I finally turn.
I walk slow. Deliberate. I stand toe to optic with that twitchy little bot, and I lean in close enough to see my own rage reflected in his lenses.
“Then let it burn.”
The crew exhales like a held breath released all at once.
They know that tone.
They’ve heard it before. Back when we took the Garrex freight hauler and I lost two men for nothing. When I burned an Odex camp to the ground because they touched something that didn’t belong to them. When I gutted a Combine enforcer with my bare hands in front of his squad.
It’s not a threat.
It’s a promise.
“I’m going down alone,” I say. “One shuttle. You don’t move unless I signal. And if anything happens to her—anything?—”
They nod. Even Crik.
Jil leans in, voice small. “Whatareyou gonna say to her?”
I shake my head.
“I don’t know.”
Because how do you explain surviving a star’s fire? How do you look at the one person you died for and admit that you didn’t stay dead? How do you tell her you clawed your way back through void and violence and rage—not for revenge, not for loot, not even for survival?—
But forher.
I don’t have the words.
But maybe that’s okay.
I never needed words before.
Just action.
“Prep the shuttle,” I bark. “Five minutes.”
Reflector trails behind as I stride off the bridge.
“Sir,” he whines, “please reconsider?—”
“I’ve reconsidered for two years.”
And now?
Now it’s time to finish what the void started.
CHAPTER 19
ISOLDE
Ihate this already.
The minute the dressing room door whooshes shut behind me and the stylists descend like jeweled vultures, I know I’ve made a mistake. I should’ve sent a holo. Or faked a flu. Or fled to the moons of Tavris Prime and raised goats under a fake name.
But here I am. Back in the lights. Back in the frame. Back in the skin I thought I’d shed.
