Chapter 26 Kelsea
KELSEA
Idon’t know why I came back here.
The casino looms in front of me like a carcass picked clean by time and fire.
The windows are blank-eyed, dark. Where once there was velvet heat and noise thick enough to drown in, there’s only silence now.
I step off the mag-line alone, heat from the tracks fading fast as I walk up the block.
My coat flaps in the wind like a loose sail.
This place used to thrum, used to pulse. Now it creaks when the wind moves through it—an old shipwreck swallowed by rust.
Ceera’s already there.
She’s leaned against one of the steel pylons out front, half-lit by the one working streetlamp. Long black coat. Boots that could stomp out a rebellion. Hair tied up like she’s bracing for war. Except her eyes—her eyes are soft.
“I thought you weren’t gonna come,” she says without looking up.
“I wasn’t sure.”
“Then why did you?”
I shrug. “Unfinished business.”
Ceera laughs, quiet. “That’s your answer for everything.”
We stand in silence for a minute. I don’t know what I expected. Not warmth, maybe not even words. But the quiet between us isn’t hostile. It’s lived-in. Familiar.
“They scrubbed the inside,” she says finally. “Every surface. Every drive. Coalition crews came in with scrubbers and sealants. No one’s been inside since.”
I stare at the place. The entrance still has the scuff marks from boots that ran—some away from the blast, some toward it. I wonder if the ash inside still holds our outlines.
“You coming to say goodbye to the building or to me?” she asks.
“Both.”
Ceera raises a brow, like she didn’t expect honesty.
I exhale slowly. “I’m tired.”
“Of me?”
“Of hiding. Of running. Of waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
She turns toward me fully, brows furrowed. “You thinking of settling down with that man of yours?”
“I don’t know what I’m thinking.”
Ceera chuckles. “Well, that’s new.”
I shoot her a sideways glare, but there’s no heat in it. “I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of everything going quiet. Of no longer being useful. Of turning into someone who has to learn how to be soft.”
Ceera’s face softens. “You already are, Kels. You just don’t wanna admit it.”
She kicks a rock off the step. It bounces and rolls into a drain. The sound echoes like a gunshot in the silence.
“You remember when we first met?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“You smiled like you’d kill me in my sleep.”
“You said that was what made you trust me.”
Ceera chuckles. “It was. You weren’t hiding it.”
We fall quiet again. Somewhere overhead, a drone zips past but doesn’t stop. Too fast, too disinterested. The world’s moved on.
Ceera sips her synth-coffee. “I’m leaving tonight.”
“I figured.”
“Got a contract on Coalition Core. Civil gate reconstruction. Nothing shady. Just numbers and welds.”
“Sounds boring.”
She laughs. “That’s the point. I want boring. For once.”
“Think they’ll let you live long enough to be bored?”
“That’s the gamble, isn’t it?”
I don’t know what to say to that. She’s never been good at long goodbyes. Neither have I.
“You ever wonder,” I say, voice low, “if we’re the lucky ones?”
Ceera’s eyes narrow. “Survivor’s guilt looks bad on you.”
“I don’t mean it like that. I mean... we made it out. But what the hell are we supposed to do with ‘out’?”
Ceera studies me for a beat, then tosses the empty coffee cup into a bin. “You make breakfast. You take hot showers. You sleep in the same bed more than once. You find someone who touches you without expecting you to bleed for it.”
“I have that now. Roja’s... steady. Gentle.”
“Then why do you still look like you’re waiting to be shot?”
I flinch.
Ceera steps closer. “You’re scared because you think love is a trick. Because nobody taught you how to rest. But you deserve soft things, Kelsea. You deserve warm hands and quiet mornings and meals that burn a little because you were too busy laughing to set a timer.”
I swallow hard. “You sound like him.”
“Maybe he’s right.”
I don’t know how to answer that.
She pulls something from her coat pocket. It’s a token. One of the old casino chips from before they went digital. The kind you carried for luck, not credits.
“I kept this,” she says. “Not sure why. Maybe as a reminder.”
“Of what?”
“That we made it out. And that maybe, just maybe, we can make something else.”
She presses it into my palm. I clutch it tight, the metal cool and familiar. It smells like dust and copper and old stories.
We stand there, shoulder to shoulder, staring at the ruin we once called home.
Then she reaches out and pulls me into a hug. No hesitation. No apology. Just arms and warmth and everything we never said.
“I forgive you,” I whisper.
Ceera’s voice is muffled. “Took you long enough.”
We pull apart. She’s misty-eyed but smiling.
“I’ll miss you,” I say.
“I’ll send encrypted postcards.”
“Ceera—”
She squeezes my arm. “Stop looking over your shoulder so damn much.”
I nod, lips trembling.
She turns and walks toward the shuttle port, coat flaring behind her like wings. I don’t follow. I just watch her go, hand curled around the token like it’s a promise.
And for the first time in a long damn while—I believe I’ll survive the stillness.