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“But she did,” he snaps. “And you’re here now. Don’t throw that away.”

Later, when the station finally settles into its nightly rhythm, I walk the halls like a shadow. Every step feels too loud, every breath too sharp. I pause outside their door, palms slick, heart pounding.

Rynn opens it before I knock.

She looks exhausted. Pale. Beautiful.

“She's asleep,” she says, voice low.

“Just for a moment,” I ask.

Rynn doesn’t answer. But she steps aside.

Nessa is curledunder a blanket shaped like a solar bear, one foot poking out, her hair a wild halo around her face. Her little chest rises and falls in slow, steady rhythm.

I crouch beside the couch and reach out—hesitating just before I touch her.

Then gently, so gently, I lift her into my arms.

She’s warm.

Small.

Real.

Her head lolls against my chest, cheek pressed to my collarbone.

For a long time, I just sit there. Holding her. Breathing her in.

She stirs once, half-mumbling, “You smell like warm metal.”

I huff a laugh, soft and broken. My arms tighten instinctively.

It’s the first time I’ve laughed since I woke up on this godsdamned station.

Rynn sits across from me, watching. Quiet. I don’t meet her eyes.

Because if I do, I’ll fall apart.

I’ve spent my whole life making exit strategies. You don’t survive three campaigns and a black site capture without knowing when the trap is about to spring.

This trap? It’s coiled and twitching.

Tarek’s orders came in coded and slick. A field reassignment. Sudden, too sudden. Not a test—they don’t do tests with ghosts like me. This is leverage. This is checkmate.

Unless I flip the board.

“You’re serious,” Rynn says, voice low and tight as she double-checks the reinforced door seals in her quarters.

“Dead serious,” I tell her.

She shakes her head, arms folded so tight they might snap. “You want to fake your death?”

“No. I want to give them what they already think they own—my corpse. Just on my terms.”

We’re alone. Nessa’s tucked away with Drel under a sleep stim in the lower med tier. Rynn insisted. Said she didn’t want her daughter hearing any more arguments tonight. I don’t argue back. I don’t want her to, either.

“Vael, this is madness,” she hisses. “You’ve been cleared for physical reactivation for, what, a week? Now you want to stage a fatal accident?”