30. Leah
LEAH
The skies above Glimner have changed.
Not the color—still that impossible turquoise, edged with pearly wisps of cloud that drift like dreams—but the rhythm.
Something is off. The air traffic isn’t following its usual lazy circuit.
There are more shadows overhead now, faster ones, sharper ones.
Not the tourist gliders or cargo skimmers that cut across the horizon like friendly fish.
These are military-grade.
They don’t belong.
Clancy doesn’t notice it. Not yet. He’s down near the coral shallows, building one of his impossible little contraptions—something between a periscope and a fish feeder, if I understood his garbled explanation right.
His brow is furrowed in that serious, unbothered way he has when he’s busy.
His shoulders are square. His lips move when he’s concentrating. I don’t interrupt him.
Instead, I step back into the house, and I lock the door.
Not because I think a lock will stop what’s coming, but because I need to hear the click. Need to feel that thin, solid moment of separation between me and the things I can’t control.
I’ve spent years building this life—quiet, tucked away, nearly invisible. But invisible doesn’t mean safe. Not anymore.
Not with that sound.
It started two nights ago. The thrum of a low-flyer cutting just above the ridge. It didn’t follow the regulated flight lanes. It didn’t ping its ID. It didn’t hover long enough to be scanning for minerals. It just... passed.
But I know that sound.
I know the way it curves in the air, heavy and hard and flat like something meant to drop troops instead of tourists.
I’ve heard it in nightmares.
And now I’m hearing it here.
On Glimner.
I move through the house quickly, checking the perimeter alarms. Our system is cobbled together—part salvaged tech, part things Clancy and I rigged with netting, proximity nodules, even a few motion-triggered light traps that trigger defensive sound loops. I upgrade them in silence.
The kitchen window gives me a wide view of the lagoon. I see Clancy jumping from stone to stone, yelping as a spray of water soaks his pant leg.
He’s laughing.
He has no idea.
I press my palm flat to the countertop to stop my fingers from trembling.
My breath rattles in my chest, sudden and sharp, like a sob that changed its mind halfway out.
No one has come to the door. No uniformed agent has asked to scan my ID. But that’s not how it would start—not with me. They wouldn’t ask.
They’d descend.
And they’d take.
I grab the emergency pack from the cabinet under the floor panel. I haven’t touched it in over a year. There’s dust in the corners. Some of the nutrient packs have expired. I change them out, fingers moving fast, mouth tight.
Next is the route.
I’d mapped three out when we first got here.
One overland—through the trader’s pass, into the canyon craters on the north side. Long. Dangerous. But hard to follow.
One water—straight into the reef maze. Risky in storms, but invisible to thermal unless you’re directly above.
The third? I only made that one for Clancy.
He doesn’t know it yet.
I haven’t had the guts to teach it to him.
But maybe I should’ve.
My feet carry me to his room. I haven’t been in here since I tidied yesterday. It’s chaos—books, tool bits, a strange sticky patch on the windowsill. But it’s his chaos.
I kneel by his bed and pull the false panel in the wall. Behind it is a glide sled, size-modified, made for a kid his age. I repurposed it from an old amusement park rescue model. It’s basic—no weapons, no trackers—but it’ll move fast, and it’s got shielding.
Just in case.
My hands hover over it.
I don’t want to think about needing it.
But I’m not stupid.
They’re here for something.
I don’t know what.
But the war never really ended, not for people like me. Not for ghosts in the cracks of the system.
I step outside again, and Clancy looks up with a grin.
“Mom! I got the water trap to work! Look!”
A bright green fish leaps from the shallows, smacks into the clear plastic funnel he rigged from a food tube, and bounces right back into the sea.
He throws his arms up like he won a prize.
I force myself to smile. “That’s amazing, baby.”
He runs toward me, sand spraying behind him, hair wild, teeth flashing.
“I wanna show Aunty Maesa! Can we go into the city tomorrow? Please? We haven’t been in forever!”
I squat, cup his cheeks in my hands.
His skin is warm. Safe. Real.
I look him in the eyes.
“I need you to stay close today, okay? No wandering. No solo explorations.”
He blinks. “Is it because of the weird plane?”
I go still. “You saw it?”
“Yeah. The one with the square tail. Sounded like thunder but... meaner.”
So he has noticed. His brain just didn’t attach the right danger to it.
Yet.
I nod slowly. “It’s probably just a scout. But I want to be safe. Just in case.”
Clancy doesn’t argue. He never does, not when it counts. That’s Kalev’s blood in him. He reads between the lines, even at six.
“Should I pack my grab bag?” he asks quietly.
My throat closes.
I nod.
He runs inside.
I stay standing in the sun, letting the warmth trick my body into thinking everything’s fine.
But I feel it. In the air.
In the shift of the wind.
The past is coming.
I don’t know if it’s the Alliance, or bounty-seekers who remember my face from another war, or something even worse. But I know this: they’re not just flying near Glimner anymore.
They’re watching.
I feel it in my spine like a knife made of memory.
Clancy reappears, his little backpack thudding against his side.
“I brought the flashlight and the walkie. Even the real one, not the toy one.”
I nod and crouch to zip his pack closed. “You did perfect.”
“Are we leaving?”
“Not yet. But if I say go...”
“I run for the tunnel path. The second tree with the blue rope, then the hatch. I wait inside till the comm buzzes three times.”
I press a kiss to his forehead.
“That’s my brave boy.”
He wraps his arms around my neck, hard. Then pulls back.
“Will you come after me?”
“I’ll find you no matter what.”
He stares at me for a second longer, like he wants to believe that means nothing bad can happen.
Then he lets go.
We go inside. I lock the door again.
And I don’t tell him what I really feel.
That this house? This island?
Might not be ours much longer.