Chapter 79: Bruised Glass
The factory no longer felt safe.
By midday, the heat had begun to bleed through the fractured skylights, pressing down on them like a hand too heavy to shake. It turned the air thick — dust baked into every breath, dry and metallic, scratching the back of their throats. Even the silence had a sharpness to it now, like something just barely restrained. Like waiting teeth.
Selene moved like a storm kept at bay, pacing in slow arcs across the shadow-streaked floor. Her gait was deceptively relaxed — too fluid, too sure — but every movement was a calculation. Knife sheathed but ready, her gaze swept the corners of the loading floor with predatory precision. The old light caught in her silver strands like blades of ice. There was no warmth in her presence. Just pressure.
Aria followed quietly, her steps cautious, uncertain. She lingered close without realizing it, as if gravity itself tethered her to Selene's path. Her shoulders hunched slightly beneath the soft grey hoodie, sweat clinging to the small of her back, though her skin broke out in shivers that had nothing to do with the heat. Selene's proximity chilled her. Not from temperature — Selene's body ran cold, unnaturally so — but something far more intimate. A craving she didn't yet understand, only that her limbs grew tense, her breathing shallower, whenever Selene brushed too close.
And that had happened far too often today to be accident.
They moved past the rusted loading bay, where crates had collapsed into heaps of splintered wood and mildew - stained cardboard. The old forklift lay sideways, half-swallowed by vines curling through broken tiles. Their packs bounced lightly against their backs — lighter now. Supplies running low. Tension climbing higher.
The dream still echoed in Aria's chest — Selene's voice inside her head, low and deliberate.
Like I wanted to touch you.
The words looped again and again like a fever, lodged just beneath the skin.
Selene hadn't mentioned it again. Hadn't come close to repeating what she'd said that morning.
But she didn't have to.
The moment had buried itself in every glance that lingered too long, every silence that stretched taut between breath and word. Aria flushed too easily now. Her cheeks flared with warmth she couldn't swallow down. Her thighs occasionally pressed together when Selene looked at her too long, when her cold eyes raked down her frame and lingered, slow and devouring. Aria didn't understand why the air felt heavier when Selene was close. Why the ache low in her belly pulsed stronger every time Selene brushed by her back, her shoulder, her wrist —
God, she was going mad.
She rubbed her arms again, blaming the chill Selene left behind. But it wasn't cold.
It was want.
It was shame she didn't yet know how to name.
Selene stopped near the freight elevator. She crouched near the corner of a broken vent shaft, one gloved hand brushing through dust. Her eyes narrowed.
"Someone's been here."
Aria's breath caught. "Rotters?"
Selene shook her head. "Not rotters. Human." She pointed at the grime. "Drag marks. Partial boot tread. Too clean."
Fear spiked in Aria's gut. "Scavengers?"
Selene's voice turned sharp. "Or worse."
They moved fast after that. No more circling. Selene's body shifted into hunt-mode, all control and momentum. She didn't explain further, but Aria didn't need her to. She followed, nearly tripping on loose tiles as they moved toward the emergency exit corridor that led to the stairwell.
A sound shattered overhead.
Glass — sharp and immediate. The kind that cut clean through silence.
Selene's knife was drawn in a blur.
Aria flinched backward. "Was that —?"
"Inside," Selene snarled. "We have to move."
But Aria didn't budge.
Not yet.
Something inside her — too raw from the dream, too wild from the tension — snapped loose.
"Why didn't you pull away last night?" she whispered.
Selene froze.
"Why did you hold me like that?" Aria's voice trembled, both furious and too - soft. "Like I belonged to you."
Selene turned slowly, eyes unreadable. Her jaw clenched. "Not now."
"No." Aria stepped forward. Her voice cracked with something else — hurt, need. "Now. You said you wouldn't take anything from me. Then why did it feel like you did?"
The silence between them was a chasm.
Selene's gaze shifted. Not away. But deeper.
"Because," she breathed, "I forgot how to pretend I don't want you."
The words hit harder than the glass. Harder than the dream.
Before Aria could answer, before her legs remembered how to move, another noise split the air — boots, pounding above them. Voices. Male. Fast.
Real.
Selene reached forward and grabbed her wrist.
"Run."
They didn't think, didn't look back. The emergency stairwell groaned under their weight, each step jarring through Aria's bones. Selene moved like a phantom ahead of her—no wasted breath, no wasted motion.
The air outside hit them like a furnace — thick and damp — but the alley gave cover. They ducked into a shadow between buildings, old vines curling overhead like skeletal arms.
Aria's heart hammered against her ribs. But Selene was already looking up, calculating the path of whoever was inside. Her body barely registered sweat. Her breath came steady. A blade of frost beneath the sun.
"They're hunting," Selene muttered. "Sweeping. Room by room."
"For what?" Aria whispered.
"For who," Selene corrected.
Then, softer, more reluctantly: "Might be us."
Aria's hand flexed around her pack strap. She wanted to ask more. But Selene turned again — and this time, her hand didn't quite touch Aria's shoulder, but hovered there.
"I would've pulled away," she said. "If you asked."
Aria looked at her.
Eyes wide, lips parted, like something delicate blooming in a ruin.
"But I didn't," she murmured.
Selene's features softened for a fraction of a second. Not a smile — Selene didn't smile. But a slackening of defense.
"You held me," she said. "Like I was the only thing left."
"I think you are," Aria whispered. "Even when I shouldn't."
Selene stepped in close, her fingers grazing the edge of Aria's hoodie at the collarbone. Her touch was light, but it burned cold.
Aria shivered.
Not from fear.
Not even from chill.
From crave.
She couldn't stop herself — her body leaned forward instinctively, her breath shaky. She didn't understand what was happening, only that her thighs clenched subtly, that low in her belly a pressure built — slow, aching, hungry. Her center pulsed without cause, and the discomfort bloomed until it made her fidget, flustered and flushed, without knowing why.
Selene knew.
That look in her eyes — half - fanged, half - affection — told Aria she knew exactly what she was doing.
Her voice dropped lower. "You're warm."
"You're not," Aria replied, dazed.
Selene's hand ghosted down her arm. "No. I'm not."
And then, like a curse, she leaned in close enough for her lips to brush Aria's cheek — barely there.
The air around them tightened.
Aria's knees wobbled. Her core throbbed gently, a pulse she didn't want to acknowledge.
Selene pulled back, her smile sharp. "We need to move."
Aria could barely nod. She was flushed and breathless. She felt like she'd been kissed, stripped, and left untouched all at once.
Whatever game Selene played — she played it slow. Strategic. She wasn't just tempting Aria. She was training her to want.
And it was working.
They slipped through the alley's edge, moving deeper into the overgrown ruins of the city. Aria's gaze kept drifting sideways, toward Selene's fingers, the faint print they'd left on her skin. Her body still hummed. Her breath was unsteady.
Behind them, the distant voices neared.
But all Aria could feel was the ache in her thighs. And the cold where Selene had once been.
Something else was happening now.
Not safety. Not quite love.
But something born from the sharp edges of both.
A bond made in ruin, sealed with silence, and carried forward like bruised glass — fractured but whole enough to hold light.