Sneak Peek - The Last Angel: The Hungry Stars, Chapter 11 (Patreon)

About halfway* through the first draft of this chapter. We'll be touching on a few plot threads from earlier in the story to catch up with what's been happening on that front. In this excerpt, we're back on Rally. It's been a little while since Charles has had his encounter with Agent Barnswell and he's just trying to get back to normal life - as normal as he can, at least. Until he receives another unexpected visitor.

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The young woman sat down. She was still on edge. “I just... wanted to thank you,” she said. “I know we don’t have the best reputation on Rally. It’s hard to find anyone who’ll take us seriously. Even our own...” she didn’t say the words foster parents, but she didn’t have to. Millirysa was a year younger than Allyria. Her fosters had been Joshua and Ivena Chen and the relation ship between them and their Envoy Child had been... acrimonious, to say the least. That was a polite way of putting it. Charles didn’t know the Chens like he did the Parkers, but he’d heard of certain incidents through the grapevine. Joshua needing a hand transplant was the big one, but there’d also been the time Ivena had worn a head wrap for several months after Millirysa had nearly taken half her scalp off.

As unfortunate as it was, those weren’t even the worst possible outcomes. Even a preteen Verrish was the size and strength of a human. Allyria had once picked up Steve Parker’s favourite chair and thrown it through their bay window like it was nothing. He was acutely aware of just how dangerous the species was... but he’d also come to see them in a different light.

“A lot of people don’t,” he finished the sentence for her.

Millirysa nodded. “What you and your wife do... it means a lot. To all of us, I mean.”

Charles nodded. “I’m glad to hear that, but Anna’s the one who does all the work. I just put in an appearance once in a while.”

“You’ve helped her get funding. The ECO used to be just a place they pushed us whenever our fosters got fed up with us, but it’s better now. We’ve noticed.” Charles offered his guest a glass of water. She accepted it and took a sip, looking at him over the rim. Her eyes were greener than Allyria’s. “Have you been following the investigation any further?”

Charles paused. There was something in Millirysa’s voice... “No,” he admitted at last. “No, I haven’t. After that incident with the protest, I decided to leave things alone.”

Millirysa chirred thoughtfully. “I’ve heard,” she said slowly, “something about the investigation.” She left that hanging, looking to Proctor to see if he would take the bait.

He mulled his response for a moment, remembering the discussion that he’d had with Barnswell. He said he’d leave it alone. He should. But he couldn’t. This was about his daughter. He looked up at the pictures set on the mantle and took a slow breath. “What,” he asked, feeling as if he was stepping through a door and closing it behind him, “have you heard?”

The Verrish girl was silent for several seconds, watching Charles carefully. “This investigation hasn’t come from nowhere,” she said at last. “It’s not a matter of double-checking old records and trying to tie up loose ends, or something from the initial incident that was missed. I’ve heard that the push for this new study has come from off-world.”

Charles blinked in surprise. That didn’t make any sense. Why would anyone off of Rally care enough about the Bequeathedto push for a new investigation and delve into the victims’ backgrounds? The loss of the cruiser was a tragedy, but he was self-aware enough to realize that the Compact was so massive that tragedies of that scale had to happen almost every day. Before he could let himself get side-tracked by that information, he looked over at Millirysa. She was still staring at him. If she’d had a tail, it would have been twitching like a cat’s, and he felt rather like a mouse.

“How did you learn this?” he asked.

Millirysa shrugged again. “Word gets around,” she told him.