But her eyes find mine the second the hum fades.
And she doesn’t cry.
She just says, voice hoarse, steady:
“You came.”
I lower my weapon.
Step toward her.
And answer the only way that matters.
“Always.”
CHAPTER 24
MARA
The room feels smaller now.
Not physically—nothing’s shifted in the walls or structure—but in the way places change when the people in them have been scraped out. Emptied. The air carries that taste: stale, metallic, too clean. Like it’s been sterilized of us.
Like we were never here.
But my body remembers. Every angle. Every breath. I sink down into the corner where the light once pooled soft and gold during off-cycle hours, back against the wall where Tatek kissed me for the first time. That kiss—cautious, reverent—like he was asking for permission just to believe in something again.
Now, all I have is this cold stretch of panel behind me and the echo of that moment, still stitched into my skin.
I let my fingers ghost across the floor. The dust clings to my fingertips. There’s a scuffed patch near the baseboard—where my boot had slammed once during an argument. He’d just raised a brow and said, “That your version of punctuation?”
I almost smile.
Almost.
But my throat tightens instead.
There’s no furniture left. No evidence we ever shared this space. The bedding’s gone. His spare boots. The worn-down training mat. Gone.
Stripped like we were contamination.
I draw my knees up, arms curling around them. The chill creeps through my jumpsuit, but I don’t move. Let it settle. Let it numb.
I close my eyes.
Try to hold on to the sound of his voice.
The door doesn’t hiss so muchas breathe open.
Soft. Controlled.
I don’t look.
But I know.
I know it’s him.
I feel it in the static shift of the air, in the way my lungs expand—too full, like they’ve been waiting to exhale since I was taken.
