Chapter 15 Rynn
RYNN
The light sneaks in through the blinds like it knows it doesn’t belong here.
It cuts across my floor in long, golden stripes, glancing off the corner of the console, the crumpled shirt at the foot of the bed, the empty tea cup I never drank from. Everything feels… exposed. Like morning peeled back the safe layer of the night and left me naked in its wake.
Vael’s breathing is steady behind me. I hear it before I dare to turn. He’s awake. I can feel it. The weight of his stare presses between my shoulder blades like a brand.
I button my jacket slowly, fingers clumsy. It’s too quiet. The kind of quiet that means something’s coming.
“Rynn.”
One word.
I flinch.
“Don’t,” I mutter, still facing away. “Please, just—don’t start again.”
“You think we can ignore it? That I’ll just pretend it didn’t happen?”
“I’m not pretending. I’m managing.”
He rises from the bed. I hear the soft pad of his bare feet on the flooring. The rustle of fabric as he pulls on his shirt. I can almost map his path from sound alone. I’ve done it before.
“You kept her from me.”
I whip around. “I protected her.”
His jaw ticks. His eyes are too clear. Too focused.
“You think hiding her was protection?”
“I think raising a half-Vakutan child on a human colony station where the Alliance runs bio scans every time a kid sneezes is asking for trouble.”
“You think I would’ve put her in danger?”
“You didn’t exist, Vael!” I shout. “You were gone. Vanished. I thought you were dead, and then when you weren’t, you were… someone else. Some ghost in a uniform who didn’t remember me.”
“I remembered you.” His voice cracks. “Every damned second they pieced me back together, I remembered your laugh. Your voice. The way you looked at me like I wasn’t just a weapon.”
I press my hand to my mouth.
“I came back for you, Rynn.”
“No, you didn’t.”
That silences him.
I don’t even know if I believe it—but I say it anyway.
He steps forward. I step back.
“She knows me,” he says, low now. “Even if she doesn’t understand it yet. I saw those drawings.”
“You had no right to look through my things.”
“I had every right. She’s mine.”
“She’s not a possession,” I snap. “She’s a child. A person. And she doesn’t know you. She doesn’t need you confusing her world right now.”
“She needs the truth.”
“And the truth is dangerous.”
He moves fast, and suddenly his hand is pressed against the wall beside my head, caging me in. His face is inches from mine, eyes burning.
“You’re still afraid of me,” he says, almost a whisper.
“No.” I swallow hard. “I’m afraid of what happens because of you.”
“That some Alliance grunt puts two and two together and figures out your daughter has Vakutan strength and hybrid neural patterns?”
I freeze.
He sees it.
He’s not guessing. He knows.
“She threw something, didn’t she?”
“She’s a child, Vael.”
He leans back, arms folding.
“She’s more than that.”
“Don’t do this.”
“Rynn—”
“Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
“I missed five years. I won’t miss another five minutes.”
“Then you’ll get us both killed,” I hiss.
“You really think I can’t protect her?”
I laugh—a bitter, broken sound. “You couldn’t even protect yourself.”
That one lands. His face goes hard.
I regret it instantly.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
But he doesn’t soften. “No. You’re not.”
“I am,” I say again, louder. “I just… I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”
He watches me like he’s trying to memorize the shape of my fear.
“I never stopped loving you,” he says finally.
My eyes sting. “I know.”
He steps in close again, gently this time.
“And I will not be a shadow to my own child.”
I press my palm to his chest.
“And I will not hand her over to a man being tracked by Alliance intelligence, under medbay lockdown, who’s got a file thicker than a warship hull.”
He grabs my wrist.
“Then give me a reason. Give me anything that tells me this isn’t just fear talking.”
My voice cracks. “She’s just a little girl. She has a favorite spoon. She’s scared of the dark. She sings to the stars at night.”
His grip loosens.
“She’s not ready for you,” I say. “And you’re not ready for her.”
He lets go.
The silence between us turns brittle.
Then he speaks, quiet, but sharp: “Then you better get ready to lose control, Rynn. Because I’m done waiting.”
He turns, walks to the door.
Pauses.
“I won’t lose another cycle of her life because of your fear.”
And then he’s gone.
I don’t breathe for a full minute.
When I do, it’s shallow and painful.
Nessa’s face floats behind my eyes, wide and trusting.
She’s all that matters.
And Vael…
Vael’s the one thing I can’t afford to want.
Not anymore.
________________________________________________________________________
The message hits my terminal with a sharp ping that sounds louder than it should.
The subject line reads: Personnel Transfer Authorization – Field Deployment Request.
I don’t open it.
I don’t have to.
I already know.
Tarek.
That slippery bastard finally made his move.
I stare at the screen for a long time, fingers hovering over the console like maybe if I don’t touch it, it’ll vanish. Like maybe I’m hallucinating.
But it’s real.
And it’s immediate.
I shove away from the desk hard enough that my chair bumps the wall.
By the time I reach Vael’s medblock, my nerves are already vibrating. My boots hit the floor like war drums. The nurses scatter.
He’s sitting on the edge of the diagnostics table, shirt half-on, still sweaty from his last rehab session. One look at my face and he knows.
“What did he do?” Vael asks.
I slap the transfer notice down on the tray beside him. “Field command. Fast-track orders. Supposed to deploy with the Seventh Relief Unit on Rixor Three in forty-eight hours.”
His eyes narrow. “There’s no relief on Rixor Three. That zone’s a front.”
“I know.”
“He wants me gone.”
“He wants leverage,” I say. “Or maybe a corpse.”
Vael’s jaw clenches. His knuckles go white on the edge of the bed. “Coward.”
“Strategist,” I mutter. “The kind who cuts throats with smiles.”
He’s quiet for a long beat, eyes locked on the order.
Then he says, low and deliberate, “He’s trying to erase me again.”
“No,” I say. “This time he’s trying to force your hand.”
He exhales sharply. “Then let’s give him a ghost.”
My breath catches. “What?”
He stands fully, the loose shirt forgotten, the tension in his frame crackling like lightning under skin. “You said it yourself—he’s watching everything. Your logs. My reports. Surveillance footprints. We don’t need to fight him. We just need to vanish right in front of him.”
“You’re talking about going off-grid.”
“I’m talking about survival.”
I don’t answer right away. The air in the room feels thinner now. Heavier.
He turns toward me slowly, voice gentler now. “But before we do anything…”
I look up.
He’s close. Too close.
“I want a day.”
My pulse stutters.
“A day?” I echo.
“One day,” he says, his voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. “With her. No lies. No tech interference. No pretending I’m just some patient in your log.”
I can’t breathe.
“She deserves to know,” he says. “And I need to know her.”
I swallow hard. “Vael, if she sees you, really sees you, and then we vanish again—”
“I won’t let her be hurt.”
“And what if you get hurt?”
His smile is bitter. “That ship sailed five years ago.”
The silence that falls is thick. Oppressive.
“I’m not saying yes,” I whisper.
“But you’re not saying no,” he replies, eyes burning.
I hate him for that. For the way he always sees through me.
That night, I don’t sleep.
I sit in the dark of my living quarters, watching Nessa’s little body curled up under her lunar-patterned blanket, her favorite claw-toy tucked under her arm. Her breath whistles softly. Innocent. Oblivious.
And me?
I’m anything but.
I pick up the compad again.
Vael’s face glows in the feed request.
I almost don’t open it.
But I do.
He looks tired. Hollow. But steady.
“I’ll meet you at the cliff’s edge tomorrow. The one overlooking the vent fields. Drel says the air quality will be stable. You remember the spot.”
My heart thuds.
“I’ll wait,” he says. “Even if you don’t come.”
The feed ends.
The next morning, the sky above Corven-7 is a soft, stormy lavender. Nessa clutches my hand on the tram like she always does—tight, warm, humming to herself as the scenery blurs past.
She doesn’t know what today is.
She doesn’t know who’s waiting at the edge of the horizon.
And I don’t know who I am anymore.
A mother?
A coward?
A survivor?
Maybe all of them.
But today… maybe I can be something else.