Chapter 18 #3
"Sit," she ordered, steering me toward one of the seats with a firmness that left no room for argument.
I wanted to argue anyway. I wanted to get us moving, to put distance between us and the Ulkommenians, to be useful instead of broken.
But my body had stopped consulting me. The adrenaline was draining away, and what it left behind was something I didn't have a word for yet—a specific kind of exhaustion that went deeper than muscle or bone.
I sat.
She pulled a compact medi-unit from a nearby cabinet, her movements quick and practiced, and activated it with the easy familiarity of someone who'd used one too many times.
The soft light it cast made the angles of her face look less sharp, the tension around her mouth slightly less severe.
She started scanning my injuries with focused, methodical efficiency, and I watched her instead of watching the readout.
"This is going to hurt," she said, positioning the unit over my shoulder.
It did. Sharp and searing as the device cauterized and sealed tissue, knitting flesh back together in a process that felt less like healing and more like controlled punishment.
I kept my eyes on her face throughout it.
The furrow between her brows. The small, determined set of her mouth.
The way she caught her lower lip between her teeth when she concentrated on something that mattered to her.
She had fought beside me tonight without hesitation. When her weapon ran dry, she'd used her hands. She'd refused to let me face them alone, and I hadn't been able to talk her out of it, and somewhere in the middle of watching her take down three Ulkommenians in under a minute, I'd stopped trying.
"Niki," I said quietly.
She glanced up from the medi-unit, meeting my eyes.
I didn't know yet how to say the thing I meant.
The words for it felt too large for what I'd managed to reclaim of myself, like reaching for something on a shelf I wasn't sure I could trust to hold my weight.
But I knew what was true. I knew that when I'd watched those soldiers close in on her tonight, something in my chest had gone very still and very certain in a way that had nothing to do with the fighting.
"I don't know how to be without you," I said. The words came out rougher than I intended, honest in the clumsy way that things are honest when you haven't rehearsed them. "I don't remember everything yet. There are still pieces missing. But I know that." I held her gaze. "I know that clearly."
She was quiet for a moment, something moving through her expression that I couldn't fully name. Her hand, still holding the medi-unit, stilled against my side.
"Yeah," she said finally, her voice soft. "I know that too." She didn't look away. "You're not getting rid of me, Enslak. I need you to understand that."
It wasn't a declaration. It wasn't a promise dressed up in ceremony. It was just Niki, telling me the truth the same way she always told me the truth—straightforward and without performance.
It landed harder than anything else could have.
"Good," I said.
The corner of her mouth curved, not quite a smile but close. She turned back to my wounds and kept working, and I let her, and for a while the only sounds were the soft hum of the medi-unit and our breathing evening out in the quiet of the ship.
She kissed me, gentle and tender, her hand cupping my face. When she pulled back, she rested her forehead against mine for just a moment, and I felt that connection between us pulse and strengthen.
Then the proximity alarm shrieked.
We both jumped. Niki crossed to the viewport in three quick strides, her entire body going rigid.
"A shuttle," she breathed. "Alliance markings."
I moved to stand beside her, ignoring the fresh pain in my wounds, ignoring the way my vision swam. Through the viewport, I could see it descending—a sleek military vessel bearing the Bardaga insignia, its hull gleaming in Avalon's strange light.
"They found us," Niki whispered.
The shuttle touched down in the clearing beyond our ship, its hatch opening before the landing struts had fully extended. They must have been close, must have been searching. Their response time to the distress beacon was impossibly fast.
Soldiers filed out in formation. A dozen of them, all armed, all wearing full tactical gear. They moved with precision, fanning out to secure the perimeter, checking the bodies scattered across the clearing.
But it was the figure who emerged last that made my breath catch.
Charick.
My brother.
Even from this distance, I knew him instantly. The way he moved, the set of his shoulders, the commanding presence that had always made him seem larger than life. He stood taller than the soldiers around him, his tan pelt gleaming in the filtered sunlight breaking through the canopy.
"That's my brother," I said quietly. "That's Charick."
Niki's hand found mine, squeezing tight. "Are you ready for this?"
Was I? Ready to face my brother after a century of captivity, after becoming something I barely recognized? Ready to see the judgment in his eyes when I explained why I'd run, why I'd defied the family's decision?
"No," I admitted. "But we don't have a choice."