Page 124 of Red Scale Daddy
Her brow tightens. “You say that like it is secondary.”
I move closer, lowering my voice so the ship and the core and the ghosts outside don’t get any part of this that belongs to us.
“It is.”
The color drains slightly from her face.
I keep going before she can put armor over the hurt. “Your father matters. I know he does. I’m here because he matters to you. But I’m not following that signal anymore, Roma.”
“What are you following?”
“You.”
She stares at me, lips parted, one hand still resting on the console like she needs the ship to keep her upright.
“That is irrational,” she whispers.
“Yeah,” I say. “Probably.”
“You should not say things like that while I am trying to think.”
“I know.”
“You are making this more difficult.”
“Good.”
Her eyes sharpen, but the anger doesn’t fully arrive. “Good?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Because if it gets harder for you to throw yourself away, I’ll count that as my first useful contribution today.”
She looks away first, but it isn’t dismissal. Her hand moves over the controls with less frenzy now, still fast, still brilliant, still chasing the signal with everything she has, but the path stays wider. The margins stay alive.
I watch the display, then her, then the warped graveyard beyond the viewport.
The mission has changed on me without asking.
Fine.
Most things do.
I came here ready to die for something that mattered. Now I stand beside a woman who thinks survival is negotiable if love demands enough of her, and I realize dying would be the lazy part. Living through this, keeping her breathing through the choices she thinks she has to make, dragging her back from the edge even if she hates me for it—that is the harder work.
My side throbs where the drone cut me, and the taste of blood sits faintly at the back of my throat.
I ignore it.
Roma angles us deeper into the core, toward the brightening signal and whatever waits around it.
I brace myself beside her.
“Wider on the next turn,” I say.
She glances at me from beneath the fall of red hair that has slipped loose near her cheek. “I know.”
“Just making sure.”
“I said I know.”
