Chapter 5
MARA
The station hums through the walls like it always does—low, mechanical, pulsing—but today it sounds different. Not louder. Not quieter. Just more... noticeable. Like it knows I’m off-kilter.
Like everything does.
I move through my morning motions in a haze. Sanitation. Fabric shift. Ration check. All rote. All performative. It’s the journal that gets me.
I didn’t mean to open it.
Didn’t plan to write anything.
But my fingers move before my brain catches up. The logpad is warm from where I’ve been sleeping near it. The screen flickers once, then glows steady, waiting for words.
I start typing:
08:14 | Civilian Log – Unsecured
Subject: Psychological manipulation patterns in short-term detainment. Early indicators suggest subtle conditioning through procedural repetition. Standard. Expected. But I’ve started noticing irregularities in my reactions to the observation officer.
Tatek.
That’s his name.
Commander Tatek.
Vakutan, obviously. High-rank, high-discipline. Quiet. Measured. But there’s something else. Something not regulation. The way he looks at me when he thinks I’m not watching. The fact that I am watching.
I keep writing his name.
That’s not data collection.
That’s something else.
I slam the pad shut and shove it under my mattress like someone’s going to burst in and confiscate it. My cheeks are hot. My palms are sweating.
Gods, what am I doing?
I pace for a while. It helps me think. Sort of. The space is small, and I know every centimeter of it now. The weak hinge in the storage alcove. The light flicker at the left corner near the ceiling. The scuff mark on the floor where I dragged the chair too hard on the first day.
This isn’t a room. It’s a memory trap. And right now, every square inch of it is soaked in him.
His voice echoing low and certain.
The way his mouth moves around syllables that don’t exist in Standard.
The way he didn’t look away when I asked too much.
I sit on the edge of the bed and pull my knees up, hugging them. My chest tightens in that all-too-familiar way, like grief is trying to claw its way out again. But it’s not grief this time. Not exactly.
It’s want.
That horrible, clumsy, uncontrollable ache.
Not just for him.
For something.
Something real. Something unfiltered. Something that doesn’t make me feel like I’m still a ghost in my own skin.
My fingers twitch.
I pull the journal back out.
This is not protocol.
This is not survival instinct.
This is not tactical curiosity.
This is me wanting to know the shape of his thoughts when he’s not on duty. This is me wondering what his laugh would sound like if it weren’t cut off halfway. This is me remembering the way his shoulders relaxed for a single second when I said his name right.
This is me wanting.
And I don’t know what to do with that.
My breath shakes when I stop typing.
I set the pad down gently, like it’s something fragile that might break—or worse, something dangerous that might not.
There’s no one here but me.
But I still feel watched.
Not in a sinister way.
Just... aware.
Like I’ve cracked open something and the station itself is holding its breath to see what spills out.
Later, I feel him approach before I actually see him. He comes in quietly. He always does.
No footsteps. No announcement. Just presence.
He doesn’t ask about the journal in my lap, and I don’t offer a reason. The glow of the pad dims when he enters, and I swipe the log away before the words can stare back at me. The screen goes blank. My thoughts do not.
I don’t say hi.
He doesn’t either.
This is our rhythm now—tightrope silence, interrupted only when one of us slips.
The next test is stupid.
Petty, even.
But I do it anyway.
I tuck a data packet—unauthorized, encrypted, and very obviously tagged with the wrong clearance—half-exposed beneath the edge of my ration tray. He’ll see it. He has to. I want to know what happens next.
His gaze skims it once.
Then moves on.
No questions.
No confrontation.
No sudden reach for his wrist comm.
I blink.
What?
Later, I hover near the system node on the wall—restricted access, blinking red, very off-limits. I don’t even touch it. I just stare like I might.
He’s three feet behind me.
I don’t hear him move. I only feel the air shift.
“You don’t have access,” he says, low.
I tilt my head back over my shoulder. “Maybe I’m just admiring the interface.”
He says nothing.
No lecture. No threat. No command to return to my assigned zone.
He just watches me. Like I’m the one blinking red now.
The third time, I stop pretending.
I face him across the small room. No props. No bait.
Just me.
Just him.
“If they tell you to hand me over,” I say, voice flat, “do you?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
His eyes narrow—almost imperceptibly—but they stay on me. Unflinching. Unreadable.
The pause stretches so long I think he won’t reply at all.
“They already have,” he says.
I go still.
“I haven’t.”
It feels like the floor shifts beneath me.
I stare at him, lips parted, chest tight.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.
It’s not bravado. It’s not even defiance.
It’s truth.
Naked and raw and carved from something that doesn’t lie.
My throat clicks as I swallow. I can’t think of what to say. My brain is a haze of static and heat and him.
I should move.
I don’t.
That night, the lights die.
No warning. No alert.
Just a sudden whump of silence as the station groans and everything dims. A second later, the emergency flood comes on—low and red and pulsing like a heartbeat.
I sit bolt upright.
He’s already moving. Between me and the door.
His posture shifts, weight forward. Protective.
Always protective.
But I know now—it’s not orders driving that.
“Power loss?” I ask, squinting at the red wash of light.
“System-wide,” he murmurs, eyes still scanning. “Brief. Controlled.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
His voice is taut.
And yet he doesn’t leave.
He should. To check nodes. To report. To recalibrate.
But he stays.
I stand slowly.
We’re bathed in red now—blood-colored light curling around the edge of his jaw, softening nothing, sharpening everything.
The shadows between us seem alive.
He looks at me. Full-on.
And I can’t breathe.
Something tight coils under my ribs. Not fear. Not anymore.
“Why me?” I whisper.
He doesn’t blink.
“I don’t know,” he says.
His voice is rough now. Less clipped. Something’s cracking.
“But everything in me reacts when you breathe.”
Time stops.
Literally.
For one beat, there’s no sound. No movement. Just that single sentence thudding in my chest like a detonator that forgot to finish the job.
He steps forward—just one slow, heavy movement.
His gaze drops to my mouth.
I forget how to stand.
He’s close enough to touch.
I tilt my chin up.
Our breath syncs.
I step back.
Heart pounding.
“I—can’t,” I murmur, voice catching.
Not yet.
Not now.
He doesn’t chase the space I put between us.
He just nods, once. Barely.
But the air?
The air remembers.