Chapter 44
JAV
The clatter of trays and the chaos of ten hungry kids fills the Redscale orphanage’s dining room with its usual storm. Plates bang. Someone launches a roll like a warhead. There’s fruit paste on the ceiling from last week still drying out like abstract art.
And I’m here in the middle of it, trying to scrape sweetroot mash onto plates before the kids mutiny.
“I swear,” I mutter, wiping sweat from my brow, “y’all eat like you been starvin’ since Tuesday.”
One of the older girls grins up at me with her front teeth missing. “That’s ‘cause your food don’t taste like sand no more.”
“Flattery’ll get you seconds,” I shoot back, flicking a spoonful her way. She dodges it with a giggle, clutching her tray like treasure.
It’s loud. Sticky. Joyful.
And every second of it feels like an unfamiliar blessing I don’t deserve.
I’m still trying to figure out what this life means—me, with no orders to bark, no gun under the table, no enemies on my tail. Just children. And the quiet echo of who I used to be.
So when the front gate creaks open, I figure it’s Garkin, back with another crate of recycled toy parts.
But it’s not.
It’s her.
Kairo.
Walking straight through the courtyard, eyes steady, like she’s already made her mind up and the world better catch up.
My heart slams against my ribs.
She doesn’t say a word.
Just grabs an empty tray, scoops up a ladle, and stations herself beside me like it’s the most natural thing in the galaxy.
I don’t even breathe.
The kids go nuts.
“Miss Kairo!”
“Look! She’s here!”
“Did you bring dessert?”
“Is Ben with you?!”
She shakes her head, laughing softly, and starts helping with the plates like this is her kitchen. Her sleeves rolled, her hair loose, her hands careful but fast.
I can barely keep up.
“I thought—” I start.
“Don’t think,” she says, still not looking at me. “Just serve.”
And so I do.
With her beside me, shoulder to shoulder, wordless and steady, I serve.
The moon climbs higher by the time the kids are finally down.
A few demanded two bedtime stories. One tried to con me into a third by faking a nightmare—poorly. I played along, gave him my pillow, and told him the monster under his bed was unionized and wouldn’t work off-hours. He laughed himself to sleep.
Now, the halls are quiet. Lights low. The hum of the generator purring like a lullaby.
Kairo’s standing at the rooftop door when I get there.
She doesn’t turn when I step up beside her. Just hands me a stimcup, steaming with some kind of herbal mix. I take it.
The rooftop is open, flat, edges lined with old solar panels and potted moss walls that keep the wind down. It smells like rain and stone and the faintest memory of lavender from the garden beds two floors down.
She finally speaks.
“I used to think love was a choice you made once,” she says, voice soft. “You meet someone. You fall. You commit. That’s it.”
I nod. “Simple.”
“It’s not.”
“No.”
Kairo exhales slowly, looking up at the stars scattered like broken sugar across a dark velvet sky.
“Turns out love’s a choice you make every damn day. Every second. Even when it’s messy. Especially when it’s terrifying.”
I stay quiet. Let her talk.
“I hated you,” she says, almost like she’s apologizing to the sky. “For years, I hated you for leaving. For not choosing us. But then you did choose us, and I didn’t know what to do with that either.”
“You don’t owe me forgiveness,” I say, and I mean it.
She turns to me, eyes dark and wet.
“I don’t. But I owe myself peace. And Ben…”
She trails off, swallowing the lump in her throat.
“He thinks the sun rises because you tell it to.”
“That kid’s a terrible judge of character,” I joke.
Kairo laughs, but it’s thin. Fragile.
“I’m scared,” she says. “That if I let this be real… it’ll cost us something again. That we’ll lose more than we’ve already lost.”
I reach out, just gently brushing my knuckles against her hand.
“I can’t promise we won’t face more fights,” I say. “But I’m done bringing the war home. I’m out. Fully. For real.”
“You walked away from everything?”
“Walked?” I huff. “Kicked it over and salted the ground.”
She smiles.
It’s tired. But it’s real.
We sit down, side by side on the old maintenance bench at the edge of the roof. Our knees touch. My shoulder leans just barely into hers.
Neither of us speak for a long time.
Then she says it—quiet, unpolished, all heart.
“I still love you.”
My throat tightens.
I don’t say it back.
Not because I don’t feel it.
But because she already knows.
What I do say, voice rough:
“You’re it for me. Always were.”
Her fingers find mine. They’re cold. But they warm quickly, curled around mine like they never left.
We sit like that as the stars wheel above us.