Chapter 2
VAEL
Pain is the first thing I know.
Not the sharp, clean kind that comes with a wound. This is deeper. Twisted. A dull, dragging weight inside every joint, every tendon, every breath.
I try to move — and immediately regret it. My limbs feel wrong. Heavy. Not mine.
My eyes flutter open to harsh light and a white ceiling that hums just off-pitch. Too quiet. Too clean.
Not the battlefield.
Not the afterlife either. Unless the gods got a corporate sponsor.
A hiss of hydraulics triggers something old in my brain — instinct — and I lurch before I even register the movement.
The restraints bite down across my arms and legs.
Trapped.
A snarl tears from my throat before I can stop it.
“He’s waking,” says a voice. Calm. Flat. Male. Unfamiliar.
Another sound — softer. Steps. Lighter. Measured.
Her scent hits me before her voice.
I freeze.
No. No, it can’t be—
“Vital signs holding,” she says.
That voice.
Steady.
Clipped.
Controlled.
Too controlled.
“Dr. Sorala,” the man says. “He’s looking at you.”
I know that name.
I know that voice.
And I know that face.
I stare up at her through blurry vision and feel something in my chest tighten like a vice.
My body doesn’t know if it should fight or weep.
“Rynn,” I rasp. It tastes like blood.
She goes still. Just for a second. Barely a blink.
But I see it.
I feel it.
The way her shoulders tense, the breath she doesn’t take.
“It’s alright,” she lies, voice level. “You’re in a controlled facility. You’ve suffered neural and physical trauma. Try not to move.”
I ignore her.
“What the hell is this?” My voice is hoarse, rough. “Why you? Why here?”
“Commander—”
“Don’t,” I snap. “Don’t call me that.”
She swallows, just once. That jawline, still sharp. That little scar on her temple. Same as before.
“I watched you die,” I say.
“You nearly did.”
I shake my head, and it sends fire down my spine. “No. You died. At Luria.”
“I survived.” Her voice is quieter now.
“You ran.”
That lands. She flinches. Barely — but I’m trained to see movement, and hers screams guilt.
I remember the evac alarms, the flames, the ceiling caving in. I remember her hand in mine — and then empty air.
I remember waking up months later with my mind in pieces and her name on my lips.
“You left me,” I whisper.
“That wasn’t—” Her voice breaks off. She turns away, adjusts something on the console. Pretending to work. Hiding her face.
“You left me to die.”
“Stop,” she snaps, whirling back. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to blame me. You think I wanted any of this?”
“I don’t know what you wanted,” I growl. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”
Her expression shatters for a second. Then she’s all steel again.
“We’re not here to relive old ghosts,” she says. “You’re a patient. I’m your doctor. That’s all.”
Bullshit.
The air between us hums with all the things we’re not saying.
Her eyes are wet. She blinks too fast.
I breathe through my teeth. “You’re not just my doctor. Don’t insult either of us.”
She turns away. “I need to check your prosthetic interface.”
“Touch me, and I swear—”
“You’ll what? Break your own neck trying to stand?”
Her hands land on my arm — cool, clinical — but I flinch anyway.
The interface is new. Sleeker. Foreign. It responds, but sluggishly. The neural map isn’t synced yet. They did a rushed job. Which means they didn’t expect me to live long.
Which begs the question—
“Who sent me here?”
She doesn’t answer. Just keeps working, scanning the joint for damage.
“Rynn.”
Still nothing.
“Look at me.”
Her eyes meet mine — and suddenly I remember everything.
The first time I kissed her in the ruins of Kalveris.
The way she laughed when I taught her Vakutan cursing.
The night she told me she loved me, voice shaking like it was a war declaration.
“I thought you were dead,” I say again. Quieter. No rage. Just ache.
She shakes her head, eyes glassy. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“It does to me.”
She doesn’t respond.
Instead, she checks my vitals, records something in a datapad. Pretending I’m not here.
I let her.
For now.
But even as the sedative haze tugs at the edge of my mind, I catalog every twitch of her fingers. Every shift in her scent. The weight of her presence beside me.
She’s the same woman who broke me.
And the same woman I dreamed of every night for five years.
Something’s wrong here.
…
Sleep comes in fragments — jagged shards of nothing.
Every time I close my eyes, the same ghosts circle back.
Flames, smoke, the crush of collapsing metal.
And her voice — the one thing that ever made sense — calling my name through the static.
Then silence.
I wake to the sterile glow of medbay lights. Again.
Still trapped in this chrome coffin. Still half-machine, half-memory.
The machines hum beside me, soft and constant. The sound used to comfort me. Now it feels like a leash.
Everything does. The synthetic weight of my left arm. The dull ache where flesh meets alloy. The faint mechanical whine whenever I breathe too deep.
They rebuilt me. And yet somehow, I’m not sure they saved me.
I stare at the ceiling until I can’t anymore. Then I roll my head to the side.
Rynn’s there.
She thinks she’s quiet, but I’ve always been able to hear her.
The sound of her boots scuffing against the floor as she moves from console to console. The rustle of her sleeve when she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
Even the rhythm of her breathing — steady, too steady, like she’s counting each inhale just to keep her hands from shaking.
She’s working.
Pretending that’s all it is.
But I can smell her.
Under the antiseptic and sterile air — that scent I used to wake up to, faint citrus and heat.
It hits something primal. I swallow hard, trying not to let it show.
She’s changed.
Sharper now. More guarded. Her hair’s longer, darker at the roots. There’s a line between her brows that wasn’t there before — the kind carved by guilt or grief, maybe both.
I shouldn’t care.
I should focus on recovery, on figuring out who brought me here and why.
But she’s standing ten feet away and my entire body won’t stop remembering her.
The memory of her laugh — low, rough at the edges, always catching on the inhale.
The warmth of her hand on my neck when she wanted to calm me down after a fight.
The way she used to taste like rain and smoke.
I clench my fists until the joints creak.
She finally looks up.
Our eyes meet across the room, and for a second, she stops breathing.
Then she does what she’s been doing since the moment I woke up — hides behind that professional mask.
“Try to rest,” she says. Her voice is all surgeon, no softness. “Your neural links are stabilizing but you’re still in flux. Overexertion will slow regeneration.”
“Rest,” I echo. “You make it sound like an order.”
Her brow lifts. “Would you prefer I sedate you again?”
I almost grin. Almost. “You always did like getting the last word.”
She hesitates. Then, quietly: “That’s not true.”
The silence after that is heavy.
I let it hang there because I want her to feel it — the same suffocating weight pressing down on me.
“What happened to you?” I finally ask. “After Luria.”
She turns away. “It’s not important.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You’re avoiding.”
Her shoulders stiffen, the faint tremor in her voice betraying what her words don’t. “You were gone, Vael. Everyone was gone. The war ended, the Alliance cut its losses, and I—”
She stops. Her jaw tightens. “I moved on.”
The words hit like shrapnel.
I don’t let her see it.
“Moved on,” I repeat, voice low. “That simple.”
She looks at me then — really looks.
“Nothing about it was simple.”
There it is. That crack in her armor.
For a heartbeat, the woman I knew is right there — fierce, alive, trembling on the edge of confession.
Then she blinks, and she’s gone again.
I push myself upright, ignoring the protest from my ribs. “You could’ve told me you were alive.”
Her lips press into a line. “You could’ve stayed dead.”
That one lands clean.
I laugh — short, sharp, ugly. “You always did know how to hit below the armor.”
“Lie back, Vael.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“Then fix me.”
Her eyes flash. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”
I don’t think she means the physical kind.
Neither do I.
She steps closer, holding a scanner. The device hums as she waves it over my chest. Her hand is steady, but I can feel the tension radiating off her.
Every time the scanner passes over my skin, her scent wraps tighter around me.
“You’re running low on suppressants,” she murmurs.
“I don’t need them.”
“You’re running on adrenaline and stubbornness. That’s not the same thing.”
“Always lecturing.”
“Always ignoring me.”
“Not possible,” I say quietly.
That makes her flinch. The scanner stutters mid-pass.
“Rynn.”
“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t use my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you still have a right to.”
Her voice cracks at the end. Just enough to break something open in me.
“I thought you were gone,” I say, softer now. “I buried you in my head. Every mission after that was just noise.”
“You should’ve left me buried,” she whispers.
“Too late.”
She sets the scanner down too hard; the metal clatters. “You need rest.”
“What I need is the truth.”
“Not tonight.”
“When, then?”
She looks away. “When you’re strong enough to handle it.”
I almost tell her that nothing could hurt worse than not knowing.
But I see the exhaustion in her shoulders and stop myself.
She’s breaking in slow motion, and I’m too damn angry at the universe to let her fall apart. Not yet.
So I lean back against the cot, feigning compliance. “You always did like to control the pace.”
“Go to sleep, Vael.”
“Yes, doctor.”
Her mouth twitches — the ghost of a smile she doesn’t want to give me. Then she turns and walks toward the door.
I watch her go, every step measured, precise, deliberate.
She’s always been like that — calculating her exits.
The door slides open, spilling cold corridor light across the floor.
She hesitates on the threshold. Doesn’t look back. Just says, “Try not to rip anything open while I’m gone.”
“Can’t promise that,” I mutter.
The door closes.
I’m alone again.
The machines keep humming.
The sedatives kick in slow, dulling the edges of pain but not the ache behind my ribs.
That’s the one place they can’t reach. The part that still remembers her fingers tracing the scar on my chest, whispering that it made me human.
Now I’m half machine, and she looks at me like I’m a stranger.
Maybe I am.
I flex the new arm, watch the servos glide under my skin.
Whoever built this didn’t know Vakutan design — too polished, too silent. Ours are supposed to sound alive. The hum, the growl, the warning. This feels like a cage pretending to be a body.
But the pain’s manageable.
The silence isn’t.
I replay every second since I woke. The way her hand shook when she touched me. The way she looked at me like I was something between miracle and curse.
Something happened to her.
Something that scarred her deeper than the war ever could.
And I need to know what it is.
Not for revenge.
Not even for closure.
For understanding.
Because whatever she’s carrying — it’s heavy enough that she’s willing to lie to my face to keep it buried.
And I’ve lived my whole life tearing apart the things that hide in the dark.
So that’s what I’ll do.
I’ll heal. I’ll get my strength back. I’ll play the good soldier, the obedient patient.
And when the time’s right, I’ll find out what she’s hiding.
Even if it kills me.