Ben clings to her side, his small hand wrapped in hers like if he lets go, the stars might take her away again. I want to reach for him, say something light, something stupid even—like a joke about how we survived a League fortress with just one bruised rib and a busted plasma clip.
But the words die in my throat.
Because I see it in his eyes.
The fear.
The kind that shouldn’t live in a child.
The kind I swore I’d never put there.
The ramp hisses open.We step onto the landing dock. The artificial atmosphere feels too still. Too calm. The rain’s long gone but I can still smell it on my gear—metal and ozone and singed bone.
Garkin falls into step beside me as the doors seal behind the others. He doesn’t speak at first.
He never does when it matters most.
I shrug off the chest rig, let it hit the ground with a thud. Blood drips from the edge of my sleeve.
“Not yours,” I mutter.
He grunts. “Didn’t think so.”
I watch Kairo lead Ben toward the apartment block. She walks fast but not frantic. Her hand stays on his shoulder the whole way.
Her lights are on.
That little window I’ve stared at too many nights from too far away—glows like a beacon.
She doesn’t look back once.
Garkin’s voicebreaks through the hush.
“You done?”
I turn.
He’s not smirking. He’s not challenging. Just asking.
I glance at the compound we built from nothing—the hidden bays, the coded routes, the dummy fronts that kept a hundred orphans fed and a thousand bullets out of the wrong hands.
“You built this whole thing,” he says. “Turned ghosts into a system. Gave the Nine reason to fear us again. You sure?”
I don’t answer right away.
I look toward the window where her shadow passes behind the curtain. Where Ben’s laughter once echoed through a schoolroom he made his own.
Where I stopped being a ghost—and started trying to be a man.
“It’s hers now,” I say. “All of it. My war’s over.”
But the truth?
The war’s not out there anymore.
It’s in here.
Inside me.
