14. Leah
LEAH
The rhythm used to help. The pulse of sensors blinking in predictable patterns. The way the hum of the power core rose and fell with the ambient systems. The steady trickle of data across my screen like rain on a rooftop. It gave the day structure. I clung to that.
Now it feels like a trap. Like the quiet's pressing in from all sides, trying to map the shape of my weaknesses.
There’s nothing wrong. That’s what makes it worse.
No breaches. No red pings. Just hours of nothing, stacked like corpses.
The shadows have moods now. The console screen flickers like it’s breathing. I hear sounds that don’t exist—shifts in the pipes, whispers of recycled air that sound almost human. I think I’m starting to hallucinate, or maybe I’m just getting familiar with my own unraveling.
Kalev barely speaks.
He’s doing his job. Tightly. Rigidly. Exactly by the book, the way people do when they’re afraid to feel anything at all.
And I get it. We’ve pushed too close to a line neither of us knows how to walk. I tried to be professional about it. I let him drift. I let him pull back, thinking maybe he needed that space. Thinking maybe I did, too.
But all it did was make the air heavier.
Now, every breath feels like a weight.
I keep my eyes glued to the terminal, adjusting input streams, shifting relay cycles—mindless recalibration, just to stay busy. I don’t even remember the last time I ate.
A faint pop stutters through the audio sensor feed.
My fingers freeze.
The screen flickers—an abrupt, jittering flash like static crawling over skin—and then the display goes black.
No power-down sequence. No error warning. Just gone.
All the air leaves my lungs in one tight jolt.
My heartbeat explodes behind my ribs. I can’t move. Can’t blink.
The same cold hits as before—cold that comes from inside, like a broken pipe spewing ice water through my bloodstream. I hear myself gasp, but it doesn’t sound real. Doesn’t sound like me.
The black screen is just a black screen.
But my body is convinced it’s the end.
My feet scrape back. Chair topples. My hand reaches instinctively for a weapon I’m not carrying.
The air tastes metallic, sharp and too bright, like the world’s gone overexposed and I'm the only thing that hasn’t caught up.
I don’t know how long I stand there—seconds, maybe—but the sound of my own panic is deafening.
“Leah.”
It’s not a shout.
Not a bark.
But it slices through the noise.
“Kalev,” I try, but it comes out as a rasp.
He’s there. Just—there. I never even heard him move. His shadow hits mine like a tide rolling in.
“Hey.” He’s calm. Too calm. Like I’m a spooked animal he doesn’t want to startle. “You’re alright.”
The words mean nothing. But the tone… the tone lands.
“I can’t—” My mouth won’t work right. I’m shaking. Hands fisted, breath jagged.
He lifts a hand. Not to touch. Just present. “Look at me.”
I do.
His face is inches from mine now, all hard lines and warm breath. He smells like metal and ozone, and something unnameable underneath—some part of him I can’t define but recognize instantly.
“You’re safe,” he says. “We’re dark. No breach.”
The console flickers again. Reboots. A soft chirp of systems returning.
Not an attack.
Just a glitch.
But my body hasn’t gotten the memo.
“Breathe with me,” he says. “Match me. In, then out. Real slow.”
He inhales, steady and long, like he has all the time in the world.
I try. It catches. My chest burns.
His voice softens even more. “Again.”
I follow him. In. Out. In.
Slowly, the vise on my lungs begins to loosen.
My knees buckle.
He catches me—not like I’m fragile. Just... like I’m real.
I end up sitting, back against the cold support wall, the terminal rebooting behind me, soft light pulsing in peripheral vision.
Kalev crouches beside me. Not touching, not pushing. Just there.
His presence is heavy without being suffocating.
“I’m not good at this,” I mutter finally.
“Yeah, you are.”
“That was a full panic response.”
“So? Doesn’t make you less.”
I laugh, hoarse. “You’ve got a strange definition of strong.”
“No. I just know what strength actually looks like.”
I turn my head to look at him.
He’s closer than I realized. His eyes are storm-gray, jaw tight, breath steady like he hasn’t just seen me come apart.
“You’re still breathing,” he says. “You’re still fighting. That’s strength.”
The words land in a part of me I’ve kept locked tight. The place where the fear lives. The memory of freezing while people burned.
I don’t know what to do with what he just gave me.
So I say nothing.
We sit in the hum of the rebooted system, shoulders inches apart.
I can feel the heat off his skin.
Too close.
Way too close.
And yet… I don’t want to move.
I tilt my head slightly. “You’re not pretending anymore.”
He exhales. “Didn’t think you noticed.”
“I notice everything,” I say. “That’s kind of the point of surveillance.”
He looks at me then—really looks—and for a heartbeat, everything in the room sharpens.
The edges of his mouth. The grain of stubble on his jaw. The frayed threads at his collar. All of it becomes hyperreal.
Like the moment’s about to burn itself into permanence.
“I pulled back because I had to,” he says finally.
“No, you didn’t.”
“It felt safer.”
“For who?”
He doesn’t answer.
“You said I was strong. Then let me be,” I tell him. “Don’t treat me like I’m fragile just because we’re both afraid of what this is.”
He closes his eyes. Just briefly. Like he’s recalibrating everything he thought he knew.
“I’m not afraid of you,” he says.
“But you’re afraid of what happens if.”
Silence again.
Then:
“Yeah.”
We both exhale.
The room hums.
The air between us is hot. Charged. Not like electricity—but like inertia.
If either of us leans even a millimeter, something’s going to break.
I whisper, “This isn’t a mistake, Kalev.”
He swallows.
“It’s a risk,” I add. “But some risks are worth it.”
His hand twitches, like he wants to touch me. But he doesn’t.
Neither do I.
We just sit there. Shoulders almost touching.
And neither of us moves away.