Page 67 of The Monster's Daughter

Night again.

The med-bay’s gone dark except for the monitors. Kage hasn’t moved from his post by the door, massive and still, like a statue built for war. I sit in the chair, Natalie curled in my lap, her head against my shoulder.

“Do you ever sleep?” I whisper.

“Can’t,” he says. His voice sounds like gravel.

I’m about to say something else when the window shatters.

It’s not a crack. It’s an explosion.

Glass rains across the floor in glittering knives. The room fills with a scream of wind and the shriek of tiny engines.

Drones.

Sleek and silver, edges humming, each bearing the insignia of the Cyberoid Ascension Collective—one of the last splinter cults from the war.

“Oh my God?—”

Kage is already moving. He’s a blur of claws and muscle, his roar shaking the walls. He grabs the first drone mid-flight and tears it apart like paper, shards sparking in his hands.

Another one dives at me. I yank my pistol from the holster at my thigh and fire. The recoil slams into my metal arm, steadying my aim. Sparks burst as the drone spirals down, hissing.

“Natalie!” I yell, clutching her to my chest.

More drones swarm in, coordinated, sliding through the air like fish. They’re professional. Calculated. Not a smash-and-grab.

One shoots a cable at Kage’s arm. He snarls, rips it free, slams the drone into the floor until it stops moving.

I fire again. And again. My ears ring. The room smells like ozone and burning oil.

Then one of them slips past.

I spin, too slow.

It’s already at us.

A thin needle juts from its belly. A glowing chip at the end.

“No!”

It stabs downward, quick as a snake, jabbing the chip into Natalie’s chest just below her collarbone. She jerks in my arms, mouth open but no sound coming out.

“Get away from her!” I scream, firing point-blank. The drone explodes in a shower of shrapnel, but its cable whips around her waist, locking tight.

“Kage!”

He lunges, claws extended, but the drone yanks her through the broken window with inhuman speed.

I reach. My fingers catch only air.

She’s gone.

Kage crashes into the frame, his claws sparking against the metal edge as he grabs for nothing. His bellow rattles my teeth.

I’m already firing out the window at the cloaked skimmer hovering beyond. My rounds spark against its hull, punching holes that seal instantly. It hums once, like a mocking laugh, then vanishes into the night with a sonic ripple.

The wind roars through the shattered window.