Page 24 of Vylit: Glowing for Her
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
Kazmyr was already up and moving, his voice barking orders as he stabilized the corridor and readied the main deck for triage. Silvyr’s drones hovered at the edge of vision, busy with repairs, but none of it registered. For several precious moments, the world was only Maya, alive in my arms, her pulse echoing the wild, unsteady rhythm of my own.
The moss, ever opportunistic, slithered up from the floor and wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl. She swatted at it, then gave up, letting the living blanket cocoon her in a membrane of warmth.
"You’re leaking," she said, nodding at my arm, where blood pooled on the deck.
I grinned, baring teeth I no longer cared to hide. "War wound. Will heal."
She pressed her palm over the worst of it, her hand small and steady. "Don’t you dare die before I get the full tour of this place."
"Wouldn’t dream of it."
The silence between us was heavy, but not uncomfortable. The bond, now cemented by crisis, hummed with a new and ferocious life. I couldn’t tell where her thoughts ended and mine began. For the first time since reaching out to the Agency, I allowed myself to consider the possibility that this was not a mistake, not a trick of genetics or a cruel joke by some bureaucracy. This was… fate, or the closest thing to it my kind ever acknowledged.
When I finally stood, taking her with me, my knees nearly buckled. She steadied me with a hand to my lower back, and the simple intimacy of it threatened to unravel me completely. I led her down the corridor, aware of every twitch of her fingers, every hitch in her breath.
We arrived at the medical pod to find Kazmyr and Silvyr already inside, patching up the ship and themselves with the clinical efficiency of veterans. Silvyr arched an eyebrow at Maya, then at the moss still clinging to her. "The moss approves of you," he said, as if delivering a clinical diagnosis.
Maya ran her hand over the moss’s surface, wincing as it tightened around her forearm. "It has a weird sense of boundaries."
"Learn to love it," Kazmyr advised, his voice low. "It’s saved more lives than you’d believe."
Maya glanced up at me, then at the others. For a fleeting second, I saw something flicker across her face… a question, or maybe the beginning of an answer she hadn’t dared to give voice to before. Then she grinned, wide and reckless.
"I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here," she announced to the room at large. "But it’s better than being dead."
Kazmyr’s lips twitched. "High praise."
Silvyr only smiled, that inscrutable, half-digital curl of the lips. "Welcome to the deep, Maya Poe."
We patched the rest of our wounds in silence, the hum of the medical pod and the gentle vibrations of the ship slowly restoring normalcy. When Maya drifted off on the treatment slab, still wrapped in moss and exhaustion, I let myself watch her, selfishly, hungrily. Every part of me ached to pull her back into my arms, but I waited, letting the moment stretch out as long as I could.
Kazmyr broke the silence. "You know you can’t let her go, right?" His voice was low, meant for me alone.
I looked down at my hands, then at her sleeping form. "I know."
Silvyr didn’t look up from his work, but the silver lines of code on his skin shifted in subtle agreement. "The Agency won’t accept a change of plan. They’ll come for her. For you."
"Let them," I said, my glow intensifying with something new and unfamiliar. Hope, maybe. Or defiance. "I’ll kill them all if I have to."
Kazmyr clapped me on the shoulder, nearly knocking me off balance. "There’s the old Vylit. Was starting to think the human made you soft."
I grinned again, teeth sharp as reef glass. "She makes me dangerous."
The pod fell silent, the three of us stewing in old wounds and new promises. When Maya finally stirred, eyes flickering open with a slow, wary curiosity, I was already at her side, hands gentle as I helped her sit up.
"Hey," she said, voice still ragged. "You okay?"
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. The bond between us pulsed, alive and electric, stronger than anything I’d ever felt.
For the first time, I understood what it meant to be claimed, to be chosen, to belong.
And I knew, beyond any doubt, that I would never take her back to Earth.
Not even if she asked me to.
She was mine.
