Page 31 of Alien Assassin's Heir

I know what his lies look like—slick, cold, precise.

This… this is real.

“You were always good at looking like you gave a damn,” I say.

“I did.”

“Then why didn’t you say goodbye?”

He exhales through his nose, slow. “Because if I’d said goodbye, I wouldn’t have left. And if I didn’t leave, you’d be dead.”

We sit in that silence a long time.

The synthbean’s cold by the time I sip it.

Somehow, we end up talking for over an hour. Then another.

We don’t speak of Solie. Not directly.

He asks about work, and I tell him half-truths. He asks if I’m okay, and I say yes, even though I’m not.

He laughs at one point—soft, surprised—when I tell him about the time I almost lost a shipping drone to a flock of glasshawks.

“I remember those damn things,” he mutters. “Had to swat a whole nest out of my barracks once. They went for the heat panels.”

“They went for the emergency signal light,” I say, smirking. “That drone circled for three hours, panicking.”

He chuckles, and it’s a deep sound that stirs something old and buried in my chest.

I smile.

Damn him, I smile.

By the time we part ways, the sun’s low. The sky’s copper and lavender, dust curling in lazy spirals along the path.

He walks me to the tram station. Doesn’t try to touch me. Doesn’t press.

Just stands there, quiet.

“Thank you,” he says.

“For what?”

“For not throwing your coffee in my face.”

I snort. “I thought about it.”

“Next time.”

“There’s a next time?”

He hesitates.

“Maybe.”

I get on the tram before I change my mind.

As the doors hiss shut, I catch his expression through the glass—soft, open, aching.