Chapter 27
ALAINA
The bed is cold.
Not chilly. Not lived-in. Cold like a morgue slab. Cold like gone.
My fingers claw at the sheets like they might still be warm, like they might still have the imprint of his weight sunk deep into the mattress, the outline of those shoulders, that bulk, those arms I stupidly let wrap around me without a backup plan.
“Troka?” I rasp, the word catching in my throat like a dry swallow.
Nothing.
I sit up too fast and the room spins, a kaleidoscope of secondhand furniture and half-folded laundry. My chest tightens like someone’s winding wire around my ribs. No. No no no no— not again.
I swing my legs out of bed, ignoring the sting in my knee when it catches the corner of the bedside trunk.
The apartment’s too quiet. The kind of quiet that’s not natural.
Not for a home with a baby. Not when there’s usually hums and whirs and muttered curses in a deep alien baritone about how the repurposed bottle sterilizer smells like fried chemicals.
“Caelix?” I call out, peeking toward the bassinet in the other room. Empty. Not recently empty—fresh. Bedding smooth. Stuffed scale-toy still propped just-so. No baby.
My heart stops. Then starts again, jackhammering against my breastbone.
“Troka, where the fuck are you?!”
I tear through the flat, barefoot and unbrushed and all nerves. Kitchen—empty. Living room—empty. Even the stupid corner of the hallway where he keeps dumping his boots instead of the rack? Empty.
No coat. No gear. No sound.
Just me.
And the ugly slap of realization.
I didn’t wake up to a kiss or a grunt or even one of his weird-ass protein shake smells. I woke up alone.
And he’s gone.
My knees hit the floor before I can think.
Just… stunned.
There’s a single object on the low-slung coffee table. Small. Matte-black. Square-edged.
A data chip.
I reach for it like it’s going to bite me. Like touching it might make this less real.
When the compad blinks awake, the chip auto-loads. No passcode. No password.
Just… a doc.
Titled:
“For Alaina. If You’re Reading This, I Couldn’t Do It Face-to-Face.”
My stomach churns like I’ve swallowed broken glass.
I click it.
And the list opens. All the tenderness, raw emotion, and vulnerability I couldn’t say aloud or even over tet.
At the bottom, there’s no sign-off. No “love, Troka.” No plea. Just one sentence.
“Wait for me. Please. I swear I’ll come back to you.”
And that’s it.
Just… silence.
And me.
Collapsed on the floor like someone just took out a structural beam in my chest.
My throat closes around a sob that has claws. I can’t stop it. It rips through me like a wildfire breaking containment. I shove the compad off the table and it clatters to the floor, skittering across the tile like it’s trying to get away from the sound of me coming undone.
“Damn you,” I whisper, choking. “You big, stupid, stubborn, beautiful asshole.”
He knew.
And still… he stayed.
Still played peekaboo with Caelix like his heart didn’t shatter a little more every time he looked into those golden eyes. Still fixed the cabinet hinges and replaced the diaper bin. Still kept showing up.
Even when I didn’t make it easy.
Even when I was cruel.
He never called me out.
Not once.
And the idiot still went and made a list.
I grab my compad and punch in the emergency contact. The one he gave me—his civilian handler post-discharge. A woman named Nira with the bedside manner of a sleep-deprived basilisk.
It rings twice.
“Nira Vonn, post-service integration command. Who’s bleeding?”
“Where’s Troka?” I demand, skipping every pleasantry.
There’s a pause.
“Southland?”
“You know damn well who this is.”
A sigh. Paper shuffle. “He said this might happen.”
“Then where is he?”
“He came in this morning asking for a leave-of-absence voucher,” she says, voice neutral like she’s reading a traffic report. “Said he needed to clear his head before he broke something. Or someone.”
The words land like cold bricks in my gut.
“Did he say where?”
“No. Just left this note for you.”
There’s a beep. File incoming.
I open it.
Alaina,
I didn’t leave because I don’t love you.
I left because I do.
I can’t keep standing in your doorway pretending I don’t hear you locking the door from the inside.
You said it wasn’t mine. But I never asked. Because it didn’t change how I felt.
I would’ve raised him even if he had six arms and purple scales and belonged to a rival bloodline.
But you didn’t trust me enough to let me in.
And that breaks something I don’t know how to fix.
So I’m giving you space.
Not running. Not quitting.
But I won’t play soldier at your emotional barricades anymore.
If you want me, come find me.
You know where I go when I don’t know who I am.
—T
I read it again.
Then again.
Until the words blur.