that used to make me feel alive.
But I’m not who I was when I started this damn job.
I glance to the cot.
Rhea shifts in her sleep, muttering something unintelligible. Her hair fans across the blanket in a golden spill that glowsfaintly under the pale emergency lighting. Her nose scrunches, lips parting in a dream. I wonder if it’s a good one. I hope it is.
I lower the volume on the terminal. I don’t delete the message. I don’t respond either.
Not yet.
Instead, I close the screen and slide back down into the shadows, cradling the silence like a wounded thing.
Two hours later, I still haven’t moved.
I watch her sleep. Creepy? Maybe. But she’s the only calm thing in my universe right now. The only tether. Everything else is heat signatures and gunmetal and classified betrayal. But her? She smells like warm skin and soap. Her heartbeat—slow, steady—echoes in my memory from the way her chest pressed to mine the night before.
“Val…” she murmurs, half-dreaming. “Don’t go.”
My breath hitches. Just a fraction.
She turns toward me, one hand flopping onto the cot’s edge like she’s reaching for something. Someone. Maybe me. Maybe not.
I slide forward on instinct. Not touching her. Just closer. Close enough to hear the fluttery shift of her pulse against her neck. Close enough to see the tiny scar by her collarbone, a white crescent I never noticed before. My fingers twitch. I want to trace it.
Instead, I whisper her name. Not loud. Just enough to make it real in my mouth.
“Rhea.”
She doesn’t stir.
And I don’t deserve her.
I shouldn’t still be here. I should’ve replied to that transmission, packed my gear, ghosted out without a word. It’s what I was trained to do. What I’ve done a dozen times before.
But this time…
This time, I hear another name on my tongue.
One I haven’t said aloud yet. One that curls in my gut like a living thing.
Ripley.
Three syllables. Light. Simple. Dangerous as hell.
I don’t know if it’s true. Don’t know if she’s mine. But my gut—my soul—says yes. Says she smells like sugarfruit and looks like a sunrise. Says her laugh probably sounds like a song I forgot I loved.
I press the heel of my hand to my chest, like I can stop the ache there. Like I can make the choice disappear.
