Chapter 12
ISOLDE
Ican’t breathe.
The pod bucks once, hard enough to slam me back against the seat and knock every thought out of my head. My stomach lurches. My ribs are tight bands. My throat—gods, my throat’s got no sound left in it, just ragged breath and bile.
He threw me.
He actually threw me.
The straps cinched me in before I could fight back. I tried—stars, I tried—but the damn thing locked me down like a coffin, and now I’m just here.
Alone.
The viewport blazes white.
I don’t want to look. I can’t look.
But I do.
Because I have to.
The Hulk—the ancient, monstrous warship that devoured my story and spat out something I barely recognize—detonates behind me in perfect, horrifying silence. A ripple of light expands like a blooming flower made of fire and bones. Not explosive, not chaotic. No. This is clean. Final.
The kind of light that makes stars jealous.
And he’s in it.
Garokk.
My fists pound the glass. "No, no, no—"
I can’t see him. There was no second pod. No escape route. No backup plan. He threw me in and turned his back and stayed.
Why would he stay?
“Garokk, you absolute bastard,” I whisper. My voice shakes like it’s coming apart at the seams. “You said you wouldn’t die.”
But I saw it. I saw him take that last look. I saw the decision already written in his eyes before the door sealed.
He never meant to leave.
I slam my head back against the padded seat and scream.
It doesn’t echo.
The pod's just a metal egg with nothing but pressure seals and trajectory math and cold-ass logic. It doesn’t care about grief. Doesn’t care about soulmates or fated mates or jalshagar promises whispered against scorched lips. It just flies.
Like it's supposed to.
"Traitorous little bastard," I croak, trying to laugh, trying to breathe.
I can’t.
My chest keeps stuttering like it forgot what breath means.
A flicker to my left.
Reflector hums online with a sickly blue pulse, his lens cracked right down the middle. His voice—once so cheerful, so precise—is thready, static-laced.
“I—initiated escape parameters,” he says. “Trajectory—stable. Autopilot—active.”
I stare at him. “You came?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
“I am programmed for your safety,” he buzzes. “I followed protocol.”
A beat.
Then, quieter—“And... you needed someone.”
My throat closes.
I don’t want this.
Not without him.
I look down at my hands, expecting blood, expecting soot, something. But they’re clean.
Empty.
How are they clean?
They were just on his chest.
His skin was so hot. So alive.
I curl my fingers into fists, hard enough my nails bite skin.
This can’t be real.
It doesn’t feel real.
There should’ve been some miracle, right? Some last-minute twist? An extra pod I didn’t see? Him slamming into the door with some half-destroyed exo-suit, snarling something about fate and stupidity?
But there wasn’t.
There isn’t.
It’s just me.
Floating.
Alone.
In the dark.
I blink, and the stars outside smear like tears. Or maybe that’s just my vision. The Hulk’s nova is fading now—shrinking into the background like it was never there.
Like he was never there.
Gods, I hate space.
It doesn’t hold you.
It doesn’t even pretend to care.
"Garokk," I whisper.
No answer.
My body finally gives up the fight. I sag in the seat like someone unplugged me. My heart’s still thudding too loud, too fast, but everything else? Numb.
My limbs feel like they’re floating separately from me. Like my body’s just meat the pod is carting through the stars. And my soul—
I don’t know where the hell that went.
Maybe it stayed behind.
Maybe it burned up with him.
I stare at the control panel, just blinking lights and nav charts I can’t read. I’m not supposed to fly this thing. I’m not supposed to be alone. That was never the deal.
“Reflector,” I whisper.
“Yes?”
“How long until we reach... anything?”
A pause. Static crackles.
“Alliance outpost in four hours, seventeen minutes, and nine seconds. Current trajectory is optimal. Oxygen reserves at 98%. Hull integrity at 91%.”
“Great,” I mutter. “Perfect. Spectacular.”
Another pause.
Then, quietly: “Isolde.”
“Yeah?”
“You are not okay.”
“Nope.”
Silence again. Even the pod hums softer now, as if the AI knows grief needs quiet.
My hands drift to my stomach, fingers curling there, thoughtless.
I feel... hollow.
Not just because he’s gone. Because he left me.
He didn’t even say goodbye.
And somehow, that hurts worse than the explosion. Worse than the light. Worse than the silence.
He looked at me like I was everything.
And then he was gone.
Just—gone.
My breath catches on a sob I can’t swallow. The tears come hot and fast, unstoppable now. They fall silently, soaking the collar of my jacket. I don't even wipe them away.
Because for once—I don’t have to perform.
There’s no camera.
No stream.
No followers counting on the next thrill.
Just me.
And the silence.
And the slow, bright burn of something ending behind me, too far away to touch.
I don’t remember the moment they pull me out.
There’s no cinematic crash, no dramatic rescue beam, no flood of white light and tears and gasps. Just... a shift. One second I’m floating, tethered to grief by air and time and nothing else. The next, I’m being handled.
Hands. Gloved. Careful.
Voices, muffled through thick suits and thicker glass.
“She’s alive.”
“Vitals stable. She’s breathing.”
“Get her out of there—gently.”
I blink, and someone flinches like that’s the worst thing I could’ve done.
The escape pod’s hatch opens with a hiss I barely register. Cold air rushes in, too bright, too loud, too real. I don't resist as they lift me—don’t even try. My limbs dangle. I feel like laundry in a storm.
They keep saying my name.
Isolde Verrix. Over and over. First name, last name, title. They know who I am. Of course they do. I’m the face of half the holonet and the voice behind a billion credits of content. My missing poster probably paid for a small war.
I wish I’d stayed missing.
I don't speak as they carry me onto the retrieval ship. I don’t cry, don’t smile, don’t even blink unless they touch my face.
Shock. They whisper it like a diagnosis, like a prayer.
Shock.
She’s gone catatonic.
It must have been horrific—no food, no water, no human contact for days...
I let them think that.
Let them talk around me, over me, through me.
Let them believe it was the time in the pod that broke me.
Not the man who saved me and left me in the same breath.
Reflector never leaves my side.
They try to separate us at first—protocol, contamination, standard AI re-shelving.
He flashes a stunner pulse so close to one technician’s hand that the poor guy pisses himself. After that, nobody argues.
They run scans. Feed me rehydration IVs. Try to ask questions. But I keep my lips pressed shut like they’re glued together. I don’t give them a sound.
Because if I open my mouth, I’ll scream.
Or beg.
Or maybe he’ll come out instead—his name, a curse and a prayer and a confession all at once.
I can’t risk that.
So I say nothing.
They try to send me back to Earth.
I say one word—No—and that’s enough.
Not because they respect me. But because no one wants to force the face of the galaxy’s most popular feed into a shuttle she doesn’t want.
Bad optics.
So they detour.
Novaria.
The planet is one of the crowning jewels of the Trident Alliance, a perfect balance of gleaming metropolises and nature preserves. The war has never touched Novaria, not directly at least. That’s it’s biggest strength and it’s biggest weakness.
Perfect.
They set me up in a private recovery suite in the capital city of Nova-1, with a garden window that shows static-processed waterfalls. The furniture is all soft corners and gentle pressure pads, the walls pulse with low, calming light.
It’s hell.
I don’t unpack.
I sit on the edge of the bed for hours, then curl up in the middle of it and stare at the wall like it owes me answers.
Reflector buzzes around me, quieter now. He knows. He’s learning grief, even if he can’t feel it. The AI in his core’s scrambled, yeah, but his loyalty? That’s still intact.
“You haven’t consumed sustenance in sixteen hours,” he says, nudging a tray toward me.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You require fuel to maintain cognitive—”
“I said no, Reflector.”
He pauses. Bobs once in place.
Then backs off.
The doctors come.
Every day, one by one, rotating like actors on a failing set. Each wears a new face, a new name, a new degree. They ask things like:
“Do you remember the duration of your captivity?”
“Can you describe your emotional state during isolation?”
“Did you fear for your life?”
I want to laugh. Want to scream. Want to tell them I didn’t fear death—I feared survival.
But all I say is: “I don’t remember.”
They take notes. Whisper to each other in clinical tones.
Shock, they murmur again. It’s always shock.
“She’ll come back to herself eventually.”
“Her vitals are strong. But she’s dissociating.”
“She needs time.”
They think I’m a broken doll whose batteries need charging.
They think this is what trauma looks like.
And maybe it is.
But they don’t know.
They don’t know I wasn’t alone in that ship.
They don’t know I met a monster with gold eyes and claws that held me like I was sacred.
They don’t know I was loved so hard it still aches.
They don’t know I lost him in silence.
And they definitely don’t know that somewhere deep inside me—
I still feel him.
Like gravity.
Like a burn.
Like the heartbeat I can’t hear anymore but still move in rhythm to.
At night, I dream of fire.
Not screaming or smoke—just light. Blinding. Endless.
And in it, I hear his voice.
Not words. Just breath.
Garokk, the Brutal.
My jalshagar.
My ghost.