Page 82 of The Monster's Daughter

Their laughter.

This moment.

For once, the word doesn’t taste like ash on my tongue. It tastes good.

CHAPTER 45

BELLA

Peace feels like a lie I’m trying to learn how to believe.

The days pass in quiet stutters—tea steeping in cracked mugs, Natalie giggling at the morning cartoons, and Kage grumbling as he wrestles with the hovergrill again. The damn thing keeps overheating. He says it's the wiring. I say it’s the universe’s way of punishing us for trying to live a domestic life after all we've seen.

He smirks when I say that. “Pretty sure the universe owes us a damn break.”

Maybe. But I don’t know how to take one.

I wake up drenched in sweat some nights, heart thudding against my ribs like it’s trying to punch its way out. My arm twitches—nerves crackling with leftover nanite signals, ghost echoes of the time I was more machine than woman. I lie there frozen, staring at the ceiling fan spinning lazily above me, wondering if I’m still someone’s weapon, or if I ever stopped being one.

Kage doesn’t say anything when it happens. He just reaches over and pulls me into his arms, wrapping all that monstrous strength around me like I’m something breakable. He never presses, never judges. Just holds me until the shaking stops.

“You’re safe,” he whispers, breath warm against my hair. “I’ve got you.”

Sometimes I believe him.

Sometimes I can’t.

The Alliance requires psych evals now—something about reintegration protocols for “veterans of anomalous conflict zones.” It’s a fancy way of saying, “We saw what you did on that station, and now we’re not sure what box to put you in.”

Fine. I’ll let them try.

The woman they assign to me is soft-eyed and clearly fresh out of whatever academy they’re spitting counselors out of these days. She’s nice. Too nice. She offers me tea. I don’t drink it.

“I don’t know who I am if I’m not bleeding for something,” I say, words sharp in the sterile room.

She writes that down. Nods like it’s profound.

She asks me about coping mechanisms. I tell her I used to carve things into my ribs with a broken spoon to stay awake during blackout drills.

She stops writing.

Suggests therapy.

I laugh. It echoes too loud in the room. “We tried that once,” I say. “The therapist cried more than I did.”

She doesn’t laugh back.

I leave before she can offer me a follow-up appointment.

That afternoon, I take Natalie to the park. The sun is too bright, like the universe is trying too hard to pretend it’s forgiven itself.

Natalie builds sandcastles with her claws—delicate towers with moats shaped like spiral circuits. Kage crouches beside her, grunting every time she yells at him to fix the turrets.

“Daddy, no! The west wall’s collapsing!”

“Then maybe you should’ve reinforced it, little warlord.”

She shrieks with delight and pelts him with a handful of sand.