Chapter 13 Rynn
RYNN
The compad screen blinks back at me with a blank white prompt.
Delete all logs? Confirm?
My finger hovers over the confirmation glyph, trembling.
This is the last of it. The final layer. I’ve already wiped my personal messages, erased my alternate routing paths, even scrapped the shell account I kept in case I ever needed to vanish again.
I’ve done this before. I know the steps.
But this time, it feels like carving my own name off a gravestone.
Earlier, Nessa screamed.
Not loud. Not even long. But it was enough to hollow me out.
She was trying to lift her storage box, the one shaped like a holo-dino. It has her favorite toys inside, and she’s been getting strong enough lately to move it herself.
But this time… something snapped.
The lid cracked under her grip. Not the hinge. The actual composite polymer. And when it gave, her wrist slammed against the floor at an angle that made my stomach turn.
I was across the room in a blink, catching her just as she crumpled, face twisted in silent pain.
“Mommy, it hurts—” she whispered, tears tracking down her cheeks.
I scanned it. Minor fracture. Already starting to regenerate. Too fast.
Vakutan tissue repair.
Not completely, but enough to make the bone density visible if anyone looked too close.
I bandaged her wrist anyway. Kissed it. Held her against my chest, rocking her back and forth while her body hiccuped sobs.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s okay, baby, shh…”
She pressed her face into my collar and mumbled something I could barely hear.
“What was that?”
“I didn’t mean to break it.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
“I just wanted to be strong.”
Oh gods. My heart stuttered.
“You are strong,” I said, choking on the words. “But you don’t have to hide it from me. Never from me.”
She didn’t answer. Just wrapped her little arms tighter around my ribs.
And that’s when I knew. I couldn’t keep spinning plates anymore. Something was going to fall.
I finish clearing the compad.
The last thing I do is open a secure relay and draft a message.
TO: DREL'KANIS [Secure Alias Link]
SUBJECT: Contingency
Message reads: If I don’t come back… you know what to do.
I don’t encrypt it. He’ll know how to wipe the trace. He always has.
I close the pad. Power it off. Tuck it inside the lining of the emergency pack I haven’t touched in two years.
The room is dark except for the glow of Nessa’s sleep lantern — a slow-pulsing blue light in the shape of a star. It casts soft shadows on her wall where her drawings hang—ships, planets, strange claws that look more like dream monsters than anything real.
I step into her room, lean over her bed. She’s curled in a tight ball, wrist bandaged, breathing soft and shallow.
My fingers brush her hair. She stirs but doesn’t wake.
I drop to my knees beside the bed.
Tears come. No warning. No resistance.
I press my forehead to the edge of her mattress and sob into the fabric.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry, Nessa. I never meant for any of this to touch you.”
My fingers find her small hand.
“I’ll fix this,” I swear. “I’ll find a way. I don’t care what it takes.”
Her hand twitches. She turns over in her sleep.
And for a moment, she looks exactly like him.