Chapter 7
Three days had passed since the mission, and everything still felt surreal.
I'd slept in fragments. An hour here. Two there.
My mind kept looping back to the cells, the screaming, the white sheets in the medical bay.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Hope's tiny fingers curled against her mother's chest. The moment the shuttle lights had flickered, when I'd clawed at my helmet like a drowning woman.
The training bay was empty at this hour. That's why I came. I wanted to be somewhere the others wouldn’t find me to ask how I was doing.
The bay stretched out before me, reinforced floors, weapons racks, and combat dummies that had seen better days. The lights hummed at half power, casting everything in a dim yellow glow. I walked to the center of the mat and stood there, hands hanging at my sides, breathing.
My shoulders ached from tension I kept trying to release but couldn't. My jaw hurt from clenching it in my sleep. Every muscle in my body was braced for something that had already happened. I rolled my neck and heard it crack. Pressed my palms flat against my thighs to stop them from shaking.
I didn't hear him approach.
"You're holding yourself like you're expecting to get hit."
I turned.
Kaedren stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching me with those green eyes that saw everything.
He was in training clothes instead of his usual tactical gear.
Simple. Unarmored. The fabric stretched across all of his shoulders, and I noticed for the first time how different he looked without weapons strapped to every surface.
"I didn't think anyone else would be up," I said.
"I wasn't." He pushed off the doorframe and walked toward me, his footsteps deliberate on the mat. "The Tether woke me. You've been pushing anxiety for the last hour."
Guilt flickered through me. I'd been trying to keep the connection muted, but apparently I wasn't as good at it as I thought.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"
"Don't apologize." He stopped a few feet away, close enough that I could smell sandalwood and weapon oil. "You're not sleeping. You're not eating. And you've been avoiding me."
“Way to get in there and make it about you!” I said
He tilted his head and smirked.
It wasn't an accusation, just a fact.
"I haven't been avoiding you specifically," I said. "I've been avoiding everyone."
"I noticed." He studied me the way he studied tactical readouts. Assessing. Processing. "Your body doesn't know the mission is over. It's still running on adrenaline, looking for the next threat. That won't stop until you give it somewhere to go."
I let out a breath. "Is that the polite way of saying I look like crap?"
"You look like someone who needs a release." He walked past me to the equipment rack and pulled two sets of training gloves from the hooks. "Not talking, not processing, and not the type of release you think I’m talking about."
“I mean, that would release stress, right?”
“From what I can tell, you have been releasing a lot of stress that way. How’s it working out for you?”
“I don’t have any complaints.”
“It also hasn’t helped you get the sleep you need,” he said.
“To be fair, I wasn’t looking for sleep when I found that release.”
“Release singular?”
“Would you like another Kira special?” I asked.
“Catch,” he said as he tossed a pair of gloves to me.
I caught them on reflex.
"Kaedren, I don't think I'm in any shape to—"
"I'm not asking you to fight." He pulled his own gloves on with practiced efficiency. "I'm asking you to let your body finish what your mind can't."
Something in his voice made me pause. Understanding.
I pulled the gloves on.
He led me through the drills, slowly at first. Footwork that forced me to focus on balance. Breathing exercises timed to movement, inhale on the wind-up, exhale on the strike. Simple combinations against the heavy bag that made my muscles and lungs burn.
He corrected my form without judgment. Shifted my stance with careful hands. Pushed me just hard enough to make me sweat, but not hard enough to overwhelm. When I dropped my elbow on a hook, he adjusted it with a touch. When my feet got sloppy, he tapped my ankle with his foot.
"Harder," he said after a while. "You're holding back."
“Isn’t that usually my line?”
“I’ve never heard you say it to me. Maybe you are thinking of somebody else.”
I threw a punch that connected. The impact traveled up my arm, and something loosened in my chest.
"Again."
I hit the bag harder. The sound of it was satisfying. Solid. Real.
"You train like this," I said between strikes. "After combat?"
"Every time." He moved behind the bag to brace it. "The Reach teaches discipline as a core belief. But discipline isn't about suppression. It's about giving the body what it needs so the mind can follow."
I threw another combination. Left-right-left. My breath came faster now, sweat dampening my shirt.
"The mission keeps playing in my head," I admitted. "The choices. The casualties. I keep thinking about what I could have done differently."
"That's your brain trying to find an answer for a problem that's already solved.
" He absorbed my next punch without shifting, his weight anchoring the bag.
"It doesn't know how to stop because it still thinks you're in danger.
So you exhaust the body. Burn through the adrenaline.
Give your system proof that the threat has passed. "
Three more punches. My arms were starting to shake.
"How long does it take?" I asked. "Before it stops feeling like this?"
"Depends." He stepped around the bag and gestured for me to follow him to the mat. "Some missions take days. Others take weeks. The worst ones never fully leave. They just become part of you."
He lowered himself to the floor and began stretching, motioning for me to mirror him. I sank down across from him, grateful for the chance to rest my burning muscles.
"I lost six people on that mission," he said quietly. "Six fighters who trusted me to bring them home."
I settled into the stretch, pulling one leg in close. The Tether carried a whisper of his grief. Controlled. Contained. But present.
"I felt it," I said. "When Vaelix read the casualty report. You didn't let it show, but I felt it."
"I've had practice hiding it." He switched positions, extending his other leg. "The first time I lost someone under my command, I shut down for three days. Couldn't eat. Couldn't speak. My commander dragged me to the training hall and worked me until I couldn't stand."
"That sounds brutal. Also, we are talking about this kind of training, right? Because if not, where do I sign up?"
"It was this kind of training," he said, as a smile flitted across his face. "It also worked. The body knows how to move past survival mode, but sometimes you have to show it the way."
We stretched in silence for a while. My hamstrings protested, tight from days of tension, but I leaned into the discomfort. Let it ground me in the present.
"I keep thinking about the second camp," I said. "The one we couldn't reach. The corporations killed everyone because of what we did."
Kaedren's eyes met mine. Steady. Unflinching. "What would have happened if we hadn't acted at all?"
I knew the answer. The women in the first camp would have stayed enslaved. The babies born there would have grown up as corporate property. Baby Hope probably would have died, along with her mother, and every other person on that planet.
"They would have suffered anyway," I said. "Just slower. Without anyone trying to stop it."
"Exactly." He rose to his feet and offered me his hand. "The corporations didn't kill those people because of us. They killed them because that's what they do. Our actions allowed some of them to get out."
I took his hand and let him pull me up. His grip was warm, steadying.
"One more round," he said. "Then we'll call it."
But instead of leading me back to the heavy bag, he walked to the center of the mat and settled into a defensive stance.
"What are we doing?"
"Controlled grappling. Nothing dangerous." His eyes held mine. "I want you to take me down."
"Now we're talking.”
He paused. “I appreciate your banter, Kira. It is refreshing, at times. However, it is also a defense mechanism. For this drill, I need you vulnerable.”
Did he just call me a defense mechanism?
I think so, yeah.
Can we give him the Kira special now?
Only if he’s wrong. Is he wrong?
Shut up.
Kaedren settled into position. "You've spent the last three days feeling powerless.
Your brain is stuck in a loop where you couldn't protect everyone, couldn't save everyone, couldn't control the outcome.
" He gestured to the space between us. "This gives you control.
You set the pace. You decide how far we go. You tell me when to stop."
I understood what he was offering.
Choice.
Agency in a body that had forgotten it had any.
I moved toward him.
“Wait,” he said, all four of his hands raised, palms up. “No Kira specials allowed during this training, okay?”
I laughed. “I promise.”
The first takedown was clumsy. He let me work for it, redirecting my weight without counterattacking, guiding me toward the technique instead of away from it. When I finally got him to the mat, he didn't resist. Just let himself fall with the motion, absorbing the impact like it was nothing.
"Good," he said from beneath me. "Again."
We went again. And again. Each round, he gave me a little more resistance. Made me earn it. But he never took over. Never turned it into his victory. When I found the right leverage, he went down. When I fumbled, he reset and let me try again.
By the fifth round, I was gasping for air and my muscles burned with the good kind of exhaustion. The kind that meant something had been used up and emptied out. The kind that left no room for anything but the present moment.
He tapped the mat, signaling the end, and I rolled off him onto my back.
We lay there side by side, staring at the ceiling, catching our breath. The training bay hummed around us, quiet and still.
"Strength isn't about being harder," he said after a while. "It's not about enduring more than everyone else or refusing to feel what hurts. It's about knowing when to push and when to stop. Trusting yourself to make that choice."
I turned my head to look at him. His profile was sharp in the dim light, jaw relaxed for once.
"Is that something the Reach taught you?"
"No." He met my gaze. "That's what I learned after what the Reach taught me failed."
Something shifted in my heart. Not the weight itself, but the way I was carrying it. Like I'd been holding it wrong this whole time, and someone had finally shown me how to balance it.
"Thank you," I said. "For not trying to fix it."
"You don't need fixing." He reached over and took my hand, his grip warm and calloused against my palm. "You need to remember that your body still belongs to you. Even after everything you've asked it to do."
I squeezed his fingers.
A wave of exhaustion rolled over me. The kind that might actually let me sleep.
"I should get cleaned up," I said, not moving.
"You should." He didn't move either.
We stayed like that for another few minutes, hands linked, breathing in the quiet of the empty training bay. I could feel him through the Tether now, his presence a steady anchor.
The weight was still there. The memories. The cost.
But for the first time in three days, I felt like I could carry it.