Chapter 6: Confessions
The note was a crumpled ball of tension in his palm, damp from sweat. Fred waited until the briefing dissolved into the chaos of cleanup—Kord arguing with Pronto over who’d scrubbed the pot last time, Eli muttering over a map—before he moved. He didn’t speak. He just caught Trixie’s eye as she stood, and slipped the folded paper onto the table as he passed.
Her fingers, quick and precise, palmed it without breaking stride.
Ten minutes later, he was sitting on the edge of his bunk, elbows on his knees, staring at the grain of the wood floor. Voltage was uncharacteristically still on his shoulder, sensing his host’s turmoil. The hideout’s usual sounds were muffled, distant. His own heartbeat was a drum in his ears.
The sliding door whispered open. She stepped in and closed it behind her. She didn’t sit right away. She leaned against the wall by the door, arms crossed, waiting. Her expression was neutral. Prepared.
Fred’s mouth was desert-dry. He’d rehearsed this in his head a dozen times since the shower door clicked shut, since the warmth of Bulk on his shoulder failed to burn away the chill of his own actions. Every version sounded worse out loud.
“I heard you,” he began, the words rough. “Last night. In your bunk. Above me.”
Trixie didn’t flinch. Her eyes stayed on his face, analytically noting the flush creeping up his neck. She gave a single, slight nod. Go on.
“I didn’t mean to. I was awake. And then… I just… I matched you.” He forced the admission out, each syllable like a stone. “Beat for beat. In the dark. Quiet. While you thought you were alone.” He couldn’t say the cruder words. The shared, secret rhythm. The damp stain on his sheet. The shame was a physical taste, metallic and sour.
He looked down at his hands, the knuckles scarred from tools and fights. “And then this morning. The bathroom. I opened the door. You were in the shower. I saw you were in there, and I shut it. And then I opened it again. I looked. I stood there and I looked at you.” He finally met her eyes, bracing for the disgust, the fury. “I’m so sorry, Trix. It was a violation. It’s sick. And it’s a betrayal of him. Of Eli. He brought me in, he trusts me, and I’m… thinking this. Doing this. Feeling this.”
The silence that followed was absolute. It stretched, filled only by the faint hum of the cavern’s geothermal vents. Fred felt exposed, flayed open.
Trixie pushed off the wall. She didn’t sit beside him. She pulled the small stool from the corner and sat facing him, her knees almost touching his. She leaned forward, elbows on her own knees, mirroring his posture. Her gaze was intense, but not angry.
“Okay,” she said, her voice quieter than usual, stripped of its tactical edge. “First, stop. Just… breathe.”
He took a shuddering breath.
“You’re carrying a lot of assumptions,” she said, methodically. “Let’s unpack them. You assumed your… participation… last night was one-sided. It wasn’t. I knew you were awake. I heard your breathing change.”
Fred stared, his mind reeling.
A faint, almost imperceptible blush coloured the tops of her cheeks. “I’m figuring out what I like. What feels right. The privacy wasn’t about shame. It was about… control. Over my own exploration. You listening, even following, wasn’t a violation of that. It was… confirming.” She stated it like a data point. A fact.
“But Eli—” Fred started.
“Is my best friend,” Trixie cut in, her voice firming. “He’s family. He’s the brother I never had and definitely never wanted in that way. Ever.” She shook her head, a red pigtail brushing her shoulder. “The way he looks at me… that’s his stuff. His fantasy. I’ve never encouraged it. I can’t control his feelings, but I’ve always been clear on mine. Platonic. Period.”
She paused, letting that settle in the space between them. The central pillar of Fred’s guilt—the betrayal of Eli—began to fissure.
“So your anguish, while very theatrically delivered, is based on a faulty premise.” A tiny, almost-smile touched her lips. “You’re not stealing from him. There’s nothing to steal.”
Fred felt the massive, crushing weight begin to lift, leaving him light-headed and off-balance. “The shower…”
Fred felt the massive, crushing weight begin to lift, leaving him light-headed and off-balance. “The shower…”
“Wasn’t a biggie,” Trixie said, shrugging one shoulder. She leaned back on the stool, the intensity shifting into something more casual, almost dismissive. “Look, I don’t mind people watching me. So long as they don’t intentionally overstep any boundaries I’ve set.” She held his gaze, her brown eyes clear and matter-of-fact. “It’s only natural to look at someone while they’re naked. Human instinct.”
Fred just blinked, his carefully constructed penitence suddenly seeming melodramatic in the face of her calm logic.
“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” she said, standing up. The conversation was clearly over. She smoothed her shirt and took a step toward the door. Then she paused, turned back, and moved in with a fluid, decisive motion.
She delivered a swift, dry kiss on his cheek. Her lips were a brief, warm pressure against his skin, a scent of ozone and that green soap lingering in her wake.
Then she was gone, the door sliding shut behind her with a soft thump.
Fred stood on the spot, frozen. The phantom touch on his cheek burned hotter than any shame. He heard her footsteps descending the metal stairs, each clang measured and normal. His brain had short-circuited, stuck on a loop of she knew and she kissed me and what does that mean.
Voltage, buzzing with impatient energy on his shoulder, finally gave him a small, sharp shock. It wasn’t painful, just a crisp static jolt that snapped his synapses back online.
“Yep. Okay,” Fred muttered, shaking his head as if to clear water from his ears. He took a deep, steadying breath that did little to slow his heart. He followed her path out the door and down the stairs, his legs moving on autopilot.
Down in the common area, Eli was already calling them together, a holographic map of the caverns shimmering above the table. “Patrol sightings are confirmed in the Scorched Sparks Cavern,” he said, all business. “We need eyes on it. If Blakk’s crews are poking around that slag-heap, they’re looking for something we don’t want them to find.”
Fred found his place at the table, acutely aware of Trixie standing opposite him. She was studying the map, a stylus tapping her chin, showing zero outward sign of the tectonic shift that had just occurred in the loft. It was masterful.
“Kord, you’re on blaster duty,” Eli continued, pointing. “Check every capacitor, every trigger mechanism. I want our gear pristine.”
“Can do!” Kord rumbled, already mentally cataloging his toolkit.
“Pronto, you’re our guide. Find us the quickest, safest path in and out. No scenic detours to ‘historic Mudwick battlefields.’”
The Molenoid puffed up. “Pronto’s routes are both expedient and enriching!”
“Fred, Trixie,” Eli said, his eyes moving between them. “You’re on point recon. Scope the approach, identify patrol patterns, and make sure our way is clear before we move in. Your job starts the second we hit the road.”
The team split. Pronto began cross-referencing scrolls with the hologram. Kord lumbered toward his workshop bench, whistling. Trixie gave Fred a last, unreadable look—was that a trace of a smile?—before heading to her gear locker to prep her camera and slug holsters.
Fred, whose recon duties were still an hour away, drifted over to Kord. The Cave Troll had Fred’s red blaster already partially disassembled on a clean rag, his massive blue fingers moving with surprising delicacy over the internal components.
“Heard you made a new friend,” Kord said without looking up, a grin in his voice. “An Armashelt’s no joke. Good pull, kid.” He reached over and ruffled Fred’s mullet with a hand that could have palmed his entire head.
Fred laughed, ducking away. “Thanks. Hey, while you’ve got it open… the recoil was a bit jumpy in that Quiet Lawn scuffle. Think you can smooth it out?”
“Already on it,” Kord said. He tapped a tiny gyroscopic stabilizer with a micro-screwdriver. “This was a hair out of alignment. Probably from when you took that dive behind the mining cart. The impact tweaked it.” He made two minute adjustments, his tongue poked out in concentration. A minute later, he snapped the housing closed with a satisfying click and handed it back. “Problem solved. Should feel like butter now.”
“You’re a genius,” Fred said, hefting the blaster. It felt balanced, perfect.
“Just good mechanics,” Kord corrected, but he was beaming.
Fred headed for the hideout’s main entrance, a reinforced door that led to a wider training tunnel. He needed to feel the new balance, to test it with Voltage before they were in real danger. The air was cooler out here, smelling of damp rock and distant sulfur from the volcanic vents.
He loaded a standard practice stone, took his stance, and focused on a chipped mark on the far wall. He exhaled, and fired. The shot was crisp, the recoil a straight-back push against his palm without the slightest twist. “Beautiful,” he whispered.
“Nice grouping,” a voice said from behind him.
Fred turned. Eli leaned against the tunnel wall, his own blaster on his hip. Burpy cooed softly on his shoulder. “Kord’s work?”
“Yeah. Fixed the pull.”
“Good.” Eli pushed off the wall, his expression turning serious. “Listen. About recon with Trixie. She’s the best at what she does, but she gets hyper-focused on the data. Sometimes misses what’s right beside her. You’ve got good instincts, Fred. If something feels off, you call it. Don’t wait for her to confirm.”
It was a vote of confidence, and a burden. It was also a stark reminder of Eli’s blind spot. He was trusting Fred to protect the girl he loved, completely unaware that Fred’s cheek still tingled from her kiss.
“I’ve got her back,” Fred said, and the words felt heavier than any blaster.
“I know you do,” Eli said, clapping him on the shoulder just as Kord had. The gesture was identical, but it landed differently. “That’s why you’re here. Let’s move out in twenty. Stay sharp.”
He walked back inside, leaving Fred alone in the tunnel with Voltage and the echo of his own promise. The weight was gone, but a new, more complicated tension had taken its place—a buzzing, electric potential that had nothing to do with the slug on his shoulder. He looked toward the hideout door, where Trixie would soon emerge, all business.
He clicked the spent stone from his blaster. The mission was starting. Everything else would have to wait.