“Stop glaring at staff,” Jaela says under her breath when she notices my stiff posture. “It makes them talk.”
“You should have told them to shut up,” I mutter.
“I did.” She smirks. “They listened to a woman in a lab coat—they always do.”
At breakfast someone pipes in a rumor about the tribunal—how the Alliance edited footage, how the casualty lists were curated. It’s thin gossip that grows teeth when you feed it. I feel my temper rise like an animal scenting blood.
“Kyldak,” a voice says, light and teasing.
I turn.
It’s Nurse Horan. He’s come back, carrying a tray of nutrient paste and the world’s worst attempt at a decent smile. He tries to act brave, which is half adorable and half stupid.
“You look good,” he says. “Um—do—do you need help with arm thing?”
I cock my head. The human can’t even form a sentence under pressure. I decide to have fun.
“Hey, Horan,” I say, my baritone a slow rumble. “If you keep making those faces, you’ll give my heart something to beat about. Name?”
The whole mess of staff freezes; the sound of it ricochets. Jaela snorts—trying and failing to hide it—and I see the gossip start to form like a storm cell. She slaps her palm to the table, a sharp, offended sound that is half warning and half amusement.
“Kyldak!” she snaps, loud enough to sting. “Not the time.”
Horan’s face combusts bright red. He stammers and apologizes. The others snicker, the rumor mill grinding faster. Jaela’s face—red and furious—turns on me.
“You are insufferable,” she says under her breath. Not loud. Not a reprimand that will echo in the hall. Just a private missile launched across the small room.
I laugh, a short bark that’s not entirely sarcastic. “You wound me.”
The nurse gets small, scurries off, and for a second the wing buzzes with gossip—something about Kyldak flirting at intake. Rolth’s corner of the room prickles, and a couple of the senior technicians exchange looks like they’re considering whether to write a memo.
Jaela grits her teeth and snaps at some idle gawker. “Focus on your tasks. Or I’ll schedule you extra calibration tests.”
Her anger is kinetic—sharp and hot. I like that she defends people like that. Not because it flatters me, but because it tells the truth of who she is. She’s not a spy. She’s not a bureaucrat. She’s a worker. She’s someone who fights with wrenches and words.
She stands, gathered and furious, and walks out.
I don’t think about thinking. Her shoulders are perturbed in that way I recognize—tense like a drawn bow. Her back moves like a wound closing. I shouldn’t follow. I have pride. I have things to hide.
I do anyway.
I’m halfway across the atrium before I notice the exchange of glances—human whispers making shapes in the air. I catch up to her in the stairwell between therapy bays. The lights are softer there, the breeze from the ventilation making her hair frizz a little. She’s leaning on the railing, jaw clenched.
“You think that was funny?” she asks without turning.
“Yes,” I admit.
She spins on me, eyes flashing. “You think it’s funny to reduce people to gossip fodder? To become a punchline?”
“It was a line,” I say. “And Horan needed someone to laugh at—apparently.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I am who I am.”
Silence settles like a blanket, none of it comfortable. Eventually she says, softer, “You could have stopped it.”
I look at her. For once there is no guard in my voice. I say, “I didn’t want it to stop.”
