The gesture shocks him into silence.
“We’re ending this tonight,” I whisper.
He hums low—uneasy, uncertain—but follows when I start moving.
The corridor tilts around us as the emergency stabilizers flicker again. Somewhere above, a siren screams like the station’s dying breath.
I don’t look back at the boy bleeding against the wall.
There’s only forward now.
Onlyfire.
CHAPTER 27
GAROKK
They’ve takenmyship.
I feel it in the air the moment my boots hit the deck—the wrongness. Like coming home to find someone’s moved the furniture and pissed on the floor. Like blood on wedding sheets.
They’ve painted over my name.
Literally.
The command wall that once bore the sigil of the Crimson Raider—the jagged starburst wrapped in flame—is now slashed with Vrek’s crude, jagged scrawl: DEBT REPAID.
Bastard even did it in red. Mine.
Reflector’s gone dark. Isolde’s on her way to the docks, Pyramus likely in Vrek’s claws. I trust her fire. But this? This part’s mine.
This is personal.
The lights are low. Emergency mode. Most of the bridge crew’s abandoned post, holed up or drunk on power in the lower decks, where the real violence festers. But some of them—Snarl included—are still inside.
I stalk the corridors like a ghost of myself, each step measured, each breath shallow and cold. My tail twitches withanticipation. The overhead piping drips in rhythm with the beat in my skull.
Then his voice crackles through the corridor feed.
Vrek.
“To all hands on Orbimall One—this isyourcaptain speaking. I know some of you’ve heard whispers. Rumors. About your beloved ‘Crimson Raider’ crawling back like a dog.”
His voice is slick. Gloating.
“Let me be clear. Garokk isdone.He turned tail. Let a woman leash him. Let her cut his fangs out. That’s no pirate. That’s a coward. A myth.”
The speakers vibrate under my claws as I tear the nearest panel off the wall. Rip the wires. Smash the node. Silence.
“No,” I snarl. “I’mGarokk.”
I storm the auxiliary command corridor, teeth bared. The door sensors are fried—manual only. Just as I slam my shoulder into the bulkhead, a shadow moves in my periphery. Too fast. Too close.
I spin.
Blaster fire slices past my cheek—sings like a violin string across scaled skin.
“Snarl,” I growl.
