“No more holding back,” I tell him. “They touched my family. That ends tonight.”
He studies me for a beat, then nods once. No words.
He knows.
I step into the ship. The hatch seals behind me with a hiss.
And just like that, I’m someone else again.
CHAPTER 33
KAIRO
Iwake up cold.
The couch is still warm under me, but the weight that held me through the night—his weight—is gone. I reach across the cushions on instinct, fingers trailing over empty space and rumpled fabric. The scent of him lingers: salt and rain and something sharper, metallic at the edges.
But he’s not here.
I sit up fast.
The apartment is still dark, save for the gray morning light sneaking past the curtains. The quiet is wrong. Not just morning quiet.Missingquiet. No dishes clinking. No kettle on the stove. No off-key humming from the hallway. My gut twists.
“Ben?” I call.
His bedroom door creaks open, and his little head peeks out, hair sticking up in every direction.
“Where’s Mr. Kuraken?” he asks sleepily, rubbing one eye. “He said we were gonna finish my spaceship drawing today.”
I freeze. Smile, soft and fake. “He—uh—went out early. Grown-up stuff.”
“Oh.” Ben shrugs like that’s normal, like people don’t vanish before dawn and leave nothing but the echo of a promise behind. He disappears back into his room without asking more.
I wish I could.
I grabmy compad and start scrolling. Fast.
School staff logs—no Jav check-in. I blink past archived attendance, emergency contacts, flagged alerts. Nothing. I flip over to the Haven-7 public feeds. Traffic cams. Pedestrian routes. One grainy shot catches a silhouette I’d know in any light. He’s crossing the street in the early morning mist, coat pulled tight, head down.
Timestamp: two hours ago.
Direction: outbound.
I keep looking until the feed sputters into static. My hands are shaking.
“What did you do, Jav?” I whisper.
It feels like the floor is tilting beneath me.
I don’t know what makes me do it—maybe desperation, maybe old instincts—but I press Maliek’s name and hit call.
It rings. Once. Twice.
Then, “Kairo.”
His voice is already smug.
“I need to ask you something,” I say.
