Page 66 of Thexan

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It pressed in, heavy and immediate, carrying the weight of every person within earshot trying to decide if they had heard me correctly.

Tanner stared at me.

“For how long?” he asked finally.

“Since this morning,” I said.

Something in his expression shifted then, disbelief giving way to something sharper, more dangerous.

“You expect me to believe that you made that kind of decision in a matter of hours?”

“I didn’t make it alone,” I said. “The bond doesn’t work that way.”

“I don’t care how it works,” Tanner snapped, the first real edge of anger breaking through. “What I care about is the fact that you’re telling me an alien walked into this settlement, nearly died on your table, and now you’re standing here saying he belongs here because of something that happened between the two of you in less than a day.”

“I’m telling you he belongs here because I chose him,” I said, keeping my voice steady even as the tension around us tightened. “And because he chose me.”

“And that’s supposed to be enough?”

“It has to be,” I said.

Tanner let out a short breath, shaking his head as he took a step closer, closing some of the distance between us.

“Brynn, you’re asking me to trust something I don’t understand, coming from someone I don’t know, who just proved he’s capable of killing without hesitation.”

“I’m asking you to trust me,” I said.

That stopped him.

Not completely, but enough that the next words didn’t come as quickly.

“You’ve trusted my judgment before,” I continued, not backing down. “You’ve trusted me to decide who gets brought in, who gets treated, who gets a second chance when they show up at our gates with nothing but trouble behind them. This isn’t different just because you don’t like what he is.”

“It’s different because I don’t know what he’ll do,” Tanner said.

I held his gaze, feeling the steadiness of the bond behind me, the quiet certainty that had been there since the moment everything changed.

“I do,” I said.

“And how can you be so sure?”

“Because he’s standing in this settlement right now instead of tearing it apart to make sure nothing ever threatens it again,” I said. “Because he fought off the people who would have come through here without a second thought for any of us. And because if he wanted to hurt anyone here, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

The words settled between us, not as a threat, but as a truth neither of us could ignore.

Tanner looked past me one more time, then back again, the conflict in his expression no longer hidden.

“And you’re willing to stand behind that?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“All of it?”

“All of it.”

He held my gaze for a long moment, weighing the answer against everything he knew about me, about this place, about the risks we lived with every day, whether we acknowledged them or not.

Finally, he exhaled slowly.