8. Leah
LEAH
The hum of old wiring crawls up the walls like it’s trying to eavesdrop. The lights are off, but a pale leak of amber spills in through the cracked doorway from the next hall, just enough to etch out Kalev’s silhouette.
He’s across from me, lounging with that impossible stillness like he was poured into the chair instead of sitting down in it.
The coffee’s lukewarm. I keep sipping it anyway. Gives my hands something to do besides shake.
“Do you ever stop staring?” I mutter, without looking up.
“If I stopped, would you miss it?”
I snort. “Only if I were unconscious.”
A beat. He doesn’t smile, not exactly, but something in his posture shifts. Like amusement folded itself behind his ribs.
Silence again. A thick, velvety quiet that stretches but doesn’t break.
I tap the rim of the mug. Once. Twice.
“I used to think I was broken,” I say, and immediately want to take it back.
But I don’t.
He doesn’t jump in. Doesn’t rush to fill the space. Just waits.
“I was nine,” I add. “Enclave breach. They came in loud. Mom tried to keep me behind her. I didn’t stay.”
Kalev’s head tilts—slightly. Not questioning. Just listening.
“I ran. Hid in the biohazard locker. Dumb place, but nobody ever looked there. Too many rules, even for killers.”
“You chose well,” he says, voice low.
I ignore that.
“I didn’t scream. Didn’t cry. Just listened while they tore the place apart. Heard my father yell. Then nothing. Boots. Heavy. Stopped right outside.”
A breath rattles loose from my chest.
“I remember thinking: if I breathe too loud, I’ll die.”
“You didn’t,” he says.
“Yeah. And that’s the problem, isn’t it?”
“No. That’s the point.”
I shake my head. “You don’t get it.”
“I do.” He leans forward now, forearms on his knees, golden eyes locked to mine. “Survival isn’t shameful.”
“I didn’t fight.”
“You lived.”
“I didn’t save them.”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
My laugh comes out jagged. “You’re really bad at pep talks.”
“Not giving one.”
“Oh?”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
That shuts me up.
He straightens. Still calm. Still granite carved into a person.
“I’ve seen too many operatives crack because someone told them surviving made them weak. Like their life had to be earned in blood. It’s a lie.”
“I’ve been living with that lie for a decade.”
“Time to stop.”
I blink. My throat burns suddenly and unreasonably.
“Great,” I rasp. “Now I’m going to cry in front of a seven-foot murder lizard.”
Kalev leans back, finally, with the barest trace of a smirk. “We prefer ‘death-scaled diplomats.’”
A laugh breaks out of me without warning. Not pretty. Not delicate. Just loud and sharp.
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
He shrugs one shoulder. “Better than ‘seven-foot sad boy with access to orbital lasers.’”
“You’re insufferable.”
“You’re recovering.”
That shuts me up. Again.
I stare into the mug. It’s empty now. Didn’t even notice.
“I didn’t expect this,” I say. “You. This.” I wave vaguely at the space between us.
“What’d you expect?”
“Orders. Ultimatums. A guilt trip maybe.”
“I don’t do guilt trips.”
“Because you don’t have guilt?”
“Because I don’t waste it.”
That gets another laugh. Smaller this time. Bitter on the edges, but real.
We sit there. In that strange, not-uncomfortable hush.
After a long pause, I say, “I still hear the boots sometimes. In my sleep.”
“I know.”
And somehow, I believe he does.
“I’m not used to... anyone sticking around after I say that out loud.”
“I’m not most people.”
“No. You’re really not.”
The heat between us shifts again. Quiet. Not tense, just... aware. I catch him looking. Not at my face. At my throat. My collarbone. Just a flick of his gaze—but I see it.
I don’t call it out.
He doesn’t apologize.
It lingers there between us.
He says nothing else. Just waits. Like he knows what silence can do. What it means to hold a space, not fill it.
And I let the stillness wrap around me.
Maybe it’s not safety.
But maybe it’s the next best thing.
Maybe it’s trust.