Chapter 3
Luna
Something’s not right, but I don’t know what it is.
It’s a feeling, an insistent wrongness slithering underneath my skin.
Then the pain hits, like it has been waiting for the curtains to go up.
My throat feels like I’ve swallowed glass. There’s something in my nose—something that doesn’t belong there—and every breath feels … crowded. My body feels heavy, not quite mine.
But one thing cuts through all of it.
I need to pee. Right this moment.
The urgency is panicked because I am going to wet myself. I try to speak, to ask, to say something, but all that comes out is a dry, useless croak.
And then a voice answers anyway.
“Don’t do that, sweetheart,” comes a deep, raspy voice that sounds like someone has been living on cigarettes. It reminds me of my favourite vibrator.
This sexy-voice-guy is going to watch me wet myself.
“It’s your feeding tube. It needs to stay. Be a good girl and don’t pull it out,” he drawls with a voice like honey, a big, warm hand gently pulling at mine.
“Not that either, love. That’s your urinary catheter. You don’t want to know what happens if you pull that out.” He keeps going with a smile in his voice. I could listen to that voice all day.
The words slide over me like instructions I’m meant to follow without question. I try to nod, but my head feels too heavy.
Somewhere, faintly, irritation sparks.
I will be a good girl … when things stop hurting.
But as I try to hold on to that thought, it slips and dissolves, and I sink again.
***
I’m cold. So cold.
That’s the first thing I know. Everything is swaying. I’m on a raft.
It shifts underneath me, creaking with every movement. The sea stretches out in every direction, endless and grey.
And the water—
God.
Do you know that feeling? That creeping, crawling awareness that something is beneath you. That the surface is just a thin skin, and under it, there’s depth—limitless, dark, unknowable.
I don’t know how deep it is, and I don’t want to know. I feel like Pinocchio waiting for the whale.
The raft dips, then rises.
Dips again.
The waves are getting bigger.
The sky feels too low, pressing down, grey and heavy. Wind like needles cuts across my skin, leaving gooseflesh behind. The raft groans as it climbs—
Climbs—
Climbs—
To the top of a wave.
Just for a second, everything stills, and I can see forever.
Nothing but water.
Nothing but grey.
And then it drops.
My stomach lurches as I plunge with it, a sickening, weightless fall that rips the breath from my lungs. The world tilts as the water rises to meet me, freezing, choking.
There’s nothing to hold onto.
Another wave lifts me again—
Higher this time.
I’m carried up, helpless, and then thrown down.
Again.
And again.
That awful moment at the top where everything pauses—
And then the drop.
My heart hammers in my ears.
The sea feels alive now.
Not just beneath me—
Around me.
Closing in.
I swear, something moves under the surface.
Or maybe it’s just a dream—all of this.
But the water feels too close.
And on that final free fall, it’s lights out again.
***
Footsteps move across the room.
A beloved voice whispers my name close to my ear as a warm hand holds mine and squeezes.
Lily’s voice when she is furious and trying not to shout. It makes me want to smile.
“I told you she wasn’t okay.”
A silence followed by—
“I know.”
His voice sounds rough, sandpaper dragging across stone. Isaac.
“Where were you?” Lily snaps as she tries to keep her voice down. “She was alone with a newborn. How did you not notice?”
“I know.” His voice is barely a whisper, like that time he missed his best mate’s funeral because he dislocated his ankle.
The words come out again, as if forced out of a reluctant throat.
I want to tell them to stop, to lower their voices.
My head aches faintly now, a sharp pain pressing behind my eyes. I hear someone tell them to keep it down.
“She will wake up soon. She is breathing on her own,” says Manon. Isaac’s mum sounds sure.
A thin cry suddenly cuts through the room.
My heart stutters. Amelie.
“She’s hungry again,” my mother whispers. “I’ll take her.”
The crying moves further away. I don’t want her to go. Come back. I try to open my eyes, but it’s useless.
Somewhere close by, a chair scrapes.
Warm fingers wrap around my hand again.
Isaac.
I know it before he even speaks.
“Luna?”
His voice cracks like dead, brittle leaves skittering across a driveway.
“I’m here.”
Something warm and wet falls against my knuckles.
A warm, rough hand holds mine. I want to pull away.
“I’m here,” he repeats quietly.
But I wish you were not.
The beeping fades.
And suddenly, I am somewhere else.
***
Seven years roll back.
The smell of machine oil and metal dust fills the air.
I’m standing in the middle of the workshop, holding a clipboard and trying very hard not to look completely lost.
My hair is tied into a messy ponytail. I’m wearing the wrong safety boots, and the sleeves of my overalls are too long. They didn’t have my size. I had to make do with medium.
First day.
First job.
First time in a place where everyone seems to know exactly what they’re doing … except me.
Someone bumps into my shoulder.
“Sorry.”
I turn and look up. And up.
He’s very tall. Inky black hair. Clear blue eyes focus on me like there is nothing more interesting.
He looks younger than the other engineers. He also ticks all my boxes.
“New technician?” he asks with a smile as the shadow of a dimple appears on his left cheek.
I nod, unable to look away. He has shoulders for miles. His uniform shirt is trying its best to contain them and looks like the seams may give way any second. Where is the popcorn when you need it?
He smiles wider. Yep. Definitely a dimple.
“Welcome to 4space.” He reaches for the clipboard. “Luna, right?”
I blink.
“How did you—” I stammer, with all the grace of newborn giraffe on roller skates.
“I signed your training paperwork yesterday. You must have a copy on that clipboard in your hand.”
“Oh,” I reply eloquently.
He taps the page with a pen.
“Isaac.” He offers his name like I should already know.
And then his face dissolves like mist.
Voices seep back in.
“… three days now,” someone whispers.
Three days since what?
My head throbs faintly. It’s a recurring theme.
I drift again.
Another memory overlays the grey fog.
The cafeteria always smells faintly of burnt toast and coffee that tastes like tar.
Six months since I started, and it still doesn’t feel entirely real.
I’m halfway through my lunch when Isaac and Dennis walk in together. Dennis, one of the trainees like me, spots me first and he lifts a hand in an easy wave before heading straight over.
I barely have time to brace myself before Isaac drops into the seat beside me—a solid, warm weight that immediately crowds my space, his thigh pressing firmly against mine and nudging me dangerously close to the edge of the bench.
The clean smell of his soap mixed with machine oil drifts my way.
Heat climbs my skin before I can stop it in a slow, traitorous flush that spreads from my neck to my cheeks as I imagine him in the shower. Now my panties are wet.
This is my standard reaction to being within a mile of Isaac. This is why I avoid him at all costs. I won’t shit where I eat. I think.
Unfortunately, like any other hot-blooded woman, my brain short-circuits into embarrassingly inappropriate territory every time he gets too close. Situations involving being tied up and kidnapped by one specific person.
Dennis hesitates for half a second, clearly thrown off, before circling to the opposite side and sitting down across from us.
“So,” he starts, smiling at me, “a few of us are heading to the pub later. Thought you might want to—”
“Did you recalibrate the torque settings on bay three?” Isaac cuts in, turning slightly towards me like Dennis hasn’t spoken at all.
I blink at him.
“Yes.”
Dennis clears his throat. “Right. Anyway, like I was saying—”
“What about the bracket you were working on this morning?” Isaac continues, completely unfazed. “Looked off.”
“I fixed it.”
Dennis tries again. “It’s just a casual thing. Nothing—”
“Did you log it?” Isaac asks.
“Yes, Isaac.”
It takes me a minute to suspect exactly what he’s doing. Is he marking his territory?
And somehow, I’m not entirely annoyed about it.
Dennis exhales through his nose, trying to laugh it off, but there’s an edge to it.
He makes one last attempt—something about timing, about maybe later this week—but Isaac intercepts it yet again with another question, another comment, another reason for me to keep my attention firmly angled to the side.
By the time Dennis glances at the clock and mutters something about needing to get back, the invitation has dissolved into nothing.
He gives me a quick, slightly awkward smile before leaving.
I wait until he’s out of earshot.
“Thanks,” I murmur under my breath.
Isaac doesn’t respond immediately. He just keeps eating like he didn’t orchestrate the entire thing, but I can feel his eyes on me.
“You’re staring,” I mutter, not looking up from my sandwich.
His gaze doesn’t even flicker.
“How would you know? You are trying to burn a hole through that poor sandwich,” he says but I know what I know. Then he changes a topic
“You nearly welded the bracket upside down today.”
“I fixed it,” I say, trying not to sound defensive.
He leans back, still nailing me with his unblinking blue stare.
“They don’t have a company rule on dating colleagues, you know.”
The way he switches topics makes my head spin.
“Are you trying to ask me out?” I finally stammer.
“And if I was?” he asks with a chuckle.
The sound catches me off guard. Isaac is like a machine most of the time.
“Most people would say I am too intimidating,” he says.
“You’re not intimidating,” I reply.
One thick eyebrow lifts slightly.
“What am I, then?”
I shrug, forcing my attention back to my tray, even though I can feel him watching me. I cannot help the smile that sneaks in.
Sexy. Smoking hot. But I don’t say any of those things.
“Bossy. Single-minded. Maybe a little sneaky. You are trying to get me to go on a date without asking me.”
Another soft husky laugh.
And despite who he is and who I am, I don’t move away.
He grins like he just won an award because he knows I am going to say yes.
Before I am ready to let go, darkness settles again.
Then voices inch closer.
“… she squeezed my hand,” my mother whispers.
“Did she?” Manon asks softly.
“Yes. I am sure she did.”
Hope flickers through the words. I try to move again.
My fingers twitch.
Someone inhales sharply.
“Isaac,” Lily says quickly.
A chair scrapes.
Warm hands close around mine.
His hands. I know them instantly- the calluses, the scar on his palm, the nails bitten to the quick.
“Luna?”