His head jerks up. “You think I’d just let you run back into that wasteland?”
“I didn’t ask you to save me.”
“Then who the fuck were you screaming for when I found you?” he roars, slamming a fist into the metal table between us. The surface warps with the impact.
I flinch, instinctively stepping back—but not far enough to miss the way his eyes flicker. Regret. Then fury again.
“Why are you here, Jaela?” His voice is low now. Dangerous. “You shouldn’tbehere. This place eats people like you.”
“I can see that.”
“Answer me.”
“Why do you care?” I throw it back at him like a blade. “You made your choice, remember? You’re the great Red Eye now. King of the corpses. Congratulations.”
He closes the distance between us in two steps. His hand slams down beside my head, pinning me to the wall. His other fist curls tight at his side. He’s shaking.
“I buried you,” he grinds out. “I mourned you every night I was chained to a wall in this hellhole. And now you just—what? Crash a shuttle into my territory like some kind of ghost?”
I meet his glare, jaw trembling. “I didn’t come for you.”
His breath stops. His eyes go sharp—predator-sharp.
“Liar,” he says, voice cracking like thunder. “You came for me. You always did.”
I slap him.
The sound cracks the air between us.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moves.
Then he laughs—a short, broken sound that’s closer to pain than amusement. “Still got fire,” he mutters. “Stars, I missed that.”
“Don’t you dare,” I snap, shoving him. “Don’t youdareact like this is some kind of twisted reunion. I didn’t risk my life for nostalgia.”
“Thenwhy,Jaela?!” His voice splinters on my name. “Why here? Why now?”
My throat tightens. My chest aches. I want to scream, to tell him everything—but the words choke.
I look up, meet his eyes, and what I see there unravels me.
The same man. The same fire. The same unbearableache.
But colder now. Harder. Wrapped in armor and blood.
I shake my head, whisper, “You wouldn’t understand.”
He leans in, just enough that I can feel the heat of him, the static hum of his implants under his skin. “Try me.”
The words tremble out of me before I can stop them. “I didn’t come for you.”
He stares at me, expression carved from stone.
Then, quieter than a prayer, he says it again.
“Liar.”
The sound of it breaks something inside me.
