“Yeah, well,” she shoots back, “you always show up in the middle of them, so maybe we’re both the problem.”
“Just my luck,” I mutter, dropping back down from the ledge once I’m satisfied we’re not about to get rushed again.
I land lighter than I expect, knees bending to absorb the impact, and I turn toward her fully for the first time since I got here.
She looks worse.
Not just surface-level worse.
Her stance is off, her weight favoring one side more than she’s letting on, and the blood along her ribs has dried in uneven streaks that tell me it hasn’t stopped completely. Her face is set, eyes sharp in that way she gets when she’s forcing herself to stay functional past the point she should’ve stopped.
“Now that we’re finally safe, or as safe as you can get in this desert…”
I rummage around inside of my pack and pull out a silver cylinder filled with a tiny amount of liquid.
“What’s that?” she asks suspiciously.
“Regnerative serum,” I reply. “It wil fix those ribs right up in mere seconds.”
“Oh, like a dermal regenerator?” she asks, eyes hopeful. ‘I’m functional but I’m in a lot of pain to be honest.”
I can’t help but wince, a white hot sympathy knife cutting through my belly.
“It’s better than a dermal regenerator, it will repair deep tissue as well,” I reply. “The Coalition cares more about its troops than the Alliance does, I suppose.”
“Less propaganda, more medical treatment,” she hisses through clenched teeth.
I stab the needle into her side, near the injury. Jolie gasps at the initial injection, but soon her eyes flutter closed and a relieved sigh goes through her.
“Thank you,” she says, touching her side gingerly, then harder when she realizes it’s almost completely healed. “That’s good stuff. What’s in it, nanintes?”
“Some, but the active ingredient is Grolgath plasma,” I reply.
“Grolgath…plasma?” she says, cocking an eyebrow.
“Indeed. Don’t tell me you object to having a little Grolgath inside of you.”
A grin flashes over her face.
“I wouldn’t say it’s just a little…”
Her grip lingers for a second before she lets go, and the contact stays longer than it should, something tightening in the space between us that has nothing to do with the situation.
The moment shifts before either of us names it.
It’s there in the way her grip tightens on my jacket—not for balance, not for stability, but for control. It’s there in the way she steps into me instead of away, closing the last fraction of distance like she’s done pretending it exists at all.
“You don’t get to disappear on me like that again,” she says, low, steady, but threaded with something that isn’t just anger anymore.
“Then don’t give me the option,” I answer, the words rougher than I intend, dragged out of somewhere deeper than strategy or control.
Her breath catches—not soft, not delicate, but sharp, like something inside her just snapped into alignment—and then she pulls me down to her.
The kiss hits hard.
Not tentative. Not exploratory. There’s nothing careful about it—her mouth crashes into mine with all the force she didn’t spend on words, all the heat she held back out here and refused to show. It’s anger and relief and something more dangerous braided together, and I meet it without hesitation, one hand sliding to her back as she presses closer, demanding more.
“You’re impossible,” she breathes against my mouth, but it’s not a complaint. Not anymore.
