Page 68 of Ravaged By the Reaper
I roll my eyes, snort, and zip up my jacket. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re glowing.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
I narrow my eyes, but the corners of my mouth betray me. I can’t stop the smile. Not entirely.
Because I am glowing.
Not from him. Not from what we did.
Fromme.
From finally trusting someone not to save me, but to stand beside me when I refuse to fall.
That’s what he did. No hesitation. No doubt. Just fire and fists and teeth bared beside mine.
I slide the door open with a hiss. The corridor’s empty—thank the stars. I pause in the threshold, one last glance over my shoulder.
He’s still there.
Still watching.
Stillmine.
“Don’t wait too long,” I tell him.
“For what?”
“To catch up.”
Then I walk away.
Hair wild. Spine straight.
And pride trailing behind me like smoke from a starship burning through reentry.
CHAPTER 20
AMARA
The war doesn’t pause for love.
I wake to the scent of ozone and scorched wiring, thick in the recycled air like the station’s bleeding from its own lungs. My body aches, every nerve a low thrum of leftover adrenaline. Sheets tangled around my legs. Haktron's scent still clings to me—metallic, smoke, something darker I can't name. But that comfort’s fleeting. Reality crashes in the moment my boots hit cold steel.
Gamma’s breathing hard. And not the good kind.
The deck shakes underfoot. Not enough to throw me off balance—but enough to make my gut tighten. Coalition fighters must be making another pass. The alarm isn’t blaring, which somehow makes it worse. We’re too used to the sound of falling apart.
“Systems status?” I bark as I hit the command corridor, already pulling my hair back into a bun that’s more fury than formality.
A junior officer nearly runs into me, tablet clutched in shaking hands. “Secondary shield grid’s offline in sectors eleven through fifteen. We’ve rerouted power from civilian life supportto reinforce outer hull pressure. Hull breaches in docking arm C are being patched, but?—”
“Slow down,” I say, grabbing the edge of the tablet. “Let me see.”
He steps back like I burned him. My fingers scroll through carnage in clean font: medbay damage, water supply contamination, comms lag with the outer relays. A mosaic of barely-contained catastrophe.
