Page 132 of Reaper Said Mine

“Did you want it?” I ask.

“The title?”

“The weight.”

He gives a low, humorless laugh. “No one sane wants weight. They want power and discover too late what holds it down.”

“That sounds like something Skahar would say.”

“It is. I hated it when he said it.”

“You hate a lot of accurate things.”

His mouth curves. “And yet I keep you near.”

The warmth that moves through me is dangerous and immediate. I look down at the remains of the stew bread because the floor is suddenly fascinating.

He notices, of course. “You are blushing again.”

“I am recovering from a head injury.”

“Your head injury colors your cheeks?”

“It is very advanced.”

“I should ask the medic.”

“I will deny everything.”

His laughter is soft this time, built for the corridor rather than command. It winds through me and finds places I have kept cold on purpose.

At the end of the memory corridor, a small observation alcove opens over the refugee district we saw earlier. From here, the stacked housing modules glow like constellations trapped inside metal. I can see people moving across bridges, carrying water, laundry, food, tools, children. Life happening in patched layers. Not heroic. Not clean. Not easily packaged into a segment Dawson would understand.

Gnash leans against the rail, his shoulder nearly brushing mine. “Now you.”

I glance at him. “Now me what?”

“I have shown you my ghosts.”

My chest tightens. “That doesn’t obligate me to parade mine out.”

“No.”

He says nothing else, which is unfairly effective. He does not demand. He does not coax. He simply leaves the truth between us and lets me decide whether to touch it.

I look down at the district lights. “Horus IV was ugly before it became famous.”

Gnash remains still.

“It was a colony town with bad drainage, decent schools, and too many arguments about whether the new transit spine would ruin local businesses. Nobody outside the system cared about us unless they needed a quote about frontier resilience or a backdrop for military investment. My mother worked relief logistics. My father repaired agricultural drones. We had a neighbor who made terrible plum wine and gave it to everyone anyway because he believed persistence would eventually become skill.”

My throat tightens, but I keep going.

“When the fighting reached us, the official feeds said there were limited engagements near strategic assets. That phrase still makes me want to throw things. Strategic assets. As if the bakery, the school, the clinic, and my friend Lina’s apartment building were pieces on a board instead of places where people kept shoes by the door.”

Gnash’s hand closes slowly around the rail. “You streamed it.”

“I didn’t understand what I was doing at first. I thought if people saw us, someone would come. My mother told me to keep recording. She said witnesses mattered.”