Leo Tanner

I hated him.

The thought burned, clear and potent like acid on metal. Holding onto its defined edge should have been simple. Callan Pierce, however, didn’t understand edges or boundaries. Concepts like personal space or leaving someone the hell alone were lost on him.

He stood there with that infuriating smirk, like he’d already won something I didn’t know we were competing for, like the walls I’d spent years building amused him.

He looked at someone splintering at the edges and decided to push closer instead of backing off. Touch turns into ownership. A rescue becomes a leash. Kindness, a claim. That’s why you never let them close. The moment you break, they act like your body is theirs to handle.

We all knew better: keep your distance, keep your guard up, and keep breathing. Simple rules that kept you alive.

But Pierce didn’t follow rules. Or maybe he did and didn’t care. Unlike the aid workers who came to the domes with their clipboards and rationed sympathy, unlike the MPs who offered protection in exchange for favors, Callan seemed to give without calculation. This made him more threatening than all the others. And the worst part was how my exhausted body wanted to give in. For one perilous moment when he’d steadied me, his hands warm and solid at my waist, something in me had wanted to stop fighting, to let someone else carry the weight for once.

Warmth had spread from his touch, seeping through me like ink in clear water, staining places I’d kept carefully blank. But it wasn’t shame that knotted in my gut; it was something hungrier, more dangerous. My body remembered things my mind tried to forget: what it meant to lean into warmth instead of away from it, how safety might taste if I let myself believe in it for even a second.

That scared me most.

No, what terrified me was how readily my body responded to him, leaning toward him like something starved and craving sunlight it knew could burn. I’d spent years shrinking myself into invisibility, but a single touch from him made all my careful hiding feel pointless. I hated him for making me feel this exposed, for making me want things I’d trained myself not to need, for reminding me that hunger comes in forms more dangerous than an empty stomach.

“The ones who need help most never ask for it, Leo,” my mother’s memory drifted up. “That’s why we have to pay attention.”

She’d lived by those words, and died by them too, always watching for the fissures in others while neglecting her own. Now here I was, fracturing under the pressure of exhaustion and want, while Callan behaved as if the rules were nonexistent.

I didn’t know why I grabbed his arm. I only needed him to stop. I didn’t push him away or pull him closer. His skin existed as two contrasting worlds beneath my palm; smooth in untouched places, textured where scars had mapped their territory. The unexpected difference sent a jolt of awareness through my fingertips.

Blood rushed to my face, heat flooding my cheeks. The physical contact I’d initiated shattered a boundary I shouldn’t cross. My grip tightened instinctively before I jerked my hand back, skin tingling like I’d touched a live wire.

“Just… please,” I forced out, the word scraping past my dry throat. Humiliation burned in my chest. I’d said please. To him. Like some desperate dome rat begging for scraps.

But Callan ignored my plea, reaching for the boots anyway. He grabbed the socks too, then lowered himself onto the stool. His dark blue eyes focused on me, and something knotted in my chest. I used to stare at the grey murk outside the dome and imagine what blue might look like if it existed anymore; now I knew. It looked like Callan Pierce’s eyes were watching me, deep and dangerous and impossible to escape.

“Lift your foot,” he commanded, not asking, never asking.

“I can do it myself,” I protested, but my voice lacked conviction.

Callan must have heard the failure in my words because he reached down and grabbed my ankle. My skin was ice cold under his burning touch. With distinct care, he lifted my foot and placed it on his knee. The boots clattered with a soft sound as he set them on the floor, keeping one sock in his hands.

Silence filled the space between us. I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears, and I swear I could hear Callan’s too, beating too fast for his own good. He glanced up at me one more time, his eyes asking permission this time instead of demanding. Something unfamiliar constricted inside me at that gaze.

I gave the tiniest nod, too small to count as agreement, but he saw it, and I couldn’t believe I was letting him do this.

My fingers gripped the edge of the exam bed hard enough to hurt as I watched him lower his head. His breath warmed my ankle as he stretched the sock open. The fabric slid over my heel, downy soft against skin that knew only roughness.

The cotton hugged my foot like it had been made for me, each fiber pressing against nerves I’d forgotten existed. I bit my lip, forcing myself to breathe through the intensity of such a simple sensation. His knuckles brushed against my calf as he adjusted the sock’s edge, and I flinched at the contact, not from pain but from how good it felt.

Every time he touched me, I owed him more, and already his hands were moving to my other foot, lifting it with care from the cold floor.

The pad of his thumb pressed for an instant into my sole, and I almost jerked away from the unexpected tenderness. I watched his face transform with concentration: the furrow between his brows, the focus in those blue eyes.

When he reached for the boots, I stared at them. They looked new, with no scuff marks or patches, nothing like the recycled footwear we fought over in the dome shops.

Callan started working on the laces, but something was wrong. His fingers fumbled with the simple task, the lace slipping from his grasp once, twice. A tremor ran through his hands, faint at first, then impossible to miss. Sweat gathered at his temples, a single drop sliding down the sharp line of his jaw as his breathing changed, shallow and quick.

“Fuck,” he muttered, his hand darting to the back of his neck. He tried the laces again, but his fingers wouldn’t cooperate. The lace twisted without result in his grip.

“The ones who need help most never ask for it, Leo.” My mother’s words echoed again in my head as I watched him struggle.

Something was happening to him, and I shouldn’t care. That was the rule I’d lived by since Dome City Twelve collapsed around my parents. Caring was what killed them. I’d sworn never to make their mistake; there was no room for someone else’s pain. But my hand betrayed me. It moved gradually across the space between us to cover his shaking fingers. He tensed, his hand forming a fist under my palm. When he looked up, his eyes were wild again, unfocused.

“I can do it,” I said quietly. “It’s okay.”

“No, I can…” he started. “Give me—”

“It’s okay,” I repeated, keeping my tone calm even though my heart was racing. I took the laces from his unsteady hands and started threading them myself.

“Does it hurt?” I asked, trying to keep his attention while I worked. I gestured toward the back of my own neck.

His hand moved to touch the implant at the base of his skull, the one all Aegis pilots had for their neural connection.

“No,” he said, but his voice sounded strange. “It doesn’t hurt.”

I finished tying the laces, pulling them tight enough to secure the boot without cutting off circulation. “That woman—Ava—she had to inject you with something. Is that normal?”

His lips curved into a smile, not the cocky smirk from before, but something genuine and bitter.

“Standard procedure,” he said, the words falling flat between us.

I furrowed my brow, not believing him for a second. He turned away, shutting down the question. Ah, how could I forget? People like him were all the same—I was another warm body. A good deed to feel better about when there was nothing left. Why would he tell me anything? We were strangers. I’d already crossed enough boundaries for one day. That’s why I turn off the voices in my head.

The Resistance had never cared enough about the domers to help us when it mattered. Why would they care about me now, an orphan with nothing to offer? I couldn’t trust all this care. Not when it came so easily. This was temporary. I couldn’t let myself get used to how Callan touched me, how the fabric pressed against my skin, how everything here came without a price tag.

It was too easy to fall into this rhythm. Too easy to forget that kindness costs more than credits. That wanting anything too much meant someone would take it from you.

I needed to get out of here before I forgot how to keep myself safe.

My stomach twisted painfully, growling loud enough to fill the uncomfortable silence. Callan reacted at once, his hand moving to the back of my calf where it still rested on his knee. His fingers curled around my leg, careful but firm, as if the sound had jolted him back to reality.

“Let’s get something to eat,” he said, like none of the last five minutes had happened. “I don’t want Ava on my toes.”

I almost laughed at how fast he’d pivoted, but I swallowed it down. Food meant moving through the base. Moving through the base meant I could start mapping it out. Every electrical engineer knew that power systems had to connect somewhere, start points, end points, and everything between.

My analytical mind began cataloging what I’d already glimpsed: the Echo-5 was built on principles similar to those of the domes, with exposed conduits, visible junction points, and maintenance access panels that no one bothered to secure. The difference was that here, everything actually worked. With enough time, I could trace the power network, find the weak points. Systems and people. Both had them.

“Who is Ava, anyway?” I asked as I gingerly tested my weight on the newly laced boots.

“Lead Medical Specialist for the Aegis program,” Callan replied, standing up and offering his hand. I ignored it, pushing myself to my feet.

Pain flared through every muscle, a reminder of the Nephilim attack, of falling unconscious beneath rubble and alien flesh. My body wanted to crumple, to give in to the weakness, to accept the hand extended toward me. But I’d been in pain before, lived with it daily in the domes. Pain was another thing to be ignored, filed away with hunger and cold and loneliness.

I locked my knees, refusing to sway. My shoulders protested as I straightened them. The familiar burn in my lower back returned as I forced myself upright. This was how I survived every day in the domes, by refusing to acknowledge that anything was wrong. By being numb. By taking the hurt and pushing it down so deep that it couldn’t touch me.

Callan dropped his hand without comment, but his eyes never left me, like he was waiting for me to fall again.

I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

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A/N: I sometimes do tiny edits to make the sentence more coherent because I write as I'm posting the story and I can write shitty things, but I'm innocent don't blame me. 

I know a lot of readers don't like to see pics of how the characters look, but if you like it, I will drop some character art soon to show you how they look. I have commissions pending, and they will be like in concept art style? Since I want to give the story a sci-fi look throughout, and for the world I'm building here on World Anvil. 

Anyways, if you like the story, please bookmark it. Likes and comments will always be appreciated, and it will mean a lot.