If you want me, come find me.
You know where I go when I don’t know who I am.
—T
I read it again.
Then again.
Until the words blur.
CHAPTER 28
ALAINA
The silence is unbearable.
Not the sweet kind—the quiet after a baby falls asleep on your chest, or when rain ticks softly against the window. No. This is the ugly, suffocating kind. The kind that sinks teeth into your skin and makes every clock tick sound like a threat.
I sit at the bar, elbows braced on sticky laminate, pretending to count drink orders, but my compad’s screen hasn’t lit up in hours. I haven’t turned off notifications—I just haven’t gotten any.
Not from him.
Not since the note.
“You look like death microwaved twice,” Jorla mutters, slamming a mug down in front of me. “Drink. It’s got fruit in it. That makes it healthy.”
“I’m working.”
“No, honey,” she says, leveling a sharp look at me. “You’remoping.And you’re scaring the regulars.”
“Good. Maybe they’ll tip better out of pity.”
She snorts and leans her elbow beside mine. “You gonna tell me what happened, or do I need to start guessing wildly and involving Reapers?”
I shoot her a glare, but it’s weak. “He left.”
“Yeah? And?”
I blink. “Andthat’s it.He’s gone. Took Caelix with him. Left me a data chip like I’m some tragic footnote in a war journal.”
Jorla eyes me like I just farted in an airlock. “You’re leaving out a few dozen key details. Try again.”
I sigh. My hands scrub over my face. “It wasn’t like… abandonment. It was—ugh. It was more like—like a retreat. Like he’d been fighting to stay and finally hit the point where my bullshit outgunned him.”
“He’s the father. You know it. I know it. The kid’s horn nubs know it.”
Work becomes noise. Customers become shadows. Caelix’s laughter is the only thing that cuts through the fog.
I catch him chewing on the stupid plush frog Troka brought back from Xenthra IV and my heart caves in on itself like bad insulation.
Every little thing reminds me of him.
The extra-large cooking gloves he used because my mitts don’t fit his claws.
The bent kitchen stool where he’d sit too close just to touch knees.
The towel he hung on the back of the door that still smells like his body wash—spiced something and ozone and the weird salt-and-metal scent of Vakutan skin.
