Chapter 22 Jav
JAV
I should go home. Shower. Sleep.
But that’d mean closing my eyes. And closing my eyes means seeing Kairo’s face when she realizes I’m still more warlord than wonder-dad.
The school’s quiet, eerie in a way that scratches at old instincts. No screaming, no crayons flying like weapons-grade missiles. Just sterile light and the scent of lemon-sanitizer. My boots echo too loud on the plasto-tile.
Principal Jennings is waiting by the classroom door like a landmine in a cardigan.
She doesn’t say anything at first. Just gives me a once-over that lands somewhere between “Are you bleeding?” and “Did you set anything on fire again?”
“I’m early,” I say, pulling my badge out of my coat pocket like it’s a peace offering.
“You’re late,” she snaps, tossing a compad onto the desk beside her. “Emotionally, chronologically, and in regards to the fact that we had a parent complaint filed against you overnight.”
I blink. “About what?”
She scrolls the screen with one furious finger. “‘Inappropriate risk modeling using interstellar gambling simulations.’”
I bite down a grin. “The sticker dice game?”
“Your ‘Blackjack Junior’ lesson plan,” she huffs. “Apparently, one of the moms thinks you’re grooming the next generation of casino sharks.”
“Statistical probability is a cornerstone of math education.”
“This isn’t a sabacc den, Kuraken.”
“Technically, sabacc uses shifting probability matrices, not fixed odds—”
She levels a finger at me. “Do not make me regret hiring you.”
I nod once, lips pressed tight. My heartbeat hasn’t slowed since last night, and this is just another stone added to the mountain currently balanced on my shoulders.
“Damage control,” I mutter, stepping into the classroom.
The kids trickle in minutes later, yawning and sticky-eyed, clutching half-eaten breakfast bars and plushies that look like they’ve been through war. Ben walks in last, dragging his feet a little.
He looks up when he sees me.
Stops.
Then breaks into a smile so bright it punches the air out of my lungs.
“Mr. K!” he yells, running over like I’m his whole damn galaxy.
I catch him. Just for a second. Just long enough to steady him.
His arms are thin around my waist. His warmth hits my chest like a mercy I don’t deserve.
“Hey, little boss,” I say, voice rough.
“You weren’t here yesterday,” he says, pulling back to look at me with narrowed, suspicious eyes.
“Had to do some… big kid errands.”
“Did they involve dragons?”
I pause. “Something like that.”
He grins and runs to his seat.
I stare after him, my throat thick.
I don’t know if Kairo told him anything. I don’t know if she ever will.
But this—this right here—it’s the reason I’m still pretending I can be both man and monster.
I wipe my hands on my coat and face the class.
Time to dance.
“Alright, warlords,” I say, pulling the windowshade down and turning off the overhead lights. “Today, we’re gonna learn about shadows.”
They groan, assuming I mean metaphorical ones—probably more lectures, more math.
But then I pull a set of fusion tubes from my bag, the kind we used to rig for night raids on asteroid colonies. Garkin thought I was nuts salvaging them.
I twist the dials, and soft beams of violet and blue spill across the walls like melted stars.
The kids gasp.
Ben’s eyes go wide.
I lift both hands, claws poised, and make the shape of a grolgathian bird—a wide-winged predator with a hooked beak and clawed talons. Its silhouette moves across the wall like it’s real.
The kids lose their minds.
“Whoa!”
“Is that a blood hawk?”
“I saw that in a vid once!”
I move through shapes fast—space whales, flame foxes, even a poor attempt at a human face that makes them scream with laughter. I let them come up, one by one, to try.
They’re terrible at first. No coordination. All fingers and frustration.
But then it happens—Ben, standing in the beamlight, hands twisted into an awkward shape—and suddenly, a near-perfect shadow dragon spreads its wings across the back wall.
Silent.
Majestic.
Recognizable.
The class goes still.
“That’s the one I draw,” he whispers. “The one from my dreams.”
My heart thunders.
Kairo told me once that he never asked about his father. Never pushed.
But now, with no prompt, he’s showing the shape of what he’s always known.
And he doesn’t even realize it.
I swallow hard.
“Nice job,” I say, clapping lightly.
The other kids join in. It breaks the moment. But inside, something’s cracked open and pouring out, hot and unstoppable.
After class, the PTA rep—a sharp-eyed woman named Vellia with the posture of a military commander and the personality of a stingray—pulls me aside.
“I heard about the… games,” she says flatly.
“Educational simulations,” I correct.
She eyes me.
Then glances at the shadow-puppet setup still smoldering faintly with fusion heat.
“The kids like you,” she says finally. “They’re calmer. Less biting. That’s not nothing.”
I nod. “Appreciate the vote of reluctant confidence.”
“You’re still on watch,” she adds.
“Wouldn’t expect anything else.”
She walks off without saying goodbye.
Progress.
I’m still cleaning up when the classroom door hisses open again.
“Tell me you didn’t use black-market tubes in a kindergarten lesson.”
Garkin.
Of course.
I turn and see him, standing there with a box under one arm and a look on his face that says I’m about to hate everything he’s about to say.
“Kids loved it,” I reply. “Might patent the method.”
“Yeah, well, better hurry,” he says, setting the box down and pulling out a data crystal. “Because the League just staked claim on Outpost Yara-9.”
I freeze.
“That’s Redscale territory.”
“Was. They're calling it ‘open neutral.’ Which, in syndicate language, means they’re daring us to blink.”
I run a hand over my horns.
It’s a slap in the face. Deliberate. Meant to draw blood.
“Word on the street is they think you’ve gone soft,” Garkin adds. “Teaching. Playing house. They’re moving in like sharks in open water.”
I pace the length of the classroom, back and forth like a caged thing.
I’ve tried to thread the needle—be the man Kairo needs, the father Ben deserves, and still hold my own in a world that tears apart anything that shows a sliver of weakness.
But the seams are splitting.
“Options?” I ask.
Garkin shrugs. “Diplomacy’s off the table. We can send a message. Quietly. Make it clear they don’t get to redraw maps just because you picked up a chalkboard.”
“And if I let it go?”
“Then this classroom? This life? It evaporates.”
I stare at the drawings still pinned to the wall. Ben’s especially—dragons and bright suns and a smiling red-scaled figure who might be me, might be someone else entirely.
“Give me till tomorrow,” I say.
“Jav—”
“I said tomorrow, Gark.”
He studies me. Quiet.
Then nods.
“One day. But don’t wait too long. You know how fast sharks circle.”
He leaves. The door hisses shut behind him.
I sit down hard in the tiny teacher’s chair. My knees ache. My ribs, still bruised from a scrape last week, throb in time with my pulse.
I lean forward, elbows on the table, hands tangled in my hair.
They all think I’m winning.
Jennings sees a miracle worker.
The PTA sees reform.
Ben sees a hero.
But all I see is the cliff.
And the wind at my back, howling louder by the second.