Chapter 4
JAV
The place smells like old plasma oil, burnt citrus, and a hint of sweat soaked into synthetic leather—exactly how I left it.
It’s all cosmetic, though. The heart of this place? That pulsing, territorial hum in the walls? That was mine long before they slapped my family’s crest on the door. I step inside like I never left, my boots thudding against the black tile. Heads swivel. Voices stutter.
And then—silence.
It’s not fear. Not quite. More like recalibration. They’re clocking me. Sizing up how much of the old Jav is still in this red-scaled body, and how much of me got sanded down in a cell.
I give them a grin.
That’s all it takes.
Murmurs ripple through the room, and a couple of lieutenants I recognize—Ral, Dresk, the twins—stand and nod, shoulders tight.
They remember how I kept my claws clean but my word bloody. I never had to raise a fist. That’s what lieutenants are for.
And that’s when I hear a wet crunch behind the bar.
I turn.
Garkin’s sitting on a reinforced stool with a fusion block sandwich halfway to his mouth. He freezes, mid-bite, eyes wide like a creature caught gnawing on sacred meat.
“You’re late,” he grumbles, dropping the sandwich onto a napkin like it personally betrayed him.
“I’m not on the payroll anymore,” I say, sliding onto the stool next to him.
He gestures to the room with a crusty elbow. “You are now. They saw you walk in. Saw you grin. That’s a coronation ‘round here.”
I snort. “I didn’t come to reclaim territory.”
“You didn’t have to. You just existed.”
A half-bot server scuttles by and drops a drink in front of me. I don’t touch it. Too early, and I need a clear head.
“You find her?” I ask, low.
Garkin sips from a tall glass with a little umbrella sticking out like a mockery. He always did like absurdity in his drinks.
“Yeah,” he says, finally. “Kairo Jones. Living under a paper-patched ID—Kay Jones—suburb section of Haven-7. District Eleven. She’s got a garden now.”
I blink. “A garden?”
“Yeah,” Garkin smirks. “Like with plants. Dirt. Carrots, probably.”
My claws tap against the metal bar top. I imagine her in the sunlight, fingers covered in soil, green eyes narrowed at some rebellious weed. My chest tightens.
“And the kid?”
Garkin doesn’t answer right away.
I look at him.
“Well?”
“She’s got one. Four or five, from what I heard. Name’s Ben. Smart. Bit of a firecracker. No file on the dad.”
My pulse kicks.
“No file?” I echo.
“No record. No claim. School forms list her as sole guardian. No birth cert with a male named. She’s keeping it tight.”
I lean back. My tail curls instinctively along the barstool footrest. My mind’s already racing.
If she had a kid—our kid—would she really keep him from me? For this long?
Then again… I left her in a wreckage of chaos. Not by choice, but still. Five years is a long time to survive alone.
“She ever ask around about me?” I ask, voice quieter.
Garkin hesitates. “I think she assumed you were gone for good. Buried. Or… worse.”
She thought I was dead.
I nod once. Let that settle. Then exhale through my nose.
“I’m not walking into her door like a thunderstrike,” I say.
Garkin raises an eyebrow. “You’re not?”
“No. She’s got a life now. A routine. You said the kid’s in school?”
“Kindergarten. Local academy.”
I run my tongue over the edge of a fang.
“She ever mention anything to anyone about trouble finding decent teachers?”
He squints at me. “How would I know?”
“She tell anyone the class needs structure? Stability?”
“Oh, that. Yeah. She gripes about it at the corner cafe. Some day-shift worker overheard. Said she was on her fourth sub this month. Last one quit mid-day.”
I smile. A slow, wicked, completely logical smile.
Garkin sees it.
“Oh no.”
“Yes.”
“No. Boss. No. You’re not—”
“I am.”
“You’re going to fake credentials and insert yourself as a substitute kindergarten teacher?”
“I’m not faking,” I say, holding up a finger. “I’m reframing. My experience managing volatile assets, maintaining morale, resolving conflicts, teaching order—”
“That was in a criminal empire.”
“Skills are transferable.”
“You don’t even like kids!”
“I like my kid.”
Garkin drops his sandwich. Again.
“You don’t even know if he’s your kid!”
“I’ll find out.”
“You’ll find out by impersonating a teacher and indoctrinating a classroom?”
“I’ll bond,” I say, matter-of-fact. “Integrate. Observe. Impress.”
“Boss,” Garkin says, dropping his head into his hands. “This is the worst plan you’ve ever had. And you once tried to bribe a customs officer with sentient jellyfish.”
“They were ethically sourced.”
He groans.
I stand.
“Get me some credentials. Real enough to pass a background scan.”
He sputters. “Do you want a forged diploma, too?”
“I want one that says I graduated with honors. In Early Developmental Psychology. Emphasis on Inter-Species Education.”
“You want a death certificate too? Because she’s going to kill you.”
“I hope she’s angry. Angry means she still cares.”
“Or it means she’ll fry your ass with a stun baton.”
I clap him on the shoulder. “Get it done, Gark.”
He glares at me. “And the mob?”
“What about them?”
“They think you’re coming back.”
“Let them.”
I walk toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Garkin calls.
“Shopping.”
“For what?”
I pause.
“Cardigans.”
The front doors to Haven-7 Community Academy hiss open with all the ceremony of a slap to the face. The smell of crayons, overripe fruit snacks, and institutional cleaner hits me in a wave. I suppress a twitch. My suit's too sharp for this place. My smile? Sharper.
Receptionist clocks me instantly. I watch her eyes move from my horns to the cut of my blazer to the credentials folder in my hand. She opens her mouth, then closes it, nodding toward the admin corridor without a word.
Good. Let the myth precede me.
I stride in.
Principal Jennings has the look of someone who’s one flat tire away from a full-scale meltdown. Her glasses are crooked, and one of her shoes is off. She’s pacing in mismatched socks when I knock on the doorframe.
She turns with the wary enthusiasm of someone expecting another fire to put out.
“Mr. Kuraken?” she asks.
I nod, stepping forward and offering the folder with both hands. “Principal Jennings. I believe you received my application this morning?”
She opens the folder with a kind of reverence, like it might explode. Her eyes skim the top sheet. “Cephalon-4 public cohort. Graduated with honors in Inter-Species Developmental Psych. Thesis on empathy across xenolinguistic barriers.” She squints at me over the paper. “Bit of a mouthful.”
I offer a well-calibrated chuckle. “The title was longer than the thesis.”
Jennings makes a sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh. She’s tired, and it shows in every movement. I push a little harder.
“I’ve worked with early-stage learners on space stations, fringe colonies, even orbital habitats with zero-grav toddlers.”
“Zero-grav toddlers?” she echoes.
“Stickiest creatures in the galaxy,” I say solemnly.
She closes the folder. “Mr. Kuraken, I’m going to be honest. I’d have hired you even if you only had half these qualifications. We’re desperate. Room 5B is like a war zone. Five subs have fled. One started a crystal healing retreat.”
“I’m not afraid of chaos.”
“You should be. These kids—especially one of them—make little warlords look tame.”
My jaw doesn’t move, but something under my skin shifts. Just a twitch.
She hands me a badge and a thin tablet. “You’re in. If you survive the day, we’ll talk long-term. Just… don’t make any of them cry, okay?”
“I’ll do my best.”
She leans back, sighs like she’s just handed her problems to a passing god. “Welcome to Haven-7.”
Room 5B smells like glue sticks and desperation.
The door slides open on a high-pitched scream, some poor soul losing a battle over crayons. A chair topples. Something sticky lands on my boot.
Twelve small creatures whirl toward me like feral birds. Some human, some mixed-gen. All of them loud.
Perfect.
I let the silence stretch. It takes five seconds. Maybe six.
Then I reach into my coat, pull out a small set of red-and-black dice, and roll them on the teacher’s desk. The click-clack of ceramic dice on plastiglass slices through the noise like a sonic blade.
Twelve pairs of eyes snap to the sound.
“Math game,” I say. Calm. Casual.
They don’t know what that means yet. But the tone? That they understand.
The loudest boy in the back—human, maybe five, mop of dark curls and green eyes sharp enough to cut alloy—leans forward.
“You got games?” he asks.
“Depends,” I say. “You know numbers?”
“I know all the numbers.”
“Prove it.”
He hops off his little hover-chair and marches to the front.
“What’s your name?” I ask, rolling the dice again.
“Ben.”
The sound of it lands harder than it should. Ben. Green eyes. Sharp. Bold. The resemblance slams into me like a gut punch. Could be coincidence.
Or not.
I keep my face impassive.
“Well, Ben,” I say, “this game’s called Two-Twenty-One. You get close to twenty-one, you win. Go over? You lose.”
“Like blackjack,” he says smugly.
I arch a brow. “You been gambling already?”
He shrugs. “My mom says I’m good at probability.”
“Your mom’s not wrong.”
He grins and rolls. “Nine and a three!”
“Hit or stay?”
He thinks. “Hit.”
He rolls again. “Seven. Nineteen.”
“Gutsy.”
The rest of the class starts to drift forward, circling like mini-sharks. They want in. They smell something new. Structured chaos. Just enough danger to be fun.
I keep them circling with bait—dice games, quick math, color-coded scoreboards. Nothing illegal. Nothing obvious. Just the sense of control, of focus.
Ben’s the sharpest. Picks up on patterns fast. His posture’s confident. His instincts, uncanny.
But I keep it all locked down inside. No hints. No tells.
Because I don’t know.
Because I can’t know.
And if I show my hand too soon, I’ll lose the only shot I’ve got.
So I smile, keep the dice rolling, and let the class fall into rhythm.
“Alright, tiny warlords,” I say after round three. “You win, you get stickers. You lose? You sharpen pencils.”
They cheer like I’ve offered gold bars.
Ben flashes me a look. Mischief. Something deeper. He’s testing me. Just like his mother used to.
My gut tightens.
But I don’t let it show.
Not yet.