Chapter 30
ALAINA
My compad buzzes against the counter like it’s pissed at me.
I’m wrist-deep in soap scum and mashed vegetable remains, trying to sanitize Caelix’s snack cups before he decides they’re weapons again, when it goes off.
I let it buzz twice. Three times. I already know who it is.
Only two people call me anymore—Jorla, and the hovercar dealership where Troka’s been playing salesperson like it’s an undercover war op.
I yank off the gloves and slap the answer key. “Yeah?”
“Ms. Southland?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Bren from Horizon Hover. Troka hasn’t shown up for three shifts.”
My breath hitches, but I keep my tone flat. “You call to make sure he’s alive or to fire him?”
A long pause. “...Both?”
“Great.” I rub my temple, biting down on a rising sense of panic that tastes like bile. “He’s not staying with me.”
“He listed your address as emergency contact.”
“Of course he did.”
Bren’s voice gets soft. “He was… off. The past few weeks. You know? Quieter. Sad eyes. Didn’t say much, but… the kind of silence that builds to something.”
Yeah.
I know that silence.
I’ve lived in it.
I hang up without saying goodbye and stare at the wall.
“Damn it, Troka.”
I find him on the roof of an old refueling depot three blocks from the canyon ridge.
He’s not hard to spot.
Seven feet of brooding alien muscle draped across rusted-out cooling units like a fallen god trying to forget he ever stood upright.
There’s a bottle cradled against his thigh. Half-empty. Maybe more.
“Drinking again?” I call, loud enough to echo.
He doesn’t turn.
Just mutters, “Thought the stars might tell me something tonight.”
“And?”
“They lied.” He takes a swig, jaw tight, golden eyes locked on the sky like it insulted his mother.
“Figures.” I climb the last rung of the maintenance ladder and plant my hands on my hips. “You gonna explain why you’re ghosting your job or should I guess?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just breathes. Slow. Heavy. Like every inhale scrapes his ribs.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” he says finally, voice rough.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t think you’d disappear.”
He looks at me then. Really looks. And whatever’s in his eyes—it punches the breath out of my lungs. Not anger. Not even pain.
Just emptiness.
“I was waiting,” he says. “But the wind never changed.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
He shrugs. “Means I thought if you were coming, you’d have come already.”
I sit down beside him, cross-legged on hot metal, my thighs sticking to the panel like regret to memory.
“You idiot,” I whisper.
He doesn’t flinch. “That tracks.”
I take the bottle from his hand. Sniff it. It’s strong. Industrial. Probably illegal.
“You trying to pickle your brain or just slowly explode from inside?”
“Whichever’s faster.”
I stare at him. His shoulders slump. His jaw’s unshaven. There’s dirt under his claws and that wild look in his eyes—the one I only saw once before, back when he was still fresh from the front lines, all adrenaline and guilt and something frayed deep down where pride used to sit.
“You haven’t eaten,” I say.
He shrugs again.
“You haven’t slept properly.”
“Didn’t want to dream.”
I throw the bottle over the edge. It shatters below in a burst of green and glass.
“Get up.”
He blinks. “What?”
“I said get up. You’re coming home.”
His brows pull low, confused. “To your place?”
“No,” I snarl, grabbing his arm. “To our place. You carved your way in like a goddamn meteor and now you’re part of the landscape. So get your ass up before I drag you by a horn.”
He doesn’t argue.
He just rises. Slow. Unsteady.
But he follows.
And that, more than anything, tells me how close he came to giving up.
He doesn’t say a word the whole walk back. Just trails me like some silent beast, eyes down, steps heavy.
When I open the door, Caelix’s toys are scattered across the floor like landmines. The place smells like oatmeal and floor cleaner. The kind of smell you associate with trying to hold it together.
Troka stops just inside the threshold.
Doesn’t move.
Doesn’t sit.
Just stands there, like he's afraid the walls will reject him.
“Sit,” I order, pointing to the couch.
He obeys.
He looks too big for it now. Like the frame might crack just trying to contain him. His knees bump the coffee table. His head nearly touches the wall-hanging above him.
“Do I get yelled at now?” he asks, voice barely above a whisper.
“No.”
“Pity then?”
I toss him a blanket. “You get soup.”
He catches it without looking up. “Why?”
“Because I’m not gonna let you rot. Not on my watch.”
His hands clench around the edge of the blanket.
“And after the soup?”
“You sleep.”
“And after that?”
I don’t answer.
Because the truth is—I don’t know.
I don’t know what comes next.
All I know is that when I see him like this, quiet and hurting and mine, something in me clicks into place. Like a puzzle piece I’ve been hiding under the rug finally rolling into view.
We don’t talk after that.
I give him the soup.
He eats it.
Silent.
Grateful.
Then he curls onto the couch—barely fitting—and passes out mid-sentence while asking if Caelix still does that weird grumble-snore thing when he’s teething.
And I stand there for a long time, watching the rise and fall of his chest.
The soft rumble of a man too exhausted to guard himself anymore.
And something in me… loosens.
The morning sun slants in too sharp through the blinds.
I’m in the kitchen, trying to coax life into my third cup of caff, when I hear the patter of tiny feet.
Caelix’s up.
He toddles in, bedhead wild, dragging his frog plush by one limp leg.
I turn, just as he stumbles toward the living room.
He spots Troka on the couch.
And without hesitation, without a second’s pause—
He climbs up.
Right onto that mountain of muscle and scars and sleep.
Troka stirs.
Not wakes.
Just shifts enough to accommodate the bundle of toddler determination flopping across his chest.
A thick arm wraps reflexively around Caelix’s tiny body.
And they just… settle.
Perfect.
Natural.
Like gravity.
I cover my mouth with one hand.
The other grips the counter.
Hard.
Because my heart’s doing something painful and beautiful and dangerous.
This—this moment right here—this is the truth.
Not the lie I told him.
Not the silence I thought would protect me.
This is what I’ve been running from.
And it’s everything I’ve ever wanted.