I lie there, heart hammering, waiting to hear him enter the room, or call out, or do anything that would tear this night open.
But I don’t say it. I don’t tell him I’m doing this for Kel. I don’t tell him I’ve already risked everything for a child he can’t even guess exists.
I curl into myself, the lie thick and alive in my veins. I ache for him— ache for what I lost, what I might lose again, and what might yet be saved.
I tell myself it’s just another day in hell. Just another hustle. Just another mission with a gun to my heart.
But then I see his face in the flickering light of the stim panel—Kyldak’s—and I remember exactly how deep I’ve sunk.
I spent the last four hours hunched over a stack of scrap tech, stolen dermal gel packs, and a disassembled IV injector that smells like fried copper and bad decisions. My hands ache. My spine's a question mark. My patience is molecular dust.
I’m building a med rig from literal trash. And it has to look like something you'd use to slap a cooling patch on a heat-stroked merc—not test gene markers from a warlord’s spit.
The casing crackles as I wire the final circuit. A violet arc zaps my thumb, and I curse loud enough to rattle the engine walls. The device flickers to life—barely. The screen glows a sickly green.
Footsteps outside. Heavy. Confident.
I yank a tarp over the rig just as Kyldak walks in, one brow lifted like he can already smell the guilt on me.
“What are you doing?”
I clear my throat. “Triage upgrade. Your camp’s medical setup is garbage. I’m fixing it.”
He glances at the wires, the scavenged biogauze, the haphazard blood filters. “That looks like a hacking station.”
“It’s not.”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just watches me for a long second that stretches so tight it might snap.
Then he shrugs.
“Good. We could use better medical.” He turns to leave. Pauses. “But if you're building anything that couldleavethis camp? I expect to know.”
“I’m not.”
He nods. Doesn’t smile. “Be careful with voltage regulators. The last medic fried their own heart.”
“Noted.”
He leaves.
I exhale so hard I almost collapse.
Midday, I volunteer for patrol. Get out, move, breathe air that isn’t recycled through doubt and diesel.
We pass through the canyon narrows—razor spires rising around us like giant teeth. Sand howls through the chasm like it's angry we’re still alive. I keep my eyes peeled, my head down, my fingers toying with the pulse patch in my pocket. I’m not thinking about Kyldak. I’m thinking about Kel. Always Kel.
Behind me, one of the lieutenants—Brannik, the one with the silver nose spike and no subtlety—falls into step way too close.
“You’re not like the others,” he says.
“Sharp observation,” I mutter.
“Kyldak trusts you.”
“Guess I’m charming.”
He doesn’t laugh.
