Chapter 8
ROJA
I’ve never been good at softness. Hell, I barely know what to do with silence unless it’s tactical. But now I find myself drifting back to that place—the Coil—like some damn tide I can't fight. Maybe I don’t want to.
I show up again after her shift.
I don’t ask.
I don’t plan it.
I just find myself walking the slick streets beneath jaundiced neon, weaving past idling delivery drones and yawning storefronts until the Coil rises up in front of me like it was waiting. Like she was.
Her set’s just ended. The music inside still pulses faintly, a residual heartbeat left behind after the performance has died.
I catch a glimpse of her through the crowd, sweat-slicked skin glowing under low lights, her chest rising and falling like she just danced out the last of her soul.
She sees me this time—eyes catching mine through the bodies and haze.
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t smile.
But she walks. Through the corridor. Up the narrow stairwell.
And I follow.
Her door creaks open like it remembers me. She steps inside without turning around, and I close it behind us, letting the dim light cradle us both. It smells like warm skin and dust and something sweet—spiced oil, maybe. Her perfume.
She still doesn’t speak.
She turns to face me and leans back against the wall, lips parted, pupils wide. The curve of her collarbone gleams under the single overhead lamp. Her fingers flex at her sides like she’s bracing for impact or aching for contact—maybe both.
My boots are heavy on the floor as I step closer.
She watches me. All fire, no fear.
We’re a breath apart when I pause. I raise one hand, brushing her jaw with the backs of my fingers, dragging them down to the hollow of her throat. Her breath catches—not soft, but sharp, electric.
Still, she says nothing.
I give her a beat. Two.
She doesn’t say no.
She surges forward.
Her mouth hits mine with force, teeth catching my lip, tongue hot and demanding. She’s all hunger, all need, and I meet her there, gripping her hips hard enough to bruise. She pulls at my jacket like it offends her, like it’s standing between us and what we both came here for.
She yanks me toward the bed, stumbling backward. Her laugh is low, wicked, barely sound at all, and it stokes something sharp in my gut.
Clothes hit the floor in quick succession—boots thudding, fabric tearing, a curse whispered into the space between us. My belt clatters against the wood floor as her hands slide up my torso, nails grazing scars and old breaks, mapping me like territory she intends to mark.
And mark me she does.
When I lift her, she wraps around me without hesitation, thighs clamping tight around my waist. I press her back to the wall, and she bites my shoulder through the cotton of my shirt. The sting of it rips a sound from me—feral, low.
I don’t wait.
The bed protests as I drop her onto it, crawling over her like gravity’s been reversed. Her legs part beneath me, her arms wrapping around my neck as I sink into her. She gasps—sharp and guttural—and the sound nearly undoes me.
There’s no finesse to this. No ceremony. Just heat, sweat, and the deep thrum of something we don’t have words for.
She bites me again when I grab her hips, harder this time, and I welcome the pain.
Return it. I leave marks on her—fingertips seared into skin, the arc of my teeth at the base of her throat.
She rakes her nails down my back and I hiss against her shoulder, driving harder, deeper, until she cries out against my neck.
Still no words.
Just fire.
We move like we’re trying to undo each other.
Like everything we’ve been hiding—fear, longing, control—is crashing down all at once.
I kiss her because I have to. Because not kissing her would feel more dangerous than anything else.
Her mouth tastes like salt and sweat and something sweeter underneath.
Something I haven’t earned yet but want anyway.
She arches beneath me, pulls me down, and we come undone together—loud, ragged, desperate.
And then it’s quiet again.
We’re both breathing hard, skin flushed and slick, limbs tangled in the center of her narrow bed. She turns her face toward me, eyes half-lidded but watching, always watching. Her fingers trace slow lines along my ribs like she’s memorizing the aftershocks.
I can’t speak. I don’t want to break the spell.
But something’s shifted. Something deeper than lust.
Something permanent.
And terrifying.
And inevitable.
“You gonna disappear again?”
Her voice breaks the silence between us like a crack in the glass—sharp, unexpected, and full of something brittle underneath. I don’t flinch, but it cuts all the same.
I’m standing by the tiny window in her room, still half-dressed, cooling off in the thick night air. Her bed creaks when she shifts behind me, but I don’t turn. The streetlight outside flickers in that annoying rhythm I’ve come to know too well, throwing shadows that twitch across the walls.
“I’m not planning on it,” I say, slow and flat.
It’s the truth. As much of it as I can give.
She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t push. Just pulls the sheet tighter over herself and stares at the ceiling like it might offer her something I won’t. Can’t. Won’t.
I sit on the edge of the bed, my back to her, elbows on my knees, hands knotted. The air between us is too full. Too warm. I breathe through it like I would fog on a kill job—measured, controlled.
She doesn’t ask for more. I don’t offer it.
But I don’t leave.
That should mean something, I guess.
She doesn’t ask me to stay. Doesn’t shift to make space. But I fold down onto the mattress beside her like it’s the only place left in the goddamn system I trust not to explode beneath my feet.
We lie there for what feels like hours. She turns to the wall, spine tight like a wire, legs drawn up. I stay flat on my back, arms crossed over my chest like I’m in a coffin, staring at the ceiling while the city hums outside.
Her breathing stays shallow. Awake. I know she’s not sleeping.
Neither am I.
The bed is too soft. The quiet too loud. I don’t know what to do with myself in stillness like this—no mission, no weapons, no clear enemy except the mess inside my own damn chest.
And her.
Always her.
I fall asleep sometime near dawn, maybe. Or I blink too long and dream with my eyes open.
But when I wake, it’s to light sneaking through the blinds and the sound of nothing. No footsteps. No whisper of her breath beside me.
She’s gone.
I sit up fast—old habits, bone-deep—and look around. Her coat’s missing. Her boots too. But the room’s untouched otherwise. Calm.
Then I see it.
The scarf.
Folded.
Neatly.
Set on the back of the chair like some kind of goddamn offering.
I stare at it for a long time, jaw tight, throat dry. I don’t touch it.
I shower. Dress. Leave without a word.
That night of the same day after dawn when she left me, I return with food.
No excuses.
No flowers or sentimental bullshit.
Just two steaming containers from the best synth vendor three blocks over—real spice, rich oil, the kind of heat that burns in your sinuses and reminds you you’re alive. I’m not trying to charm her. I just know what she likes.
She’s already home when I knock.
Doesn’t speak when she opens the door. Just looks at the food, then at me, and steps aside.
The scent of sweat and stage oil still clings to her. Her makeup’s half-smudged, eyeliner bleeding into shadow, but her mouth is firm, and her eyes are clear.
“You didn’t have to,” she says.
I shrug. “I was hungry.”
She lets it slide.
We sit on the floor with the food between us, cross-legged like we’re pretending this is casual. Normal. We don’t talk much—just eat. I pass her a container of chili noodles. She hands me a drink without asking. There’s comfort in that—small, unsaid things.
Her knee brushes mine when she leans for another bite, and I don’t move.
When we finish, she leans back on her palms and exhales slowly.
“I don’t do this,” she says, not looking at me.
I arch a brow. “Eat?”
She flicks her gaze sideways. “Let people stay.”
That makes something inside me twist. Not guilt. Not quite. Just awareness. The slow, creeping weight of consequence.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “Me neither.”
We’re quiet again. But it’s not the same kind of silence as before. This one has shape. Texture. It doesn’t feel like it’s swallowing us whole. Just... hanging around.
I lean back beside her, our shoulders barely touching. She doesn’t pull away.
Outside, the street murmurs on.
Inside, we just breathe.
And for the first time in longer than I care to admit, it doesn’t feel like the whole galaxy’s trying to rip itself apart.