Chapter 5
LUNA
The light from the hallway flickers just once, casting long shadows across the tiny room I call a home.
I sit on the floor beside Solie’s cot, my back pressed against the cool plascrete wall.
She’s sound asleep, tiny breaths slow and steady, rising and falling beneath the frayed thermal blanket that’s seen too many washes and too few replacements.
Her arm’s flung out across the mattress like a sunbeam, golden skin catching the soft light. My heart clenches when I see it again—that thin trail of shimmering scales, no bigger than my pinky, coiled over the curve of her forearm like an accident of biology that refuses to hide.
I reach out and brush her hair gently from her cheek. She stirs, but doesn’t wake.
“Shh, baby,” I whisper, voice thick and low, “Mama’s here.”
My fingers hesitate over that scaly patch. They’re smooth to the touch—almost silky—but I can feel the faint heat beneath them. It’s the same warmth I used to feel against my skin when he held me.
Kraj.
Gods help me.
I press a hand over my mouth to keep from making a sound, heart thundering like a war drum.
It’s not fair.
I’ve worked so hard to keep our lives small, safe, invisible. I left everything behind—my job, my status, my name, the very system I helped prop up for years—just to give her a chance. A quiet life. A normal one.
And then he shows up. Tall as sin and twice as dangerous, standing there at my office window like a nightmare in broad daylight.
I told myself he was gone forever.
I needed him to be gone forever.
I don’t sleep that night. I just sit there in the dark, watching Solie dream. Her mouth twitches, a tiny giggle escaping her lips. She always dreams happy things. She’s still innocent enough to believe the world is soft.
I can’t let her know it isn’t.
When morning finally comes, I pull myself together the way I always do.
Quick shower. Protein bar. Half a cup of cold coffee from the night before, because there’s no time to make a fresh pot.
I slide into my uniform, tug my hair into a tight braid, and slap a smile on my face that doesn’t reach my eyes.
Solie’s still half-asleep when I get her dressed, mumbling about dreams where she could fly.
“I had wings, Mama,” she says, rubbing her eyes. “Like yours.”
I freeze.
She doesn’t notice. She’s already skipping off toward the door.
Work is hell.
The datapad in my hands might as well be a brick, my fingers trembling too much to hit the freight confirm fields properly. I’ve uploaded the same manifest three times already, and every time the server pings back a reject code.
The air in the command center feels stale and heavy. Dust glints in the morning light, swirling in the beams that cut through the dirty glass.
Every time the front access door hisses open, I flinch.
Every silhouette that approaches the walk-up window makes my stomach churn.
But none of them are Kraj.
Grinna leans over my console mid-shift, her voice sticky with mischief. “That tall drink of scales from yesterday,” she says, nudging me with an elbow. “He yours?”
My throat tightens. “What?”
“That big guy. The one who was sniffin’ around the front kiosk, all smooth and smirking. Saw him watchin’ you like a wolf at a butcher’s window.”
I force a laugh that doesn’t sound anything like me.
“He’s no one,” I say.
“Shame,” Grinna mutters. “That ain’t how he looked at you.”
I slam the pad down harder than I need to. “He’s no one,” I repeat, sharp now.
Grinna holds up her hands, backing off. “Alright, alright. Sheesh.”
I’m unraveling.
Piece by piece.
Because the truth is—he’s not no one.
He’s the father of my child.
He’s the man who shattered my life with one lie.
And gods help me, he’s the only person I’ve ever loved so deep it still echoes.
The worst part is… when he looked at me through that window, something inside me cracked. Not just from rage or fear—but from longing.
That damned smile. That soft voice that used to murmur promises against my neck at night. That heat I never felt with anyone else.
He stood there like a wound that never healed.
And for one second—just one stupid, traitorous second—I wanted to open that window back up and climb through it.
By the end of my shift, I’m done pretending.
I leave early, muttering something about Solie being sick. Grinna gives me a knowing look, but doesn’t say anything. The tram ride home feels too short, the windows too narrow, like I’m being carried straight toward a verdict I’m not ready to hear.
Solie greets me at the door with crayon drawings and a kiss on the cheek.
My hands shake as I unlock the storage box under the floorboard, the metal scraping like guilt against my nerves.
Inside is the compad.
The one I swore I’d never touch.
The one he left me—back when I thought I still mattered to him.
I sit on the floor with it in my lap, the screen cold and blank until I activate the retinal scanner. The file is still there.
Still encrypted.
But the Coalition’s coding hasn’t aged well. I can read some of it now.
Enough to know he wasn’t who he said he was.
To know I wasn’t his lover—I was his mark.
Words leap out like knives:
INFILTRATION DIRECTIVE...
TARGET: DESMOND, LUNA
ACCESS LEVEL: PRIVATE…
LIQUIDATING LOOSE ENDS…
My hands go numb.
There’s more. A lot more. But the encryption holds on tight.
And maybe that’s a mercy.
I slam the pad shut and press it to my chest, curling in on myself like a child.
He used me. Lied to me. Gave me Solie.
And still… I love him.
What does that make me?
The sky’s bleeding again.
That’s what I always think when Arkosh’s twin suns dip toward the jagged horizon, bleeding out into this burnt-orange smear across the atmosphere like an open wound.
The clouds hang heavy, tinged copper and violet, shadows stretching long and strange over the cracked walkways that line the outer dome of Wildwood.
Even the air smells different this time of day—sour ozone, dust, and the faint spice of hoverfuel from the evening convoy returns.
I keep my eyes down as I walk. I don’t want to see anyone. Don’t want anyone seeing me.
It’s been three days since I opened that file. Since I saw the word infiltration. Since I tasted bile rising in my throat like acid and couldn’t make it stop. Three days since I told myself I wouldn’t cry over Kraj anymore.
But here I am, still dragging my heart behind me like a broken hovercart.
The path home winds through one of the side alleys, the kind lined with too many recycle bins and not enough light. I take the shortcut every day, but today I pause at the end of it. My eyes catch a flash of color—a shape—on the stoop outside my apartment.
I stop.
Stare.
A bouquet.
Just sitting there. Leaning casually against the metal doorframe like it belongs.
They’re desert blooms—resilient little bastards that grow between the cracks of old refinery lines and abandoned shuttle yards. Wild colors. Red and yellow with scorched-black tips, soft petals folded like little fists. Some still dusted with powdery grit. No ribbon, no note.
Just the flowers.
My throat closes.
I know who left them.
Of course I know.
I shouldn’t feel anything. Shouldn’t feel this tight flutter in my chest or the way my breath hitches like a skipped record. I shouldn’t think it’s sweet. Or sad. Or beautiful.
But gods help me—I do.
I scoop them up with shaking hands and glance down the street.
No one’s there.
No shadow lurking behind the auto-cleaner depot. No hulking figure in the alleyway like a bad memory made flesh.
But I still feel him. Like heat on the back of my neck.
Once inside, I set the bouquet on the kitchen counter like it might explode. Solie’s at the neighbor’s overnight—Grinna’s idea of helping out a “single mama in distress,” though she’d never say it out loud. I love her for it.
I stand there for a long time.
Just staring at those flowers.
Then I curse under my breath, pull out an empty canister from the cupboard, fill it with tap water, and set the bouquet inside like it matters.
Like it means something.
That night, I dream.
Not about war or loss. Not about secrets and shadow files and men who vanish into smoke.
I dream about the first time.
I’m back in my old quarters on the orbital station above Valtar’s Reach.
The air smells like recycled citrus and too-strong antiseptic.
Kraj’s sitting on the edge of my bunk, massive frame hunched so he doesn’t hit the ceiling.
His claws fidget with the corner of my data pad, his yellow eyes glowing in the dim light like twin moons.
He’s nervous.
That surprises me. Nothing rattles him. He’s usually all confidence and snark, swagger and steel.
But not then.
He was quiet. Gentle. Like he thought one wrong move might make me bolt.
“You don’t have to stay,” I whispered.
He looked up at me, pupils wide, breathing slow. “I know.”
I stepped forward anyway.
And when he kissed me—it wasn’t fire and fury. It was soft. Deliberate. Like I was something sacred. His claws stayed curled, careful, his mouth warm and alien and real. He tasted like spice and smoke and something I still don’t have words for.
In the dream, I let him pull me into his lap. Let my hands trace the stripes down his ribs. Let myself feel safe in the arms of someone I should’ve never trusted.
I sit up in bed, trembling, the dream clinging to me like fog.
The room’s quiet. Too quiet.
I press a hand to my heart like I can calm it by force.
It doesn’t work.
I climb out of bed and cross the room barefoot. The metal floor’s cool under my soles. I open the closet without really thinking. My hands move on their own, digging past folded uniforms, old storage bins, and a moth-eaten coat I haven’t worn since Arkosh’s first cycle.
And then I find it.
The jacket.
Dark navy, synth-leather, cracked along the sleeves where time’s worn it thin. I lift it to my face and breathe in.
Faint.
Almost gone.
But it’s there.
That scent. Smoky, metallic, tinged with something wild and earthy. Not quite cologne—Kraj never wore any—but unmistakably him.
I press it to my chest.
Just for a minute.
Just to remember.
Then I pull it on over my sleep shirt, the sleeves too long, the shoulders too wide.
It swallows me whole.
But I don’t take it off.
I crawl back into bed, wrap the blanket around myself, and breathe slow. The jacket’s weight is comforting. Like armor. Like memory. Like something I never really let go of, even when I told myself I had.
I hate how good it feels.
How safe.