Should’ve let the wind chew it, shred it, let the sulfur air bleach it until it turned to dust. That would’ve been the smart thing. The hard thing. The right thing. But no—I took it. Slipped it from where she’d left it tucked in a rock crevice near the edge of the perimeter, like she didn’t care if anyone found it. Maybe she wanted me to. Maybe she knew I was watching. Hell, maybe she was bluffing.
But I took it.
And now it lives in my hand like a wound I keep picking open.
It’s just a scrap of paper. Fragile. Thin. Curled now from the heat and damp. Human ink, scrawled in tight, earnest loops. “You’re not what they say.” That’s all it says. No name. No plea. No signature. But I know who left it. I can smell her even on this—floral soap, metals, sweat, and something indefinable. Something sharp and sweet and real.
Jillian.
That soft name roots itself in me like a hook. I should’ve thrown it from my thoughts. I should’ve erased it from my mouth. But I whisper it now, when I’m alone in the mist risingfrom the thermal springs. I trace the letters into the soil with a claw, then wipe them away like they mean nothing.
But they do.
And that’s the problem.
I watch her more than I should. I know this. I’m not some lovesick pup. I’m Odex. Built for war, bred for fury, trained to cleave bone from body. My people don’t pine. We don’t hope. And yet—I linger in the cliffs above her camp like a damned ghost, watching her move through that mess of prefabs and dust. Watching her fire off arguments at her superiors, waving her compad like a sword. Watching her crouch in the ash, brushing at some half-melted crystal like it’s holy relic.
She treats even the smallest thing like it matters. Like itbelongs.
But she doesn’t.
None of them do.
This planet doesn’t want them. It told me that the moment I clawed my way into its caverns and begged it to kill me slowly. The sulfur winds screamed no. The heat hissed no. It kept me. It cursed me to live, and now it punishes them for my continued existence.
The vents are shifting. I canfeelit—like the world beneath my feet is inhaling too sharply, waiting for the scream. The pressure is wrong. The air’s changed its taste. There’s too much ozone, too much iron. And the stingtails? They’re migrating early. Way early.
That shouldn’t happen. But it is. I saw the trails two nights ago—grooved tracks carved into the high plateau west of the crags. Something’s driving them faster, angrier. Maybe it’s the heat signature, maybe it’s the shifting tectonics, maybe it’s just this place deciding to lash out again. But they’re coming.
And I can’t ignore it.
I consider warning them again.
I really do.
But then I remember the last time—the hiss of laser fire, the sharp sting of a graze wound splitting open my shoulder, the shouts of “Odex!” like it was a curse. The way she ran to the commotion, eyes wide, breath misting in the cold, staring up at me like I was myth come alive. No one else saw. Not really. But she did.
And she didn’t scream.
Still, the memory of the gunshot rings in my skull like a bell. They didn’t even wait. Just fired. And now, every time I so much as shift on the cliffs, I hear it again—thatsnap, thesizzle, the red-hot line of pain.
I should leave. For good. Go deeper into the southern crevasse. Let them die like all the others. But the note…
Damn that note.
I move through the caverns now with restless claws. My cave is too quiet. The spring bubbles steady behind me, but it offers no peace. I pace, I snarl, I glance again at the slip of paper lying atop a rock like a forgotten relic. I should burn it.
But I don’t.
I don’t because something in her voice—that unwavering tone, that recklessbelief—sounded like truth. She doesn’t think I’m a monster.
She might be wrong.
But she might be right.
And if the stingtails breach the eastern valley before dawn, her little camp won’t stand a chance.
I stop pacing. My hand clenches. The steam curls around my horns, clinging like ghosts.
