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She leaned in and kissed him, gentle, humble, full of the ache still blooming in her chest.
He sighed against her lips and drifted back under, fingers twitching where they brushed her hip. Like even in sleep, he couldn’t help but reach for her.
She lay beside him for one more breath, then eased off the bed. Slid quietly into the bathroom. The water steamed around her as she stepped into the shower.
When his arms wrapped around her from behind, she reached for his hands, laced their fingers together over her belly, and leaned back into the man she’d never expected to need this much.
* * *
Undisclosed Location
Petty Officer Kento “Superman” Kobayoshi glared with bleary eyes at the man who had brought him food. He asked the same questions every time. “Where the fuck is my team? Who are you? You can’t keep me here.”
Every single time the guy just dropped the tray and walked out of the small gray room. But this time Kento had managed to pull a metal spring from the bed and unlock the cuffs. As the guy turned his back, he lunged at him, got him into a brutal chokehold, and squeezed. The man flailed, but his adrenaline spiked. They had kept him sedated for a long time, but every waking moment, he didn’t rest, he worked out, kept strong. He was fucking tired of this whole routine. He was going to find Prophet, Riggs, and Burner.
He closed his eyes, the memory so fresh in his mind, except for what happened to his teammates. He tightened his hold, but before the guy blacked out, two others entered the room and shoved a taser in his ribs, electricity shooting through his nerves, but he refused to let go. “Where are my teammates!” he shouted.
One of the guys tased him again, but Kento had learned to ignore and override that kind of shit. He fought back with everything he had until finally one of the guys delivered a hard blow to his head. Kento saw stars, his body slumping, releasing the guy.
One man raised his leg, and a disembodied voice said, “Do not strike him again. You know what to do.”
Kento fought, but the needle went into his neck, and the sedative took over as they carried him to his bed, dropped him on the mattress, the cuffs clicking back around his wrists.
“I’ll kill you,” he whispered, his words slurring. “Where are they? Where…are…my teammates…”
The world tilted sideways, then vanished.
Kento didn’t dream. The sedatives they pumped into his veins didn’t allow for that. Just a thick, gray drift of silence that pulled everything under.
When he came to, the overhead lights droned with that low, mosquito whine, casting a cold white sheen across the windowless cell. His throat burned. His limbs felt wrong, heavy in places they shouldn’t be. The cuffs were back. He could feel the metal bite at his wrists where skin had already worn thin.
He blinked once, then again, clearing the blur. The room hadn’t changed.
Cement floor. No windows. Ventilation duct in the far-left corner that clicked every twelve seconds. A wall-mounted camera that tracked movement so slowly it was almost imperceptible. The monitor, flat, black, thin-framed, mounted just above the desk, bolted into the wall. It hadn’t been on in days. Maybe longer. Not since his last attempt to jam the signal by shorting the wall panel with a spoon and a chair leg.
The chair never came back after that.
There was still only one now, welded to the floor, with a curved seat and no cushion. Everything in this room was designed to contain. Nothing to comfort. Nothing to grasp.
The air was sterile and faintly metallic, like old pennies and bleach. He could still taste the copper from the blow to his mouth. Blood maybe. Or just another reminder that he was alone.
Except—
The monitor flickered.
Not a full boot. Just a pulse of light. A heartbeat of power behind the screen.
Kento narrowed his eyes. The sedative still fogged his vision, but not his instincts. Something had changed.
“Finally gonna talk to me?” he rasped, his voice cracked and raw. “Or just watch me rot a little longer?”
No reply. Not from the door. Not from the hallway. Not from the ceiling speaker that sometimes hissed white noise like a warning. Nothing.
But the monitor stayed awake this time. Waiting.
Kento sat up straighter. He hissed when the cuffs scraped bone, but he didn’t flinch. Didn’t curse. He’d used up all his rage earlier. Now all he had was that old, corrosive quiet. The kind that only came after loss.
“I know you’re listening,” he said, slower now. “You always are.”