He doesn’t need to.
Changing my name is easier than it should be.
There are systems on the edge of the border clusters where identity is a luxury, not a requirement. I pay in creds, encrypted with an old-fashioned chip from a Blackhall ghost bank Valtron once mocked for being “too paranoid to ever fail.”
Paranoia, it turns out, is exactly what I need.
Rhea dies quietly.
A woman named Sera Tallen takes her place.
She’s nobody. Just a quiet ex-tech who used to run ship repairs for a backwater station near the Sable Rift. Lost her husband in a freighter collapse. Doesn’t like crowds. Pays her rent on time.
The story is dull.
Unimpressive.
Perfect.
The house I find is small.
A low structure tucked into the hills of a planet no one ever remembers the name of. Green air. Orange sky. Wind that smells like salt and old trees. The roof leaks a little when the rain comes sideways, and there’s a drip in the kitchen sink that clicks like a metronome during the night.
But the walls are thick. The neighbors mind their business. And the view of the stars is wide and clear.
It’s the first time in years I’ve lived somewhere without reinforced windows or emergency go-bags in every room.
Though I keep one hidden in the closet anyway.
Just in case.
The days settle.
Slow.
I plant herbs in the crooked window box. Fix the fencing with rusted tools I barter for in town. Sit on the porch with a cup of thick, bitter tea and watch the storms roll in across the plains.
It’s peaceful.
Almost unbearably so.
At night, I lie in bed with one hand on my stomach and wonder if the baby can feel how hard I’m holding on. If they know how terrified I am. How fiercely I want them. How deeply I miss the man whose blood they carry.
I whisper stories into the dark. About who we were. Who he was. How he smiled when he wasn’t trying to hide it. How he moved like something forged in fire and held together by sheer stubbornness. How he looked at me like I was the first thing in the galaxy that ever made him feel human.
I whisper his name.
Valtron.
And some nights, when the wind is loud enough, I swear I hear it whispered back.
Far away—further than even hope can track—a man moves through a pit made of metal and blood.
There’s no sky here. No sun.
Only firelight and the iron scent of violence.
They call himThe Red Ghost.
