Page 74 of Zayrik

“It’ll make everything harder.”Running. Fighting. Surviving. Living.

“I know.” Certainty shone in his eyes. He looked at me as if I was worth taking a chance on.

My gaze was fixed on him. I memorized the way he looked in this moment, when everything balanced on a knife’s edge. “Say something stupid and noble and make me walk away.”Please. Before I forget how to do the one thing that’s always kept me alive.

He didn’t.

Wouldn’t give me the excuse I needed.

Instead, he reached out slowly, and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers brushed my skin, and my breath hitched. Such a simple touch, but it felt like falling.

Like flying.

Like finding home in the middle of a war zone.

His voice was a murmur, rough with emotion that matched the storm inside me. “I’m not here to stop you from surviving, Nyla. I’m just here to survive with you.”

That was it.

That was the moment everything changed.

The moment I stopped running.

Not because I wasn’t scared anymore.

But because for the first time, being scared felt worth it.

The words hung between us,“I’m just here to survive with you,”changing everything and nothing all at once. Making promises neither of us had planned on keeping. Making futures neither of us had dared to want feel possible.

I didn’t run.

Didn’t move.

Just stood there, letting his words sink into places I’d kept locked for too long.

But even as something in me reached for him, old instincts died hard.

Old fears whispered louder.

And he saw it all.

24

Zayrik

THE SILENCE BETWEENus felt alive with possibility. With fear. With everything we weren’t saying but couldn’t ignore anymore. Her pulse hammered at her throat, visible even in the dim light.

She stood there, caught between instinct and want, between running and staying. And I watched her war with herself, with years of survival training that said attachment was dangerous. That said this...us, was a risk she couldn’t afford to take.

But something had changed.

In that small room, with its buzzing lights and cramped space and pretense of normal.

Something fundamental had shifted.

She was still afraid.

Not of me.

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