Chapter 8
TAKHISS
She’s brilliant.
And she’s driving me absolutely insane.
“This isn’t going to work,” I growl, tail lashing against the floor plating as she balances on a sparking conduit like she’s part of the circuitry. “We’re bleeding oxygen. You can’t reroute from this sector—it’s barely holding together.”
“Maybe not to your standards,” Ella shoots back, half-crouched in the crawlspace, elbow-deep in what used to be a navigation relay.
Her hair’s wild, her cheeks streaked with soot, and there’s a cut on her lip she hasn’t even noticed.
“But unless you’ve got another solution, reptile, maybe shut up and hand me the red wire. ”
I hold the wire out—reluctantly.
She snatches it, then flashes a smirk like she’s won something. And maybe she has.
She ties the wire with her teeth. Her teeth. Who the hell does that?
“You're gonna electrocute yourself,” I mutter, folding my arms and glaring down at her from my full height. “And I’m not in the mood to peel you off the wall again.”
“Then maybe stop standing there like a judgmental space gargoyle and help,” she says, twisting the wire into the socket like she’s done it a thousand times.
The console lights flicker once—then stabilize. Low hum. Green indicators. Life support node online.
I blink.
She leans back on her heels, breathing hard, her eyes flicking up to meet mine. “Told you,” she mutters. But her voice is softer now. Tired. “Every second matters. You want us to live or not?”
I do. Stars, I do.
I'd tear out my own heart to keep hers beating. And that terrifies me.
Because she doesn’t know that.
And I don’t know how the hell to tell her.
We move through the remains of the ship together. Like wolves stalking a dead forest—quiet, alert, always aware the ground could vanish beneath our feet. The closer we drift toward the singularity’s edge, the more space starts to come apart.
Physics doesn’t make sense here.
The stars outside the half-shattered viewports twist into spirals and halos, bending light around invisible curves.
Ella calls them “gravitational lensing effects.” I just call them wrong.
The universe shouldn't look like this. There’s a sound to it too—something just at the edge of hearing, like a thousand voices whispering across broken time.
“You ever see something like this before?” she asks, breath fogging in the chilled air as we crawl through a half-collapsed corridor.
“No,” I admit. “This is... unnatural. The singularity is growing. We’re trapped in the drag.”
She nods grimly. “Best case? Week. Maybe. If we keep patching oxygen and stay away from breached hull sections.”
“And worst case?”
She gives me a hollow smile. “Take a guess.”
We try to extend our range. Reconnect surviving life support cells. She maps out a plan using a torn-up medsheet and a stylus jammed between her fingers. I follow her without question—her brain runs faster than a command server on overdrive.
But in the fifth corridor, things go wrong.
A power cell we thought was dead? Not dead.
And worse—it’s plugged into a still-active security node.
We hear it a second too late. The shriek of servos. The thud of armored feet. The red-eye glow of an autonomous security bot lurching out of the smoke like some metal god of retribution.
“MOVE!” I bellow, throwing myself between it and Ella as the thing swings a blade-arm at chest height.
Steel meets scale. I absorb the hit, wrench the thing’s shoulder joint apart with a roar—but it’s fast, and I’m already bleeding. The bot spins, targeting Ella.
She’s quick.
But not quick enough.
The blade arcs down, and she screams—sharp and human and too real—as the weapon slices across her thigh.
Rage detonates inside me.
I slam the bot into the bulkhead hard enough to shatter its optical casing. It claws at me—sparks fly—and I crush its core with both hands. The shriek cuts off. The bot crumples.
Silence.
Ella’s down.
I’m at her side before the sparks finish falling, hands bloody, heart hammering.
“Don’t touch it!” she gasps, breath shallow, fingers clutching at the torn edge of her leg. Blood’s pouring from the gash.
“You need pressure on the wound,” I say, scooping her into my arms.
She winces, trying to push me away. “I can walk—”
“No you can’t,” I growl. “Shut up and let me carry you.”
She glares at me, eyes glassy with pain. But she doesn’t fight.
Her hands clutch my armor as I run.
The medbay’s half-collapsed, a tangle of shattered cabinets and overturned gurneys. I kick open the door, snatch a dermal patch from the wreckage, and slap it over the bleeding wound. The seal hisses. The wound knits a little—but not fully. She needs rest. Fluids. Painkillers.
“You’re an idiot,” she mutters, voice muffled by my chest. “You didn’t even check if the thing had backup power. You just went in like a juggernaut on steroids.”
“You’d rather I waited?” I ask, still holding her close. “Let it finish slicing you open?”
She doesn’t answer. Just... press her forehead against me.
And leaves it there.
Her fingers curl in the fabric near my collarbone.
She doesn’t let go.
I don’t want her to.
We stay there for a while.
I cradle her like something precious. She rests against me, silent except for the hitch in her breath. I can feel her heartbeat slow. Feel the tension bleed out of her spine.
Her scent fills the small room—salt and blood and her. It drowns out the sharp sting of antiseptic and scorched metal. I let it pull me under.
“You saved me,” she says eventually.
“You’d have done the same.”
She doesn’t respond. But her hand shifts, fingertips grazing the edge of my jaw.
“I’m tired of this,” she says softly. “Tired of running. Fighting. Always pretending I’m okay.”
“You don’t have to pretend with me.”
She looks up at me.
For a moment, there’s nothing between us but breath.
I want to kiss her. Gods, I want to press my mouth to hers and taste the heat she hides behind that sharp tongue. I want to tell her she’s mine. That she’s always been mine.
But I don’t.
Not yet.
She needs safety. Shelter. Healing.
So instead, I adjust her gently against me and say, “Sleep. I’ll keep watch.”
And for the first time, she lets herself rest in my arms.