32. Leah
LEAH
The air tastes like salt and dust this morning. Dry wind skates over the scrub flats, warm and persistent, tugging at the edges of the solar sheeting on the roof. I squint up into the sky out of habit—it’s clean today, not a single patrol glider cutting across the high blue. For once.
Inside, the kettle hisses its soft warning, steam curling toward the ceiling in lazy spirals.
Clancy left half of his breakfast uneaten, again—too busy setting traps for the feathered scavengers that circle the edge of our garden.
I can still hear him, low and steady, talking to himself out there under his breath like he’s narrating a documentary.
His voice drifts in through the open window: sharp, inquisitive, full of life.
I lean against the doorframe of the kitchen, a mug warm in my hands. The quiet hum of life here, on the edge of everything, has stitched itself into me. These days are predictable. Safe.
Which is why when the knock comes, it doesn’t register as real.
It’s not the rustling clap of palm fronds against the outer walls. Not the hollow ding of a drone delivery chime. Not even the chittering call of Maesa, who always sings the first note of her knock like she’s announcing herself to a stage.
It’s just—knuckles. Hard. Intentional.
Two sharp raps.
Then silence.
I frown. My pulse ticks up a notch.
Nobody knocks.
Nobody even gets close enough to knock.
I set the mug down carefully, quietly, and take three soft steps to the door. The air feels heavier now—like the temperature dropped a degree, or maybe the gravity got just a little thicker.
Another knock.
Same rhythm.
Same weight.
I place a hand against the panel beside the door and trigger the scanner.
It hums—longer than usual.
Then a soft green light pulses, and a name flashes on the readout.
Kalev.
My body forgets how to move.
A cold flood slams through my chest, and I stare at the panel like it’s playing some kind of sick joke. The name burns there, carved out of memory, untouched by time.
The screen flickers. Then goes blank.
Stillness.
I feel my breath catch on the edge of a sob and clamp down on it.
It can’t be. It can’t.
But my hand is already unlocking the door.
The latch disengages.
And when I open it?—
There he is.
Kalev.
He stands framed in the doorway, tall and still, like some goddamn storybook revenant come to collect on old promises.
The wind dies behind him. Everything goes still.
He doesn’t speak. Not yet.
And I just stare.
The first thing that hits me is the silhouette. Bigger than memory—like the years stretched him out, hardened him into something less human. His shoulders are broader, or maybe the coat just makes him look that way, but he’s here, solid, taking up space I thought I’d long since buried.
He’s gaunt, though. Not starving, but worn. Like a man who stopped sleeping and never started again. There’s a scar above his eyebrow I’ve never seen before, a thin silver groove that disappears into his hairline. Another one creeps down his jaw, tight and white.
His mouth opens like he’s going to speak—but doesn’t.
And then he does.
“Leah,” he says, voice like gravel soaked in rain.
That one word tears the floor out from under me.
For a heartbeat, my brain flinches. Refuses him. My eyes replace him with the version I used to know—cleaner, warmer, always half a second from smiling. I see that version standing in the shadows behind this one, flickering like a glitch.
But the one here now? He’s real.
Too real.
Too alive.
The mug slips from my hand. Shatters against the floor.
He takes a half-step forward, like he’s going to catch me.
No.
I surge into him.
My fist slams into his chest—hard.
He grunts but doesn’t move.
I hit him again.
He doesn’t stop me. Doesn’t raise a hand.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I shout, my voice cracking.
His breath stutters, but he doesn’t answer.
“Where were you? Where the fuck were you, Kalev?!”
The third punch lands with the full weight of two years’ worth of aching silence. The ones after that are sloppier. Messier. My open palm connects with his shoulder, then his jaw. I’m not aiming anymore—I’m just moving, trying to shake him out of being real.
He takes all of it.
Silent.
Present.
“I buried you!” I scream, throat ragged. “I mourned you! I let you go! You don’t just—show up! You don’t get to come back and act like it didn’t happen!”
He still doesn’t raise a hand. Doesn’t flinch.
Just stands there, like he’s absorbing every blow like penance.
His mouth opens, barely.
“I’m sor?—”
“Don’t.”
I don’t want to hear it. Not yet.
I wrap my arms around myself because suddenly I’m shaking and cold and too hot all at once.
Tears sting my eyes. I don’t let them fall.
He watches me. Quietly. Like he knows anything louder will break what little still holds me together.
“I thought you were dead,” I whisper.
“I was supposed to be,” he says.
His voice is low. Empty. Like he left most of himself behind wherever he came from.
I look at him then—really look.
And I see it. The bones under the skin. The weight behind the silence. The man he used to be is still in there somewhere, but barely. This isn’t the Kalev I knew.
This is someone forged in fire I never got to see.
A stranger wearing his face.
He shifts his weight like he might step forward again.
I raise a hand. “No. You don’t get to—just—stand there and act like this is normal.”
“I don’t think anything’s normal anymore.”
“I grieved you,” I say again, like maybe if I keep saying it, the shock will wear off.
“I know.”
“You left me to drown in it.”
His jaw tightens. “Because it was safer that way.”
“Not for me.”
Silence expands between us like a tide pulling back to gather strength.
His shoulders lower, just slightly. “I deserve that.”
“You deserve worse.”
“I know.”
Still, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t ask to come inside.
Just waits.
Like he’s ready for me to throw the rest of my fury into him if that’s what I need.
Like pain is the only currency he has left.
“I thought I hated you,” I say. My voice is low now, like if I speak any louder it’ll all spill out. “I wanted to. God, I tried.”
“I know,” he says, quiet as a confession.
I shake my head, fingers curling against my arms. “I needed to forget you.”
He steps forward—barely half a foot—and something in the air between us sharpens. My skin knows him before I let myself register it. The way the floor creaks beneath his weight. The scent of old smoke, leather, and rain still clinging to his coat. Something ancient and familiar.
I don’t step back.
But I don’t let myself move closer.
“You didn’t just disappear, Kalev,” I whisper. “You tore a hole in me. You left me in it.”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“You don’t get to decide that for me.”
His jaw twitches. “I wasn’t trying to play hero.”
“No. You were trying to disappear. And you did. For years.”
I let the word hang like a slap.
He looks away for the first time, just slightly. Down and to the left. Like he’s staring at the edge of a memory he can’t quite hold.
“I wanted to come back.”
I laugh, sharp and humorless. “Then why didn’t you?”
“I couldn’t risk it. The people who had me—they made it clear. Contact was death. For me. For you.”
“And now?”
He meets my gaze again. “Now they’ve reactivated me. They think I still belong to them.”
My breath catches.
“They sent you here.”
He nods once.
“To kill me.”
His silence is all the answer I need.
I don’t flinch.
I just whisper, “Then why didn’t you?”
“Because I never stopped loving you.”
The words are raw. Bleeding.
I close my eyes.
Goddamn him.
I want to scream. Want to slap him again. Want to drag him inside and collapse against his chest, just for one second. Just to remember what it felt like before the war gutted us.
But I can’t afford any of that.
Because down the hall, behind me, is a pair of small boots lined up against the wall.
I shift my stance without thinking, angling my body just enough so Kalev can’t see past me. My arms cross tighter, as if my frame alone could block a view into the world he doesn’t know about yet.
I feel the instinct coil tight in my chest like a fist.
Not yet.
Not until I’m sure.
His voice cuts through again—softer now. “You’re still guarding something.”
I shake my head too fast. “I’m guarding myself.”
“No,” he says. “You’re not.”
I don’t answer.
He steps closer. Now he’s only inches from me. I can feel the heat of him, the tremor in his breath. His hand lifts—like he might touch me—but he stops short. Fingers hover at my shoulder, not daring to close the space.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,” he murmurs. “Nothing makes up for what I did.”
“No,” I say. “It doesn’t.”
“And I won’t ask you to forgive me.”
“Good.”
“But I came back anyway.”
I clench my jaw. “That’s not a clean slate.”
“I’m not asking for one.”
We stare at each other, the kind of stare that digs down to marrow. I can feel my heartbeat in my ears, in my mouth, in my spine. Every part of me is screaming to run, to retreat, to hide what I’ve built—what I’ve protected.
But I can’t look away.
And he doesn’t blink.
We’re eye to eye, and there’s nothing left between us but the sharp edge of everything unsaid.
And the truth I can’t tell him.
Not yet.
Not while the ground is still this unstable.
Not while we’re still one breath away from collapse.