Chapter 20
KYLDAK
“You sure that’s what she said?”
Scout flicks his eyes to the dirt. “Heard it clear, boss. ‘Extraction.’ Then something about ‘resonance.’ She was talking to herself.”
I stare him down across the oil drum fire we’ve half-assed into a debrief table. Sparks spit upward like they want to get away.
“Genetic resonance,” I mutter. “She said that exact phrase?”
He shrugs. “Sounded sciencey. Didn’t make no sense.”
It makes some.
Just enough to wedge its way under my ribs like a sliver of glass I can’t dig out.
I dismiss the scout with a nod. He sprints off, happy to still have both kneecaps.
The fire crackles.
Extraction. Resonance.
She’s not sick. I would’ve seen it by now—Jaela hides a lot, but not dying. And she’s too urgent to be after data. Too reckless.
So what the fuck is she doing in that lab?
I don’t knock.
I don’t warn.
I barge in like fury wrapped in a scarred body and black armor. And she’s right where I knew she’d be—hunched over her cobbled-together med bench, pale in the harsh blue of the stim lamp, hair tied back in a rush, hands shaking just enough to tell me she’s about to do something that matters.
She jumps when she sees me. Drops a pair of forceps. “Shit!”
I say nothing.
Just walk up.
And snatch the injector from the table.
“Hey—!” she barks, lunging.
Too late. I’m already flipping it in my hand, thumb tracing the casing until my eye catches on the lettering burned into the side.
“Alpha Source,” I read aloud. “Gen Extractor. Version 3.7. Illegal tech. Bio-classified.”
Her mouth is a tight line.
“Jaela,” I say, low. “Start talking.”
“I told you—”
“No. You spun science garbage last time and walked away like I wouldn’t call the bluff.”
She steps forward, hands out like she can grab the words back. “Give that back.”
I throw it.
Hard.
The injector smashes against the far wall, pieces scattering like shrapnel.
She gasps. “You bastard! That was calibrated!”
“You don’t come all this way,” I roar, “cross hell, survive the Scar, worm your way back into my bed for a research project!”
She flinches like I hit her.
I breathe heavy, like my own rage is suffocating me. My hands clench at my sides, claws half-formed.
“I let you in,” I growl. “Again. You lied. Again.”
She opens her mouth. Nothing comes out.
I close the distance. Nose to nose. “So what is it? What the fuck are you doing here, Jaela? Don’t you dare say ‘a study.’”
She shakes. Not out of fear. Out of pressure. Like she’s about to snap.
And she almost does.
But not all the way.
“I need something only you can give,” she whispers.
My heart thuds once, hard. “What?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Try.”
She closes her eyes. “That’s all you need to know.”
I stare at her like I can will the truth out of her bones. “This about the Alliance?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
She’s silent.
“It’s personal,” I snarl. “I know it is.”
She looks up, finally meeting my gaze. “Of course it is.”
My jaw twitches.
“So take it,” I whisper. “Whatever it is. Whatever you need. But don’t pretend this is clean. Don’t stand there and act like it’s not me you’re asking.”
Her lips part.
I can see it—right there, behind her eyes.
The truth.
Ready to burst.
But she swallows it again. Like she always does.
And I hate how much I still want to touch her.
The injector is still lying in pieces on the floor when she kneels to pick it up.
Hands trembling, jaw tight. Not crying—never crying.
I stand there, watching her patch the damn thing back together like the world depends on it. Maybe it does.
I sigh. “Show me.”
Her head jerks up. “What?”
“You said you need something. Take it.”
She freezes, the half-mended casing flickering blue between her fingers. “You don’t even know what—”
“Don’t care.” I strip off my gauntlet and shove my sleeve to the elbow. “Just tell me where.”
She hesitates. The air between us feels charged, humming like the seconds before a sandstorm hits. Then she nods once and clears a space on the table.
“Sit,” she says, voice so small it barely makes it through the static hiss of the generator.
I sit. Metal creaks beneath my weight. The whole camp outside sounds far away—muffled engines, someone laughing too loud, the night wind dragging grit across the tin walls.
She readies the injector. The needle glows faint amber now that the circuits are re-aligned. It smells faintly of ozone and old blood.
“This’ll hurt,” she murmurs.
I grin without humor. “Everything does.”
She presses a cool pad against the inside of my arm—sterilizer, probably. It bites cold, then the heat blooms behind it. Her hand steadies against my skin. The touch burns in a way I haven’t felt in years.
When the needle sinks, it’s deep. Not the surface pinch of routine med work—this digs for marrow, humming low as it draws. My vision whites out around the edges.
Jaela’s breath catches. “Hold still.”
“I am.” My voice comes out rougher than I mean.
She leans close, squinting at the readout. Her hair brushes my jaw. Smells like smoke, metal, and that sweet-sharp thing I can never name. Every nerve in my body knows exactly where she is.
The device vibrates harder. Pain blooms along my spine, raw and bright. I taste iron. I don’t make a sound.
She does. A shaky exhale, almost a sob she’s biting down.
The syringe chamber fills—thick gold-red fluid spiraling upward, pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat. She’s sweating now, jaw clenched.
“Almost done,” she whispers.
“Don’t rush on my account.”
“Shut up,” she mutters, but it’s soft. Not angry.
I watch her instead of the needle. The way her lashes tremble. The tiny muscle twitch in her cheek when she’s fighting something she won’t name.
Then the injector beeps.
Done.
She yanks the needle free and slaps a patch over the wound. Blood blooms through the gauze anyway. I flex my hand; pain crackles up my arm.
She sets the injector down like it’s sacred, seals the chamber, and locks it in a containment pod. Her shoulders drop. Relief—or maybe devastation.
“Thank you,” she says. Just that. Two words, brittle as glass.
I nod once. Can’t trust my mouth to work right now.
I stand, the chair scraping loud against metal. The world tilts for a second, the blood loss catching up. I steady myself on the table. She reaches for me instinctively, but I move first, stepping back.
“I’m fine.”
“Kyldak—”
“Don’t.” I can’t look at her. If I do, I’ll ask again. I’ll demand what the hell she’s doing, who the extraction’s for, why her eyes look like someone drowning.
Instead I walk out.
Outside, night hits like cold iron. The wind’s got teeth again, snapping at my bare skin. I strip the bandage from my arm and toss it into the sand. The puncture still leaks a little, shining dark under the moons.
The camp’s quiet—uneasy after what I did to Brannik earlier. Good. Let them keep their distance.
I walk to the edge of the compound where the dunes start. The horizon’s black glass, cut by the faint shimmer of distant lightning. Jurtik’s storms never stop; they just wait their turn.
I tilt my head back. The sky is a sprawl of stars. Same stars she must’ve looked at before she came here. Same ones that hung over us years ago when the world still had edges that made sense.
The wound throbs. My heart does something worse.
I breathe in, slow, the air tasting of dust and blood.
Without thinking, I say it again. The name that’s been haunting my sleep for weeks.
“Kel.”
It slips out quiet, almost soundless.
But the moment it leaves my mouth, something inside me twists tight. Not pain. Not memory. Just a pull—like gravity shifted, like the universe’s center moved a few inches closer to where she is.