Chapter 30
JAV
I'm alone in the classroom. The chairs are pushed under the tables. Half the drawings from yesterday’s play are still taped to the walls—stars, cupcakes, pirates, the whole mess.
The room smells of melted glue and yesterday’s spilled juice: faint, sticky, the kind of smell that stirs memories better left locked away.
The fluorescent lights overhead hum softly, slicing into the quiet like a surveillance drone.
My ribs ache when I take a breath. I ignore it.
I lean against the teacher’s desk, the grain of the cheap wood rough beneath my palm. The whole space seems too big, too empty without the kids’ laughter bouncing off the walls, without Ben’s voice hollering, “Mr. K! Look at my starfish!” The echo in this room is wrong. It’s full of expectation.
I pull out my comm-link and dial Garkin. My fingers hesitate before I hit send—because every time we talk, I’m pulled back to where I don’t want to go. The number beeps. Then his voice. Quiet. Alert.
“Kuraken.”
“Cancel.” I say simply.
“Cancel what?” His tone shifts instantly—wire-tight.
“The strike we planned. At dawn.”
Silence. I taste metal in my mouth. The coldness. I breathe through my nose.
“You’re serious?” he finally asks.
“Yes.”
“When you walk away from who you were, you can’t keep the same weapons, same tactics.”
I close my eyes. The whistle of the ventilation system above me sounds like the wind through an empty ship hull.
“I’m not walking away because I’m tired. I’m doing it because I have to—because what I’m building has to stand on something better than fear.”
He doesn’t speak. Then: “You sure you can afford that window?”
“Define ‘afford.’”
“Because enemies don’t wait. They don’t forgive the soft. They remember who felt the pain—and come knocking when you drop your guard.”
I drop the comm-link into my hand. “I know.”
He exhales. “Don’t forget—kids watch everything. They mimic. They trust. Make sure your message aligns with the man you want them to see.”
I nod, though he can’t see me. “Understood.”
We disconnect. I stand there for a moment.
The weight of it all presses in. I push off from the desk, pace the room.
The chalkboard is still dirty from yesterday’s lessons.
I rub my fingers across smears of white chalk dust—feels like the ghosts of the words I used to write.
Algebras, probability matrices, strike-zone calculations.
Now it’s glitter crowns and shadow puppets.
Maybe the change isn’t clean. Maybe it’s messy. But it’s what I choose.
I open my compad and begin to write. Not a text. A letter. For Ben. Just in case.
Dear Ben,
If you’re reading this, I’m not there. I’m sorry. I tried to protect you. I love you.
My rib spasms with pain. I wince, but keep writing.
I tell him about how proud I am of his cupcake costume. How brave he is. How I know his world should have been simpler, safer—and that one day I’ll make it that way. If not me, then someone who promises better. I tell him to remember kindness, to use his claws for good—even if they’re pretend.
The words feel heavy. Hard. Like I’m forging something out of grief before the grief hits. I fold the letter, seal it in a holo-envelope, and slide it into a hidden compartment in my coat. The one place I stash everything I don’t want lost.
I stay until the sun sets, the classroom turning amber as the lights flip to dusk mode. I watch as the last teachers leave, the chairs shuffle, the lockers click shut. The corridor outside goes silent.
Then I leave.
I walk into Kairo’s apartment building. The lobby lights are dim.
The smell of old carpet mixes with the scent of something floral—Kairo’s diffuser, I guess.
I pause at the bottom of the stairs, the metal steps creaking under my boots.
My ribs protest. The night air follows me up, cool and cavernous.
At the landing, I see her.
She’s standing at the door to her flat, body half in, half out, trembling. The hush of the hallway seems to freeze around her. The light from the corridor washes over her face—it’s pale. Eyes wide. Tears not falling yet, but the glisten of them visible.
“Kai,” I say softly.
She doesn’t respond. The door behind her is open. I take a step forward, still cautious.
“If we’re doing this,” she says, voice brittle, barely above a whisper, “We do it all the way.”
Her words hit me like a hailstorm. The confronted truth I’ve been evading. The pull I’ve been fighting.
I step into the apartment. The scent of home hits me—linen, the faint trace of coffee from earlier, something warm and lived-in. But beneath it, I smell fear. I smell hope. I smell choices.
I close the door behind us and turn. She meets my gaze. I can see in her eyes the questions she’s asked me all this time. And the one I haven’t answered: Are you here? Are you in?
“I am,” I say. My voice low, but steady.
She steps closer. Her coat is wrapped tight around her. She shrugs it off, the fabric hanging loose.
“I don’t know how,” she says. “But I’m done pretending you’re somewhere I can’t reach.”
My ribs ache again, the memory of last night’s extraction flooding back. I suppress the phantom pain.
“Then don’t,” I say.
She flicks her gaze toward the living room. The drawings, the crayons, the pile of Ben-stuff. One drawing—hearts around the superhero with claws—hangs on the fridge.
She points at it. “He drew this. No one told him how to rack claws or run syndicates. He drew you like… like he knows you.”
I swallow. “Because he does.”
“Then the secret war beneath your ribs? The hidden stuff? I don’t want to pretend anymore. I need to know.”
I step closer. The hallway light casts long shadows. I can feel her breath, warm against my chest. She smells of lavender and fear and possibility.
“Kairo,” I say, “I chose to protect you both—from my world. But maybe I was wrong.”
Her brows knit.
“What if… I don’t just protect them from it? What if I bring them into something worth staying for?”
She stares at me. My body pulses with the promise I feel—promise and danger, bound together.
She exhales hard. “Then show me.”
And I do.
I move forward, arms open. I pull her into me. She hesitates. But she doesn’t pull away. I feel the tremor in her body. I feel how high her heart’s beating through her coat.
I press my lips to her temple, and I smell the lavender again, the faint trace of blood from my ribs, the city faint beyond the walls.
“We’ll do it all the way,” I murmur. “Together.”
Her arms wrap around me. The world outside—the tunnels, the titles, the deals, the threats—they fade for a moment. Here, we have this. We have now.
And though the night is still dark, I feel light. Because whatever comes, we’ll face it.
Because the man I am now is the one choosing to stay.