Chapter 40
MAUG
The ship hums around us. Low, steady. A heartbeat made of steel and engine core. We don’t speak for a long while. Just breathe. Touch. Let the silence between us mean something.
Eventually, we pull ourselves upright—sore in the good way—and throw on whatever clothes we can find.
She grabs one of my tattered old shirts and pulls it over her head. It swallows her whole, makes her look impossibly small, and yet more powerful than ever.
I sit beside her in the co-pilot chair, shoulder to shoulder. She curls into my side, head resting on the place above my heart that doesn’t feel heavy anymore.
Outside, the stars stretch forever.
A sea of fire and cold and time.
“Think we’ll ever get bored of this?” she asks softly.
“Of what?”
“Flying. Escaping. Choosing each other.”
I shake my head, voice rough with truth. “Not a chance.”
She nods, staring at the twin stars still slowly rotating in the viewport. Their light bleeds through the glass, warming our skin.
“We don’t have a mission anymore,” she says after a beat.
I turn toward her. “Don’t we?”
She raises a brow.
“To live,” I say. “Together.”
Her grin is slow. Fierce. Tender. “Sounds like a hell of a mission.”
I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Only one worth fighting for.”
She dozes off like that. Just leans into me and falls asleep to the rhythm of space.
I keep watching the stars. They don’t blink out here. They burn steady. Fierce.
Like her.
And for the first time in my life… I’m not waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I’m not running.
I’m just here.
With her.
And it’s enough.
Hell—it’s everything.