Chapter 93 Aaron
Aaron
Location: Same
Time: Morning
Delta Five is already peeling off.
No ceremony.
No debrief circle.
No lingering.
That’s how it always is.
They arrive like a storm—
and leave like it never happened.
Cal gives me a nod on his way out.
Respect.
Acknowledgment.
No words needed.
Jase claps my shoulder as he passes, grin already back in place.
“Try not to start any more wars without us.”
There’s humor in it.
But also truth.
Ethan—
Ethan is just… gone.
One second there.
The next—
absence.
Like he was never part of the room at all.
Lance pauses in front of Lark.
For once, he doesn’t have a clever line.
Just something quieter.
More real.
He takes her hand, shaking it once, firmly.
Like she didn’t just outplay a man who thought he controlled the world—
Like she rewrote the rules that world runs on.
Then he steps back.
And just like that—
they’re gone.
The space feels bigger without them.
Quieter.
Heavier.
Ronan stays.
Of course he does.
He’s standing near the screens, watching the fallout ripple outward in real time.
News feeds.
Government statements.
Emergency sessions.
All of it unraveling.
“They’re going to dismantle half of Europe’s oversight architecture,” he says. “And that’s just the beginning.”
He doesn’t sound surprised.
Just… observant.
Lark sits beside me on the couch, wrapped in a blanket like she just remembered she has a body.
Like the adrenaline finally let go—
and left her with everything underneath it.
“You okay?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer right away.
She thinks.
Because she always does.
Then—
“Yes,” she says.
A pause.
“But I’m going to be… different.”
I nod slowly.
Because I already know that.
Because I can feel it in myself, too.
“So am I,” I say.
She turns her head, studying me.
Not questioning.
Measuring.
Understanding.
“Good.”
And somehow—
that word feels like the beginning of something.
Not the end.