36. Leah
LEAH
The afternoon light comes in sideways through the front slats, painting everything gold. It pools on the rug in warm patches, softening the edges of the world.
Clancy sprawls in the middle of it like a tiny king, legs crossed, a half-disassembled hovercrab in front of him. His tongue pokes out between his teeth in concentration as he tweaks one of the legs back into place. The toy twitches, chirps, then spins in a crooked circle before collapsing again.
“Don’t force it,” Kalev murmurs from beside me.
Clancy doesn’t even look up. “I’m not.”
“Looks like you are.”
Clancy huffs. “You can’t even see from there.”
Kalev’s mouth tilts in that almost-smile I’ve only started seeing again. He leans forward a little on the floor cushion, elbows on his knees, watching. His eyes have that rare softness, like he’s letting himself breathe for real.
I sit cross-legged beside him, nursing a mug of lukewarm root tea I’ve reheated twice already. The smell is earthy and sweet. The breeze through the open panel carries salt and ozone, the sharp brightness of the sea just a short walk down the slope.
This—this moment—feels stolen.
Not from the world, but from whatever gnawed us raw to get here.
Kalev’s hand rests loosely over mine. Not possessive. Just… there.
It anchors me in a way I didn’t know I needed.
For the first time in years, my shoulders aren’t clenched around a constant silent scream.
I let my head tip sideways until it touches his shoulder. His shirt smells like sun-warmed skin and a hint of engine oil—leftovers from fixing the faulty solar rig this morning.
“You fixed it for real?” I murmur.
“Didn’t even break a sweat,” he says.
Clancy pipes up without looking away from his project. “You swore at it so much.”
Kalev raises a brow. “I swore at the tools, not the rig.”
“Same difference,” Clancy says, grinning.
I chuckle. “Language awareness is improving, at least.”
“I learned it from you,” Clancy says.
Kalev gives me a slow, exaggerated side-eye. I give him a gentle elbow in the ribs.
“You’re corrupting our child,” he mutters.
I grin into my mug. “He was halfway corrupted before you even showed up.”
We let the quiet return after that, easy and unpressured. The kind that doesn't demand conversation to justify itself.
Clancy hums under his breath, trying again with the crab. It twitches, skitters forward—then rights itself and chirps like victory.
“Yes!” he whoops.
Kalev claps once, proud. “Told you. Don’t force it.”
Clancy beams. “Can I take it outside?”
“Back garden only,” I say. “And use the signal tether.”
“Got it.”
He bolts for the back panel, leaving the toy in his wake as if it might follow on its own.
We sit there another beat, the kind that should last forever.
Kalev exhales slowly, head tilted back. “You ever think it could be this simple?”
“No,” I admit. “Not even once.”
But I want it now. Desperately.
Which is exactly why it can't last.
The knock cuts through the air like a scalpel.
Three taps. Clean. Measured. Too light to be urgent. Too precise to be innocent.
Kalev doesn’t move at first. Just straightens.
My gut goes tight before I even know why.
We both stand at the same time.
He crosses the room in silence, every line of him going alert, predatory.
I step to the side, just like always, slipping into the corner near the console where I have partial view of the door—but not of me.
He flips the privacy shutter open.
On the other side stands a man who could disappear in a crowd.
That’s what makes him dangerous.
Neutral suit. Pale shirt. No tie. His hair is tidy, parted like he’s just left a bureaucratic meeting.
He’s smiling.
Not friendly.
Just enough to look like he’s not a threat.
“Mr. Vair,” the man says smoothly. “Apologies for the intrusion. I’m Handler Thale.”
Kalev doesn’t answer.
“May I come in?”
“No.”
A small pause. The handler seems to consider pushing. Doesn’t.
Instead, he holds up a small round disc between his fingers. “Official ID. I’m here on follow-up, not enforcement.”
I can feel Kalev’s spine stiffen.
“You’re not cleared for Glimner jurisdiction,” he says.
“Which is why I’m here unofficially,” Thale says lightly. “A courtesy visit. Friendly check-in. Nothing more.”
Kalev steps out just enough to block the door fully. “Get to the point.”
The handler’s smile holds, but something behind it sharpens.
“Your mission parameters remain active,” he says. “We understand the value of reentry periods. Emotional entanglements. But a delay is not the same as a deviation.”
Kalev’s silence is thunderous.
My breath stutters in my chest.
The handler’s eyes flick, subtle, toward the hallway—toward the back rooms where Clancy plays in the garden.
He doesn’t see me.
But I know what he’s looking for.
What he expects to find.
Kalev doesn’t give him the satisfaction.
“I’m not finishing it,” he says.
Thale’s head tilts slightly, like a bird’s. “Not finishing implies it’s been started.”
“I rescind the mission.”
“That’s not within your operational authority.”
“I’m not asking.”
The handler’s smile drops a degree. It doesn’t vanish. Just cools.
“Mr. Vair,” he says softly. “This isn’t a negotiation. It’s a closure cycle. Refusal of directive is?—”
“Expected,” Kalev interrupts.
Now it’s Thale who stills.
Kalev doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink.
“I know what this is,” he says. “I know you never expected success. You expected compliance. Which you got—until I saw the target.”
Thale’s face doesn’t change. “You’re suggesting we set you up to fail?”
“I’m saying you underestimated who I am.”
Another pause. Then?—
“You’ll hear from us again.”
Thale’s voice is still polite, but the threat inside it is unmistakable.
The handler steps back and disappears down the path.
The door shuts.
The locks engage.
Kalev exhales like someone’s pulled a pin out of his spine.
I step out.
Neither of us says anything at first.
Then:
“They’re not done.”
“I know,” I whisper.
Kalev is still facing the door, shoulders high, hands loose at his sides in that way I know too well—the way he stands when he’s already five moves ahead of everyone else in the room.
“They won’t wait long,” he says quietly.
My pulse is in my throat.
“I know.”
The back panel slides open and Clancy barrels in, cheeks flushed, hair wild, clutching the hovercrab in both hands.
“Dad! It can climb the fence now?—”
His voice cuts off when he clocks our faces.
The way Kalev’s jaw is set.
The way my hands are shaking.
“Did I do something wrong?” Clancy asks, small.
“No,” I say too fast. I drop to my knees and open my arms. “Come here, baby.”
He runs into me. I crush him to my chest, breathing him in like oxygen. Salt, grass, ozone, the faint sweetness of the juice pouch he spilled earlier.
Kalev’s voice is low and tight. “Leah?—”
The front wall explodes inward.
Not literally—no fireball, no shrapnel—but the door rips off its hinges in a clean, violent motion that sends it skidding across the floor.
Men flood in.
Six of them.
Maybe eight.
Black armor. Shock batons already humming. Rifles up.
The room fills with the smell of ozone and machine oil and cold metal.
Clancy screams.
I spin, curling my body over his, my back to the threat.
“NO—!”
Hands grab my shoulders.
I bite one.
Hard.
A baton cracks across my ribs and all the air leaves my lungs in a sound that isn’t a word.
“LEAH!” Kalev roars.
They’re on him instantly.
Four men.
Tailored brutality.
Not sloppy.
Not panicked.
They hit pressure points, nerve clusters, joints.
Batons strike his ribs, his thigh, the back of his knee.
Not his head.
Never his head.
He fights them anyway.
God help them, he fights.
He takes one man down with a headbutt, snaps another’s wrist so clean I hear it break.
But then a restraint collar slams around his neck.
Another clamps his wrists behind his back.
Another his ankles.
Electric current surges through him.
Not enough to knock him out.
Just enough to take his legs.
He drops to one knee with a guttural sound that rips my chest open.
“KALEV!”
A man yanks Clancy out of my arms.
I shriek like something feral.
“No no no no—PLEASE—he’s a child—he’s just a child?—!”
Clancy is sobbing, screaming my name, reaching for me.
“MAMA! MAMA!”
I launch myself after him.
They slam me into the wall.
Hard.
Stars explode behind my eyes.
A needle punches into my neck.
Cold.
Fire.
My limbs go heavy.
I slide down the wall, still clawing for my son.
“Don’t take him—don’t—he’s not part of this?—!”
The handler steps through the doorway like he’s entering a quiet office.
Thale.
Same polite smile.
Same neutral eyes.
He steps over the broken door like it’s clutter.
“Secure the child,” he says mildly.
“No!” Kalev roars. “Touch him and I will kill every one of you?—”
A baton strikes his spine.
He convulses.
Doesn’t go out.
Just gasps like his lungs are trying to escape his body.
Thale crouches in front of him.
“Still defiant. Admirable. Inefficient.”
He glances at me, slumped against the wall, vision swimming.
“You see?” he says conversationally. “This is why emotional entanglements are discouraged.”
I drag myself forward on my elbows.
“Please,” I choke. “Please, I’ll do whatever you want—just don’t take him?—”
Thale doesn’t even look at me.
He leans closer to Kalev.
Voice low.
Private.
But I hear every word.
“General Dowron authorized everything.”
Kalev goes still.
Not limp.
Not unconscious.
Still like something just snapped clean through his center.
“The prison,” Thale continues softly. “The mission. The fake freedom. The delay. The handler visit today. All of it.”
Kalev’s eyes lift.
They are not human anymore.
They are murder.
“He wanted to see if you’d choose the asset or the liability,” Thale says. “You chose wrong.”
Kalev makes a sound.
It is not a word.
It is the sound of a man watching his world die.
Clancy is screaming.
I can’t move.
The war stops being abstract.
It becomes us.