And Vakutans don’t lose.
CHAPTER 5
ALAINA
The first thing I notice is the cold.
Not the air—it’s always cold in the storage room. The cooling system back here’s half-broken, so it either freezes or bakes you alive depending on which fuse wants to act up.
No, the cold’s inside me. A hollow sort of chill that creeps into my stomach and settles behind my ribs.
Because I’m alone.
The far wall’s still damp with the heat of our bodies. My shirt’s buttoned wrong. One of my boots is tipped on its side near the stacked crates of powdered meat substitute, and the sour-sweet stink of industrial cleaner and synthetic whiskey clings to the space like regret.
But he’s gone.
Not a note or a goodbye. Just vanished like smoke.
And that’s fine.
It’sfine.
I drag myself upright, spine stiff from the metal floor and a thousand little decisions I don’t want to analyze too closely. My thighs ache in that way that’s part satisfaction, part self-recrimination. I smooth down my clothes and try not to think about how warm his scales were. How his breath hitched when Iwhispered his name. How, in that final second before he kissed me, it almost looked like hefeltsomething.
Dumb.
Vakutans don’t feel. They fight. They take. They leave.
Iknewthis.
Still hurts, though.
I step out into the bar like nothing happened. Just another bartender finishing her break. Jorla’s swearing at the keg pressure line again. Someone in the corner booth is snoring loud enough to rattle glasses.
Everything’s normal.
Except me.
The shift blurs by in clinks and clatters. I scrub the counter like it insulted my ancestors. Every time I pass that back hallway, I catch myself glancing toward the storage door. Hoping. Dreading.
He doesn’t come back.
And I keep telling myself that’s good.
“Rough night?” Jorla asks as we’re locking up. Her lekku twitch with curiosity.
I force a grin. “Rougher morning.”
She snorts and tosses me a cleaning rag. “Go home before you start talking in riddles.”
I do.
I go home. I strip. I shower until the water runs cold and my fingers wrinkle. I wrap myself in a blanket and sit on the floor, knees to my chest, staring at the one framed photo I keep—my mom, younger than I am now, grinning wide with her arm slung around a man I never met.
And I don’t cry.
Because crying is pointless.
