Page 39 of The Monster's Daughter

Because I don’t let them.

I make sure her daycare teachers think she’s just “spirited.” I keep her out of swim lessons. I tell her stories about hiding her gifts the same way I hide my arm.

“You’re special,” I whisper sometimes when she’s asleep. “But no one can know.”

It feels like smuggling contraband.

Except the contraband is the only piece of Kage I have left.

Once she’s tucked in, I sit at the kitchen counter with a stale ration bar and a glass of synth-whiskey. The silver arm taps against the glass as I drink, a quiet metallic clink that drives me insane.

Every night, I hear him.

Kage’s voice, low and guttural, cursing me for shoving him into that pod. Or maybe thanking me. I don’t know anymore. His eyes haunt me—black and silver, furious and soft all at once.

Every night I wake with sweat on my skin, phantom weight on my throat, phantom heat at my back.

Therapist asks about my dreams once a month. “Do you see the battlefield?” she says in her soft voice.

“No,” I lie. “It’s quiet now.”

She nods, scribbles something in her pad, clears me for another month of benefits.

Then I go home. And it’s never quiet.

Natalie stirs, whimpers in her sleep. I’m at her door before I think, leaning on the frame. She thrashes lightly, muttering nonsense. My heart clenches.

I sit on the floor beside her bed, metal arm across my knees, and watch her.

She’s all I have left. All of him I have left.

And I’ll burn this entire glittering, shallow moon to ash before I let anyone take her away.

CHAPTER 24

KAGE

The line at the Glimner Visitor’s Bureau is long enough to coil twice around the lobby, a human centipede of travelers sweating under the artificial sunlight. Neon panels hum overhead, buzzing faintly, while a fountain burbles in the center of the hall—wasting water like it’s nothing. People laugh. Children cry. Vendors weave between the queue selling overpriced drinks. I stand still.

The folder in my claws is fraying at the edges, every page inside bent from too much handling. The visitor’s visa—real, stamped, official—lies at the top. It’s taken seven years to get here. Years of hoops and denials, of Alliance officers telling me to “wait,” of processing centers on Armstrong where my parents finally made a home.

I should be relieved. I should feel free. Instead, I feel like a beast pacing in a cage that’s suddenly grown too wide.

I don’t care about visas. Or peace treaties. Or the way the galaxy’s stopped shooting my kind on sight.

I only care about one thing.

Finding her.

Rumors are brittle things. They break easy.

But this one stuck—an ex-medic turned lifeguard on Glimner. Red hair. A limp. Someone whispered it in a cantina on Armstrong, and my whole world tilted.

I don’t know if she’s alive. But I’m here because part of me refuses to let go. That part has kept me breathing when I should’ve stopped.

The queue shuffles forward. I don’t remember stepping up. A human clerk with a painted smile scans my paperwork, stamps it, waves me through like I’m just another tourist.

Tourist.