Lie after lie after lie.
Night falls again by the time I return to our new hideout—smaller, darker, quieter. Pepper fusses, her Reaper glow fading beneath the inducer’s soft shimmer. I adjust the settings carefully, terrified of hurting her, terrified of not doing enough.
“You’re safe,” I whisper. “As long as no one ever knows.”
She quiets. Her breath evens. She nuzzles into the curve of my neck, all warmth and soft noises and tiny fingers gripping my collarbone.
The loneliness hits me then.
Hard.
No one is coming to help. No one knows she exists. No one will protect us but me.
The price of her safety is isolation. Total, suffocating isolation.
I pay it willingly.
I hold her tighter.
Because she’s all I have left.
Pepper’s sittingin the middle of the floor with a book she can’t possibly be reading—but she is. Her tiny finger traces the words, lips moving, tongue catching slightly on multisyllabic ones. “—and the gal-lax-y was saved by—by the smallest one of all,” she mumbles, then beams up at me like she just recited prophecy.
I blink from the kitchen counter where I’m reprogramming a payroll spreadsheet I don’t actually get paid for. “You’re not supposed to read yet.”
She shrugs. “I can.”
There’s no smugness in it. No showing off. Just fact. That’s the thing about Pepper—she doesn’t know she’s different. Not yet. But the galaxy will. They always do.
Three months old and she holds her head up like a toddler. Talks like one, too. Walked last week. Climbed onto the table this morning while I was in the fresher and tried to hotwire the vacuum droid because, and I quote,“It disrespected me.”
I laugh at that now, quietly, and rake my fingers through my hair. My reflection in the old reflective panel above the stovelooks like shit. Bags under my eyes. Skin pale. I lost weight I didn’t have to lose. My body’s never really recovered from the birth. It never had the chance.
Because Reaper biology doesn’t slow down. Doesn’t rest. Doesn’t stop.
And neither can I.
I step into the living space and crouch beside Pepper. “You hungry, bug?”
She nods emphatically. “Bacon and jam.”
I make a face. “Still with the jam?”
“Bacon is salty. Jam makes balance.” She says it like she’s lecturing a student. I let it go.
The kitchen’s stocked on fumes and goodwill. I’ve made peace with scavenged groceries, knockoff supplements, and weird undercity mushrooms that somehow pass regulation. But the bigger problem isn’t food. It’s the power cell blinking on her image inducer. The warning flashes at me every time I adjust the settings: LOW CHARGE. STABILITY AT RISK.
We’ve got a few days, max.
After that?
People will start asking why my beautiful, talkative baby’s eyes flicker red when she cries. Why her skin runs hot and her strength borders on weapon-grade. Why she gets angry and the air changes, and light bulbs burst from proximity.
I move fast through our makeshift breakfast. She eats like she’s been starved a week—shoving bacon and toast and fruit cubes into her mouth with both hands, humming while she chews.
Every time I look at her, I ache with love and panic in equal measure.
I’d do anything for her. Burn the world. Sell it, if I have to.
