Page 67 of Fated in A Time of War

He huffs. “Someone has to.”

I shake my head. “Not alone.”

We sit in silence for a long stretch. The night’s starting to fall, stars barely visible through the dirty haze above. Somewhere in the camp, a baby cries. Somewhere else, metal clangs as someone reinforces a door with scrap.

I reach out, my fingers brushing his. It’s instinct. It’s deliberate. It’s everything I don’t say out loud.

He takes my hand without hesitation.

The rusted stairs groan beneath our weight, metal whining every time one of us shifts. Krall hasn’t moved since I took his hand. I haven’t either. The cold steel presses into my back, the edge of the step cutting just enough through my jacket to remind me I’m still here. Still alive. Sitting beside a creature who once tore through Alliance lines like a goddamn wrecking ball—and now holds my hand like it’s the only thing tethering him to this world.

His palm is rough, heat radiating through the pads of his fingers where they curve around mine. We don’t say anything for a while. Just sit. Listen to the murmur of a camp trying not to panic.

I break the silence. “What happens after?”

He doesn’t answer at first. Just draws in a long breath that sounds like gravel in his chest. “After what?”

“After Horus IV,” I say, nudging his arm with my shoulder. “After the Kru. After all this.”

He makes a sound. It’s not quite a laugh. More like a scoff that forgot how to be bitter.

“I don’t know,” he says.

I tilt my head toward him, but his gaze is somewhere far beyond the walls. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I mean I never planned past survival,” he mutters. “There was no point.”

There’s an edge in his voice. Not anger. Weariness. Like the words themselves have weight and he’s tired of carrying them.

“You’re not going back to the Alliance, are you?” I ask.

Krall shakes his head, slow and final.

“I can’t,” he says. “Not after what I’ve seen. Not after what I’ve done.”

I squeeze his hand, and he doesn’t pull away.

“You think they’d even want me back?” he goes on. “They already treat me like a loaded gun. Maybe useful, but always pointed the wrong way. No leash long enough.”

I hate how true that sounds. I hate how fast I believe it.

“They see a Vakutan,” he continues, voice low and gritty. “Not a man. Not a person. Just… a tool. Or a threat.”

I look at him then. Really look. His shoulders are broader than any human’s, his skin the color of scorched bronze, scaled like old armor. His eyes catch the faint light of the camp’s perimeter fires, glowing faintly gold. But none of that is what makes him other.

It’s the way he’s always watching. Calculating. Braced for betrayal.

I lean into him a little more. “There’s a place for people like us, you know.”

He glances down at me. “Us?”

“Yeah,” I say. “You think I’m going back to the brass after this?”

He huffs again. “You could. You should. You’re one of the good ones.”

I laugh, bitter and sharp. “Good ones don’t point guns at their own side. Good ones don’t steal supply runs or knock out their commanding officer because he was going to leave a village to burn.”

Krall tilts his head, interest flickering in his eyes.