Through the blur, I make out familiar faces—my fallback team. Contractors I hire when a job’s too messy to clean up solo.
They haul me up, half-carrying, half-dragging.
I hate it.
Hate the weakness.
Hate that I needed saving.
Hate even more the reason why.
Because somewhere in the broken mess of my mind, as the grenades exploded and the bullets flew, I wasn’t thinking about escape routes or tactics.
I was thinking about her.
Kelli.
Soft skin.
Fierce eyes.
A ghost in my blood, clouding my reflexes, slowing my hands.
I clench my jaw so hard my teeth ache.
One of the contractors—Vesh, big and mean—grunts as he shoves me into a battered evac runner.
“You’re slipping, boss,” he mutters under his breath. “Didn’t think you were the sentimental type.”
I snap my head toward him, glare hard enough to shut him up.
But the words stick anyway.
Slipping.
Detachment used to be my shield. My weapon.
Now it’s cracking.
Worse than cracking.
It’s breaking.
And in this business, that gets you dead real fast.
I slump back against the seat as the runner roars to life, rattling down the alleyway.
The pain’s sharp. Alive. Real.
But the bigger wound is the one under my skin—the bond pulling, stretching, weakening everything I thought made me strong.
I stare out the filthy window at the dying lights of Gur.
Fear coils low in my gut, unusual and unwanted.
Not fear of dying.
I’ve made peace with that.
