33. Kalev
KALEV
Leah’s eyes flick past me. Just once.
Barely more than a blink.
But it lands sharp, intentional—a glance down the hallway behind her. Quick, clean, uninvited. And then it's gone. She doesn’t look again.
But I clock it.
Her shoulders are too square. Braced. Holding something in place.
Anger is written all over her—real, burning—but it’s scaffolded around something more fragile. And I know better than to go prying. Not here. Not yet.
I shift slightly, just enough to let the wind pass around me, not enough to crowd her. The silence between us has weight now—like ash in the air, fine and choking if you breathe too deep.
She doesn’t ask me in.
I don’t push.
Instead, I let her stare holes through me.
“You’re quieter than I remember,” she says finally, voice tight.
“I spent a lot of time not talking.”
She raises an eyebrow, just barely. “That new? Or just permanent now?”
I give her the faintest shrug. “You get used to silence. Makes noise feel expensive.”
Her jaw works, like she’s chewing on something sharp.
“You could’ve sent a message. Anything.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Still can’t?”
“No,” I admit. “But I’m here.”
“Congratulations,” she says, voice dry as Glimner’s high dunes. “Want a parade?”
“No,” I say. “Just this.”
I don’t mean the doorstep. I don’t mean the sand under our boots or the coastal wind coiling between us.
I mean her eyes.
I mean her voice—even full of acid.
I mean her still being.
That’s the only thing that’s felt real since I got out.
She studies me, and I can feel her cycling through things she’s not ready to say.
That’s fine.
I’ve learned to wait.
“You’re not going to ask what I’ve been doing?” she says.
“Not unless you want to tell me.”
That catches her off guard.
She leans against the frame a little harder, like her body’s trying to stay braced against something invisible.
“You always did that.”
“What?”
“Make it easy to lie.”
I let the words settle before I respond. “Then don’t.”
Her mouth tightens.
But she doesn’t lie.
Not yet.
Instead she tips her chin up, eyes narrow. “Spuel,” she says. “What happened?”
I exhale slowly.
The name hits me like sand in an open wound.
“That mission wasn’t supposed to be suicide,” I say.
“You went dark.”
“They turned on me before I even hit atmosphere.”
Her arms cross. “I figured.”
I nod once. “Didn’t even get my boots dirty before they rerouted my drop pod. Straight into Alliance blacksite custody.”
“How long?”
I smile, bitter. “You know the answer.”
“Too long,” she says quietly.
I nod.
She doesn’t ask for details.
But she doesn’t walk away either.
The air shifts again. Softer now. Like the worst of the storm passed through and left something sharp in its wake. The sea’s just audible in the distance, a low murmur behind the static silence.
“I thought of you,” I say.
She flinches.
“I thought of you every time they tried to break me.”
She looks down, her throat working.
“I didn’t forget,” I add.
“That doesn’t make it better,” she says. “It just makes it worse.”
“I know.”
Her voice cracks open then. “I woke up for months thinking maybe today was the day someone would tell me it was a mistake. That you were alive. That the reports were wrong. Then I buried that version of you, one memory at a time, until all that was left was ash.”
I want to reach for her. I don’t.
“I’m not asking you to unburn it,” I say.
She meets my eyes.
And something in them softens. Just barely.
“I’m not the only one who paid a price,” she says.
“No,” I admit. “But I’m the one who made the call.”
We stand there for a long time.
The conversation wanders after that. Like it’s limping on a broken leg.
She asks about the escape—low voice, wary, like she’s not sure if the answer will help or hurt.
I tell her about the cell. The cold. The hallucinations. The debrief room lit like a surgical ward. How I thought I’d never see sky again.
She listens. Doesn’t interrupt.
In return, she gives me pieces—carefully. Contraband grief. One sliver at a time. Her voice cracks when she mentions her sister. She doesn’t name what came after. I don’t press.
We start to remember things together. Not the pain—just the edges of it.
The little pieces no one else would know.
The way she used to sneak coffee rations out of medbay and stash them in old diagnostic shells. The way I used to touch the back of her hand before every patrol check, like it was the last thing grounding me.
She remembers too.
I can see it in the way her mouth curves, even when she’s trying not to.
We don’t say what we’re really thinking.
But the silence between us stops being weaponized.
It starts being familiar.
“I didn’t think you’d ever forgive me,” I say, eventually.
“I haven’t,” she replies.
And yet she hasn’t closed the door either.
I nod. “Fair.”
Her gaze flicks to the side again. Just a half-second.
But I catch it.
I feel the change in her stance.
Still guarding the hallway.
Still keeping something just out of sight.
And I know, in my bones, there’s more to this than what she’s saying.
But I won’t ask.
Not yet.
I already chose silence once. This time, I’ll choose patience.
No matter what it costs.
I decide I won’t hold secrets between us. She doesn’t ask what I’m still hiding.
But I know it’s time to say it.
The longer I wait, the more it festers, and the last thing we need is another silence loaded with betrayal. So I draw a breath that burns on the way down, then let the words drop into the air like live ammunition.
“They sent me to kill you.”
Leah freezes.
Not the kind of freeze that comes from surprise—this one’s more primal. Her breath doesn’t catch. Her arms don’t flinch. Her eyes stay locked on mine. But I can feel the shift beneath her skin, like the way animals go perfectly still before they bolt.
The moment slices between us, clean and bright. A blade landing right between her ribs.
She doesn’t speak.
Doesn’t yell.
She just watches me. Still as glass.
That hurts more than if she’d hit me again.
I keep my voice steady. Flat. Iron-wrapped.
“I accepted the mission so I could bury it.”
Her throat moves. Swallowing the thing she’s too careful to say.
“They fed me a dossier full of half-truths,” I continue. “Redacted histories. Tactile photos. Threat assessments that read more like propaganda than fact. You were labeled a breach point. A liability. They said you’d been in contact with exiled networks.”
“I haven’t,” she says quietly. Then louder: “I haven’t.”
“I know.”
She steps back, only once. Like her feet made the choice before her mind caught up.
I don’t follow.
I hold the space open.
“Dowron signed the order himself,” I add. “Framed it as contingency—said if you ever stepped out of line, I’d be activated as a dead-switch asset.”
Her expression fractures, just slightly. “Dead-switch?”
I nod. “Meaning I don’t get to live through it either.”
A pause.
Then she laughs.
It’s not joy.
It’s not relief.
It’s a sound full of jagged edges.
“So you’re telling me,” she says, “they pulled you out of a blacksite just to hand you a kill order with my name on it?”
“Yes.”
“And you… what? Said sure, sounds like fun?”
I don’t flinch.
“I said yes. So I could control it. So I could stop it.”
“Stop it,” she echoes, like the phrase is foreign on her tongue. “You mean override it.”
“Burn it from the inside.”
Her arms are wrapped tight now, like if she lets go they’ll shake too visibly.
“You could’ve told me this first.”
“You weren’t ready to hear it first.”
“And now I am?”
“No,” I admit. “But we don’t have the luxury of pacing.”
Something in her eyes clicks—like understanding and dread locking into place at the same time.
“They’re watching you.”
“They’re always watching.”
“They’ll come.”
“Yes,” I say. “But not tonight.”
She leans against the wall now, one foot braced like she needs the frame to hold her up.
“And you think you can just… what, outmaneuver the Alliance?”
“No,” I say. “I know I can.”
Her laugh this time is a breathless sound. Not quite mocking. Not quite believing.
“They want a war they can control,” I say. “But they don’t get to stage it through you.”
Leah’s gaze hardens. “You think I’m the battleground?”
“No,” I say. “You’re the reason I won’t retreat.”
I step forward slowly.
Her back doesn’t leave the wall, but her chin lifts, refusing to yield.
“I didn’t come back to follow orders,” I say. “I came back to end the people who think they can give them.”
“Dowron?”
“He’s first.”
“What’s your plan?”
“Contingency trees. Four layers deep.”
“Jesus, Kalev.”
“Fallback routes. Evidence caches. Dead drops. Falsified ID strings. Burn data in three separate systems.”
“You’ve already started?”
I nod. “Before I left Alliance airspace.”
Her hand runs over her mouth. “You always were a planner.”
“Survival makes you thorough.”
She’s silent for a moment. Then:
“Does anyone else know you’re here?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod. “The ship’s untagged. Hacked the tracking stub out of its registry myself.”
“And your contact protocols?”
“Air-gapped. Physical pings only. Self-destructing relays.”
She blows out a shaky breath.
“You think this ends with you surviving,” she says.
“I don’t care if I survive,” I reply. “I only care that you do.”
And for the first time since I arrived, her posture softens.
Just slightly.
Like the steel she’s built around herself is bending. Not breaking—but allowing weight.
“What if I don’t want to be protected?” she asks.
“Too bad,” I say. “You’re getting it anyway.”
“You’re not in charge of me, Kalev.”
“No. But I’d rather be buried next to you than live knowing I didn’t try.”
Her eyes flash.
I meet them with all the conviction I have left.
And I say, quietly, “You will never be a target to me. Not now. Not ever.”
The words don’t sound like promises.
They sound like oaths.
The kind we swore in the bloodiest mudholes in the system. The kind you carve into your bones when you’re not sure if you’ll live long enough to speak them again.
Silence settles again, but it’s different now. Dense. Muted by everything we haven’t decided to say.
She shifts again—barely noticeable.
But I see it.
She’s still guarding that hallway.