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It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “It’s defensible. Remote. The technology is operational.” I glanced toward Everly. “And she can control it.”

Zehn nodded slowly. “A good shelter until we decide our next move. But we’ll need supplies.”

“Everything we need is here,” I said. “This facility was meant to be self-sufficient. There were rations and supplies readily available.”

“Found it!” Everly called out, drawing our attention back to the console. “The communication array is operational, but it’s limited to specific frequencies. It looks like it was designed to contact other Kridrin outposts.”

“Can it be modified?” Zehn asked, moving toward her.

“I think so,” she replied, her fingers already working at the controls. “The basic principles are similar to systems I’ve worked with before. If I can recalibrate the quantum resonance pattern...”

Her technical explanation continued, filled with terms I didn’t understand. But I understood the determination in her voice, the fierce intelligence that had already saved us multiple times. As I watched her work, the realization hit me with unexpected force: our mission was over. We had escaped capture. We had found shelter. The immediate danger had passed.

So what was my purpose now?

For years, I had existed solely to survive—first as a test subject, then as a weapon. Every decision, every action had been driven by the immediate need to stay alive and free. Now, standing in this abandoned facility with no pursuers at our heels and no clear objective ahead, I felt unmoored. Adrift.

The sensation was so unfamiliar that at first I mistook it for physical pain. I moved away from Zehn and Everly, retreating to the far side of the room where the shadows were deeper. Myclaws extended and retracted unconsciously, scoring faint lines in the metal wall behind me.

What was I without a mission? Without an enemy to fight or a threat to evade? The genetic tampering that had created me had designed me for combat, for survival in hostile environments. Not for... this. Not for peace. Not for the strange domesticity that seemed to be developing between the three of us.

And certainly not for the feelings that stirred whenever Everly looked at me with those dark, knowing eyes.

“Khaaz?” Her voice pulled me from my thoughts. She had moved from the console and now stood before me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from her small human form. “What’s wrong?”

I looked away, unable to meet her gaze. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit,” she said, the harshness of the word contrasting with the softness of her voice. “You’ve been brooding in this corner for ten minutes. Talk to me.”

I risked a glance at her face and found no fear there, no disgust at my scarred appearance. Only concern and something else—something warmer that made my chest tighten.

“I don’t know what happens now,” I admitted, the words feeling raw in my throat. “The mission is complete. We’re safe. I don’t...” I struggled to articulate the emptiness I felt. “I don’t know my purpose anymore.”

Everly’s expression shifted, a flash of understanding followed by something fiercer. “Your purpose? Is that all you think you are? A weapon with a mission?”

Her words hit with unexpected force. I’d never considered myself as anything else.

“You need to get over yourself,” she continued, stepping even closer. “You’re not just some experiment, some tool to be usedand discarded. You’re a person, Khaaz. A person with choices and desires and a future that’s yours to decide.”

I stared at her, stunned by the passion in her voice. “I don’t know how to be that,” I confessed, the admission costing me more than I’d expected.

“Neither do I,” she said, her voice softening. “I spent years letting my job define me, working myself to exhaustion because I didn’t know who I was without it. But when everything fell apart, I discovered there was still a person underneath all that. You will too.”

Before I could respond, she rose on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to mine. The kiss was gentle, brief, but it sent a shock wave through my entire body. Her scent enveloped me, her warmth seeped into my skin, and for one breathless moment, everything else fell away—my past, my fears, my uncertainty.

When she pulled back, her cheeks were flushed but her eyes were steady. “That’s a start,” she murmured. “Figure out what you want, Khaaz. Not what you were made for. What you want.”

As she turned and walked back to the console where Zehn waited, his expression unreadable, I raised my fingers to my lips, still feeling the phantom pressure of her kiss. For the first time in my existence, I allowed myself to consider her words.

What did I want?

The answer came with surprising clarity: I wanted this. This shelter we were creating. This strange companionship with Zehn that balanced between rivalry and respect. And most of all, I wanted Everly—not just to protect, but to be with. To learn from. To become more than what I had been made to be.

It wasn’t a mission or a purpose in the way I was accustomed to. It was something both simpler and infinitely more complex.

It was a beginning.

17 /EVERLY

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