Page 77 of The Monster's Daughter

I’m lying on metal. Ship-grade. Cheap. We’re airborne. I can feel the humming through my spine.

Bella.

I lurch up, dragging my limbs until I’m on my feet, then stagger toward the main console. The room swims. My vision’s shot to hell—blurry edges, stars at the corners. But the blinking lights on the nav board tell me enough: we’re on autopilot. Coordinates locked. Unknown system. No helm access.

I slam my palm into the override pad. It hisses at me. Locked out.

“Where the fuck are you?” I rasp.

A groan from behind me. My heart free-falls.

Natalie.

I rush to the medbay. She’s lying there, hooked up to every goddamn diagnostic node we’ve got. Her skin’s pale, herveins silver-threaded. Her little chest rises, falls. Too slow. Too shallow.

But she’s alive.

I whisper her name, kneel beside her, press my forehead to hers.

And that’s when I see it—the blinking blue icon above the bed. A message. Personal log. Unlocked only by my biosignature.

I press play.

Bella’s face fills the screen. And it feels like getting stabbed in the throat.

She’s smiling. But it’s wrong. Wobbly. Too wide. Her eyes are glassy. Wet.

“Hey, love,” she says. “If you’re seeing this... I guess I didn’t make it back out.”

I don’t breathe. Can’t.

“I had to do this, Kage. She needed someone on the inside. Someone to fight Nulegion where it’s hiding. And I’m the only one who can. I know what you’re thinking—don’t. Don’t be mad.”

I flinch as she says it. She knows me too well.

“She’s our baby. You saved her once. Now it’s my turn. I love you. More than war, more than peace, more than the stars ever gave me room to say. Tell her... tell her I love her. Tell her I’m sorry.”

The screen fades to black.

The silence afterward is louder than her voice.

I roar. Not a scream. A fuckingwar cry.

I slam my fists into the console. It cracks, but I don’t stop. I don’t stop until the metal bleeds sparks and my knuckles are slick with black blood. My knees hit the floor and I curl into myself, growling, sobbing.

She’s gone.

She’sinsideour daughter.

I don’t even have time to grieve right. Because that’s when I notice the backup file. An encrypted biological trace. Neural architecture. Two signatures—Natalie’s… and Bella’s.

She’s stillalive.

Converted. Embedded in the nanite field. Fused with the infection.

She didn’t die. Shechanged.

I stare at the file until the world narrows. I feel something uncoil in my chest. Something I buried long ago.