“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 saidtomorrow, 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.
