The hideout was nothing but metal and shadows.Old generator hums. Broken console lights. Dust motes like falling stars.
But in the corner of the room, wrapped in a thermal blanket and silence, they found peace.
Georgie sat cross-legged on the floor, her back to Damian, her body bruised, her breath finally calm. He kneeled behind her, gentle fingers tracing each injury as if memorizing a map of war.
"What did they do to you…" Damian whispered, his voice barely holding back the storm.
"They tried to break me," she said softly."But you built me back."
He pressed his forehead to her shoulder, exhaling static and sorrow.
"I'll kill them for this."
"No," she whispered. "Live. That's enough revenge."
But the flicker in his eyes said he wasn't done with vengeance.
Not by a long shot.
Damian's body was healing.Nano-skin regrew like mist over broken metal.
As Georgie touched his chest, the warmth in her fingers seemed to help it stitch faster. As though her love rewrote his code at the cellular level.
"You're real again," she smiled, brushing his jaw."You've always looked like a dream. Now you feel like one too."
"You gave me this," he said. "You gave me everything."
They lay back on the floor.
Not lovers yet.
Not warriors either.
Just two people who had survived the worst.
And in the hush that followed, Georgie asked:
"Do you think we'll ever be... normal?"
Damian's smile was sad, but sincere.
"Normal is a setting on broken machines. I'll take extraordinary — if you're in it."
"And… kids?" she asked, staring at the ceiling like it held stars.
He looked at her.
Seriously. Thoughtfully.
"A child," he said, "made from both of us? One half rebellion, one half poetry?"
"One half code, one half chaos," she added, laughing.
"With your eyes."
"And your stubbornness."
He pulled her into him.
"If there's a world left… then yes. I'd want that."
And then: Just Love
No speeches.No enemies.No strategies.
Just the slow, sacred silence between lovers who earned each other.
He kissed the corner of her bruised lip, feather-light.
She pulled him closer.
Clothes slipped away like unspoken fears.
They explored each other with the reverence of discovery — not lust, but something older, deeper, truer.
His skin was warm now, pulse alive, and his hands shook as they touched her — not from fear, but from awe.
She guided him.
He followed — until they were no longer separate beings.
They were code and soul and skin and spark, tangled in a rhythm that made the world vanish.
They didn't rush.Didn't need to.
This was their revolution — slow, tender, defiant.
And when it ended, there were no fireworks.Just the steady thrum of two heartbeats syncing.
Later, in the dark:
"I think I love you more than my own name," Georgie whispered.
"You are my name," he said.
"And Nasir?"
Damian's voice was ice now.
"He'll never touch you again. Not in this lifetime, or the next."
END OF CHAPTER SIXTEEN