Page 107 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
“That mission wasn’t supposed to be suicide,” I say.
“You went dark.”
“They turned on me before I even hit atmosphere.”
Her arms cross. “I figured.”
I nod once. “Didn’t even get my boots dirty before they rerouted my drop pod. Straight into Alliance blacksite custody.”
“How long?”
I smile, bitter. “You know the answer.”
“Too long,” she says quietly.
I nod.
She doesn’t ask for details.
But she doesn’t walk away either.
The air shifts again. Softer now. Like the worst of the storm passed through and left something sharp in its wake. The sea’s just audible in the distance, a low murmur behind the static silence.
“I thought of you,” I say.
She flinches.
“I thought of you every time they tried to break me.”
She looks down, her throat working.
“I didn’t forget,” I add.
“That doesn’t make it better,” she says. “It just makes it worse.”
“I know.”
Her voice cracks open then. “I woke up for months thinking maybe today was the day someone would tell me it was a mistake. That you were alive. That the reports were wrong. ThenI buried that version of you, one memory at a time, until all that was left was ash.”
I want to reach for her. I don’t.
“I’m not asking you to unburn it,” I say.
She meets my eyes.
And something in them softens. Just barely.
“I’m not the only one who paid a price,” she says.
“No,” I admit. “But I’m the one who made the call.”
We stand there for a long time.
The conversation wanders after that. Like it’s limping on a broken leg.
She asks about the escape—low voice, wary, like she’s not sure if the answer will help or hurt.
I tell her about the cell. The cold. The hallucinations. The debrief room lit like a surgical ward. How I thought I’d never see sky again.
