Page 51

Dylan

TWO YEARS BEFORE TITAN DISAPPEARED

The silence after sex was always her favorite.

She once told me that.

Said it was the only time her mind went quiet—no intel spinning in the background, no mission logistics, no ghosts from places we left behind.

Just silence. Just us.

She lay against me now, breath still slowing, one hand splayed over my heart like she was keeping it steady.

Riley.

My calm in every storm. My storm in every calm.

Her caramel hair fanned across my shoulder, legs tangled with mine beneath scratchy motel sheets. The room was too warm, the ceiling fan barely turning. But I didn’t care. I never did when it was her.

I kissed her temple. “Squad Six is shifting ops to Canada.”

She groaned. “Again?”

“Zarek’s orders. Financial district’s been flagged. Could be nothing.”

“Nothing doesn’t exist in our world.”

“Exactly.”

She didn’t argue. Just shifted closer. I could feel the weight in her body—of time, of how temporary this always was. We both knew it.

We’d met nine years ago.

CIA training. Different squads. Same compound. Same hellish schedule.

I’d seen her once in a sparring match and thought— that one . The one who never flinches.

She didn’t just fight. She studied you. Broke you down molecule by molecule.

I fell fast. She made me work for it.

We were fire and wreckage, breaking apart when the job demanded it, finding each other again in the quiet after.

Then she’d been recruited into Squad Two. I went to Squad Six. Different missions. Same pull.

We never called it love. Not out loud. Not until much later.

But we had a thing.

Fireflies .

It started in our second year—after a mission in Jakarta. I got pulled out early. She stayed behind, off-grid for six days.

Before I left, I dropped her a message in our shared backdoor server.

One line.

Blink once if you’re still mine.

When I saw her again two weeks later, she passed me in the hallway, eyes steady, whispering—

“I blinked twice. Just in case.”

And it stuck.

We were fireflies. Always blinking in the dark. Always waiting to be seen. Always finding each other.

Even now—after nine years of missions, blood, briefings, and grief masked in sarcasm—I waited for the next blink.

For the day we’d stop running. Stop hiding. Stop sacrificing ourselves for governments that erased us the moment we got sloppy.

I wanted to blink back on.

Permanently .

Riley stirred beside me, her voice soft and sleep-heavy. “How long this time?”

“Zarek says six months. Maybe longer.”

She didn’t ask me to stay. She never did.

That was us.

Mission first. Us second.

Always second.

Still—I kept showing up.

And she kept opening the door.

“You’re ditching me for maple syrup, Titan?”

“I’d ditch you for much less,” I smirked. But she saw right through it.

I brushed my thumb along her bare shoulder. “I’ll ping you when I’m stateside.”

“You always do.”

We never said goodbye. That wasn’t our style.

But over the years, fireflies morphed into something we never intended—a placeholder for goodbye.

A soft-lit acknowledgement that one day, if one of us didn’t— couldn’t —blink back on… the other had permission to stop waiting. Move on.

Just a silent understanding.

No guilt.

No grief.

Just… unblinking.

The thought sat too heavy on my chest.

So I whispered into her hair, “Blink for me.”

She didn’t move at first. Then her sleepy voice mumbled, “Twice. Always twice.”

My throat locked. I didn’t let it show.

I just held her closer, anchoring her to me like I could convince the universe not to take her.

“Sleep, Firefly ,” I murmured. “I’ll find you again.”

She didn’t answer.

She didn’t need to.

Because she always blinked back on.

Until she didn’t.

Because Riley Hayden would never blink back on again.