Chapter Five: Signals in the Dark
Dinner had been… too easy.
They’d eaten the stew in comfortable quiet, the kind that sneaks up on you when two people start to fall into rhythm without meaning to. Every so often, Freya would glance up from her bowl and catch Axir watching her — not glaring, not exactly brooding, but focused in a way that felt dangerous.
After the dishes were stacked in the sink, she turned to rinse her mug. The faint scrape of his chair made her glance over her shoulder.
He was standing now, closer than she expected. Too close.
“You have something on your…” He gestured vaguely at her mouth, stepping in.
Her heart thudded. “Oh. Right.” She swiped at her lips with a napkin, but he didn’t move back.
In the quiet kitchen, his height, his shadow, the heat radiating from him — it was overwhelming. His gaze dipped to her mouth, lingering there like he was weighing a choice.
Her breath caught.
He leaned in, slow enough that she could have stepped back. She didn’t. The space between them narrowed to a hair’s breadth, his hand brushing her arm — warm, steady, grounding.
The pull was magnetic. Her eyes fluttered shut.
Then panic jolted through her.
She stepped back, fast enough to break whatever spell had been tightening around them. “I should… um… I’ll go upstairs. Long day.”
He blinked once, the barest flicker of frustration crossing his features, before he inclined his head. “Of course.”
She escaped before she could betray how much she’d wanted him to close the distance.
⸻
Upstairs, Freya shut her bedroom door and leaned against it, palms pressed to the wood like it might keep her thoughts from spilling into the hallway.
What the hell was she doing?
This was… insane. He wasn’t even human. She wasn’t supposed to get tangled in anything like this, let alone with someone who carried more secrets than suitcases.
And yet…
When he looked at her like that — like she was the only person in his line of sight — her resolve crumbled.
She curled into bed, forcing herself to think of Ian, of normal life, of anything that didn’t involve dark eyes and sharp cheekbones. Eventually, exhaustion won out, pulling her under.
⸻
Downstairs, Axir remained where she’d left him, staring at the empty space she’d occupied.
Close. Too close.
He’d felt the shift, the moment she almost let him in — before she’d pulled back. Part of him was relieved. The other part… wasn’t.
Freya Ellis was a problem.
A complication.
A soft, infuriating anchor in a life where anchors got people killed.
He turned toward the window, eyes narrowing at the ink-black night beyond. The quiet of Wrenbrook felt wrong tonight, too still, too… waiting.
Then, without warning, a sharp beep broke the silence.
His gaze dropped to the faintly glowing strip of metal embedded into the inside of his forearm — the Zytherion comm-chip. Normally dormant unless triggered, it was now pulsing faint blue with each beep.
Someone was trying to reach him.
His stomach sank.
Moving fast, he crossed to the back door, glancing toward the stairs. No sound from above. Freya was still asleep.
Good.
He stepped out into the cold, night air biting at his skin as he moved across the yard and toward the dark outline of the forest. Past the fence line, the path narrowed, hemmed in by winter-bare trees until the ground opened up.
The crash site.
It had been weeks since he’d come here — the scorched earth, the twisted remnants of his vessel half-buried in soil and snow. The air still held the faint metallic tang of the impact.
Kneeling beside the jagged hulk of metal, he ran his fingers over a cracked panel until he found the port. The chip in his arm beeped again, faster now.
He worked quickly, tearing a length of frayed cord from the wreck, stripping it with a practiced motion. His hands moved with quiet precision, splicing it into the ship’s comm interface, using the last viable energy cells as a bridge.
Nothing. Just static.
He swore softly in Zytherion, scanning the area. The wreck had no external power source — not here. He needed raw energy.
Dropping to one knee, he pressed his palm against the frozen soil, feeling for the hum beneath. This planet’s crust carried pockets of natural energy — erratic, but usable if coaxed.
He closed his eyes, drawing it up, feeding it into the salvaged cables. The ship groaned, a low, guttural whine that spoke of systems too damaged to trust.
Then —
A faint crackle.
Static cleared just enough for a fractured voice to slip through.
“…Hook… respond… urgent…”
His jaw tightened. Only a handful of people in the galaxy still called him that.
“This is Axir,” he said low, leaning into the comm. “Identify yourself.”
Another burst of static, then more words: “…not safe… they’re moving… Core—” The voice cut out, replaced by dead air.
He tried twice more to re-establish the signal, but it was gone — like the speaker had been yanked away mid-sentence.
Axir stayed crouched there, the winter wind sliding past him, his mind already spinning through possibilities. The Core. Whoever it was, they’d known enough to warn him.
And if they knew, so might the ones hunting him.
⸻
By the time he returned to Freya’s house, his boots were damp and his hands chilled to the bone. The kitchen was dark, the only sound the faint hum of the fridge. He glanced toward the stairs again, listening for movement.
Nothing.
Good. She didn’t need to know. Not yet.
He moved to the window, staring out at the tree line. Somewhere out there, a signal had reached him — and a threat might be on its way.
His eyes flicked upward to the second floor, to the warm glow spilling from the crack under Freya’s door. The memory of her almost-leaning-in was still fresh, a warmth that didn’t belong in the cold calculus of survival.
He exhaled, slow and quiet.
This was going to get harder before it got easier.
And the clock had just started ticking.