Page 155 of Star Claimed Omega
SANTIAGO
Back onboardTheSombra, Santi scarcely registered the gentle, persistent pressure of Miral’s hands as she guided him to his cabin by the lake.
Once inside, she tucked him into bed with a thermal blanket over him.
She gave him a neural calming shot and stayed by his side until he fell into a dreamless sleep.
The next day bled into the following one, and the one after that, yet Santi never left his quarters.
Sometimes, a flicker of restlessness would take him, and he would shuffle to the cabin’s terrace, slouching deep in a deck chair.
Where he stared out at the black, endless expanse of stars, their light mirrored in the still, glassy lake water below.
Other times, he couldn’t muster the effort to move at all.
He just lay on his side, his breath shallow, his eyes dry and burning from too many hours of unblinking, agonizing thoughts.
Night would fall, and dawn would rise again, and still he rooted in the same spot, refusing to shift or acknowledge the rotation of the ship.
The food dispenser chimed obediently at scheduled intervals.
Yet, the nutrient plates it disgorged remained untouched, their gleaming surfaces a testament to his neglect, until they shimmered back into the processor.
He hadn’t spoken a single word since Miral helped him off theBruto’s deck.
He told himself, with a bitter certainty, that he deserved the suffocating silence.
In the dark isolation of his mind, he recalled his last argument with Soleil.
Over and over, on an endless loop in his neural node, each remembrance carved guilt deeper into the pit of his chest.
He replayed the way she’d gazed at him, like he’d ripped the stars from her sky and crushed them in his fist.
He felt like the cruelest, most unforgivable bastard in the galaxy, accusing her, belittling her truth, and doubting her intentions.
Yet, in the end, she had still saved him; she had still thrown herself into the fire for him.
I will never love another again,he thought bitterly, grinding the heels of his palms into his eye sockets.I’m terrified because I break the people I care about.
His comm tab buzzed once, an old reminder, nothing urgent, but the sudden sound made him flinch.
He opened it, and his breath seized in his throat as his screensaver blinked to life with an image: Soleil laughing at the lake.
Her hair tousled from the wind, her eyes bright with unfiltered joy.
That smile, the one she only ever gave to him, played on the edges of her lush lips, tearing through his defenses.
He stared at her until his vision blurred with unshed tears.
With a muttered curse, he tried to delete the visual.
His thumb hovered over the trash icon for a full, torturous minute before his hand dropped away, defeated.
He couldn’t do it.
Fokk,he thought, the truth a raw knife twist in his gut,I still love her. I miss her, I ache for her.
But none of that desperate craving erased her final, haunting glance, hurt and defiance wrapped in heartbreak.
